It’s a spring weekend in the District. The peak of the cherry blossoms has passed; the days are getting warmer and longer; the tourists are making their presence known. And now that mid-April has arrived again, it’s the perfect time to protest.
But this season’s protests have shown a marked difference from past ones. The Washington Times ran an article whose headline read “Protests are pleasantly peaceful,” and whose text claimed “Walt Disney might have written the script.” Activities over the weekend went off “peacefully and uneventfully,” according to The Washington Post. We are talking about major demonstrations in the same city where two years ago the entire downtown area was practically shut down and police clashed with demonstrators on street corners and arrested thousands, right? The idea that 75,000 people marching on the city and trying to raise awareness about an issue could be described as “pleasant” and “uneventful” is, at first glance,?as believable as the plot of Snow White. But there is merit in examining what was so different this time and what those differences mean for the future.
The role of the police is the easiest difference to pinpoint. Metropolitan Police Chief Charles Ramsey took a much more proactive role, coordinating with protest organizers in an effort to avoid any incidents between his force and the crowds expected for the weekend. No doubt influenced by the bad press which MPD received following the International Monetary Fund/World Bank protests in April 2000, Ramsey was keenly aware this time around that his officers were on stage as much as the protesters. Consequently, nearly every major protest activity, authorized or not, was accompanied by a heavy police presence, either on foot, bicycle, horseback, motorcycle or in a car or helicopter. However, this year the amount of riot gear was toned down, and officers on duty were instructed to follow a sticks-and-stones mentality, that is, not to let themselves be provoked by words and chants. Because MPD at least attempted to come across as less confrontational, the protests no doubt went more smoothly for the city. The number of arrests was low compared to April 2000, and commuters and residents were only mildly inconvenienced by the events, leading Ramsey to tell the Post, “This is really what protests ought to be!” Whether or not the protesters agree with that statement remains to be seen.
The nature of the D.C. protests seems also to have changed. Gone are the days of single-issue advocacy campaigns aimed at civil rights, the Vietnam War and, more recently, globalization. Although this weekend’s protests were nominally centered around the World Bank and IMF meetings, they offered a smorgasbord of activist issues to rally behind, including debt cancellation for developing countries, an end to the war in Afghanistan and ceasing U.S. military aid and funding in Columbia, with the largest turnout related to the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
The new amalgamation of so many complex and weighty issues into one brief punch may ultimately serve to weaken the message of the protesters. There exists a risk that the general public will perceive every demonstration as protesting just for the sake of protesting; a sort of one-stop protest where activists make noise just because others are making noise.
Although protesters are no less passionate about their issues, they must be careful about spreading their passions too thin. They have the power and ability to raise awareness and make change, but their efforts must be focused to be effective. Enough people aren’t paying attention already; the last thing they need is to lose more listeners.
