Kelly At Large #136 The “Now What?” Edition
Street activism isn’t magic. It’s a form of expression, a speech act, one of the most effective tools we have at making silent voices loud, and hidden things as plain. But once they're visible...
Things have calmed down a lot in Paris, though there are still some large marches against racism and police violence, others for justice for Nahel Merzouk. I’m not sure what that would mean. Marches demanding justice for someone dead at the hands of a cop usually want the killer to be charged and brought to trial instead of put on administrative leave with full pay. But here, since the cop in question is already sitting in jail, some of the signs and chants seem a little off, like they were borrowed from previous demos.
I shouldn’t be so snarky. I know that they are more generally against police brutality. And I am just a crank.
I’ve been thinking lately that maybe I should explain why that is when it comes to street activists. And it’s not because I’m ignorant or bigoted or don’t want change, but because I put in a couple years of sign-waving, picket walking, and stink bombing, then a couple more decades on top of that as a journalist watching social change movements worldwide.
Those years left me with a disposition soured by the unanswered question, “And now what?”
That’s the thing. Street activism isn’t magic. It’s a form of expression, a speech act, one of the most effective tools we have at making silent voices loud, and hidden things as plain as the nose on our rapidly aging faces. But once your voice is heard and your complaints are visible, you have to answer the question, “Now what?”
That is when things get hard and most activists and demonstrators abandon the fight. You took to the streets because something was wrong. But are you willing to do the work to develop a comprehensive analysis of the mechanics of the problem? Do you have some realistic idea of how to fix it that is not pie-in-the-sky idiotic like Ban the Police or Abolish Governments or Work? Do you have a concrete, doable ask? Because the next logical steps, in democracies, anyway, involve more than just finger-pointing and righteous emotions, but what activists hate—thought and compromise and persuasion. ie. The sausage-making of policy and law. The art of the possible.
Even that’s only a second step, because after new policies and laws are finally passed, you’re left with third stage, confronting the far more intractable problem of enforcing them, rooting out the ill deeply embedded in culture and tradition.
Take anti-gay discrimination and inequality. One manifestation was lack of protection for gay couples. The obvious solution was marriage equality. But even once that was approved after a massive effort, we discovered (worldwide) we also needed the political will to make it available, force the mayor or clerk of each tiny town to hold the ceremony, sign the papers. Beyond that, we had to confront the tentacles of the anti-gay hate, which prevented many homo couple from opening the door to town hall, walking through it, and demanding their rights instead of hiding in fear and shame.
And even after that, once you’ve identified the problem and solution, passed and enforced the law, you have to be continually vigilant, perpetually mobilized to keep legal gains from being rolled back.
Just thinking about it makes me tired. Imagine! We’ve seen abortion rights for women slip away in the United States. In Afghanistan, in just the last few years, women have lost almost every right they had despite fighting hard. Their subjugation and powerlessness, once justified with religion and culture, is more and more institutionalized in law. So that the future of an Afghan girl in 2023 is far less promising than that of my grandmother who was taught that you didn’t need to educate girl children because they aren’t good for anything except gruelling work and breeding, and sometimes not even that, as inclined as they are to die in bloody beds.
All of that is to say that when people take to the streets now, I’m wary, skeptical even, scanning the crowds, reading signs like entrails. Is anybody looking to the future? Is anybody presenting clear ideas, new ones, or just mouthing platitudes? Do they have one foot on the ground?
Or have they bought the idea that it’s enough to go out into the street with a fist raised like Angela Davis. Make a speech like King. Yeah, then head off to a café for their apéro. “See you next week?” “Sure thing.” Sit back and wait for the inevitable magic to happen, ignore the violence which never reforms, never builds, never plants even the seed of an idea which could grow into something, anything.
Meanwhile I groan and rage. The arc of history is so fucking long and might bend towards justice, but maybe, probably, almost certainly not.
In Other News
Still available, The Trial of the Well of Loneliness
About how Radclyffe Hall's pioneering novel about love between women became the centre of a 1928 obscenity trial.
The story remains an iconic portrayal of lesbian relationships and contains the passionate plea: "Give us also the right to our existence.”
Then there’s this very interesting piece on the French Riots, 'Humble tarte’
A year ago Mike O’Sullivan declared that “‘French democracy is in a much better place than its two Atlantic neighbours.’” Hahahaha.
This observation is particularly on the mark:
One clue as to why the French appear to protest so much is that the French state is so overwhelmingly present in their lives – it does nearly everything for them. The state provides education, healthcare and pensions and cheap transport, and in most cases does a good job of. It also regulates the lives of its citizens with a fair bit of ‘fait pas ci, fait pas ça’. This relationship leaves little room for flexibility and in general is not one that is built on trust. It is a distant but dependent relationship that provokes friction.
In this context, it is worth noting that France is running out of fiscal space. With government debt rising and state spending (%GDP) close to 60% there is little room to quell discontent with spending. France’s fiscal constraints may soon start to tell, and one way out of this might be political innovation, but perhaps not before more riots. Another alternative would be to emphatically embrace a pro-growth, reindustrialisation economic philosophy, but I don’t see this happening given it is alien to the average French policymaker’s mindset.
That’s it for this time.
If you think of it, why not heart or share or say hello or subscribe or something?
Disgruntedly yours,
xoxo K