With Trump’s return to the White House, the world has entered a period in which the power of state repression, based on the violating of norms, will more easily neutralise civil resistance, both domestic and foreign
Apart from your students, I see no other light in the world right now – a close friend told me with regard to the mass protests in Serbia. She has lived at a safe distance from the predominantly bleak post-Yugoslav landscape for over 30 years, but not far enough away to be out of touch with events in our former shared homeland.
As always, we understood each other perfectly. In the terrifying reality of a world that’s becoming not only increasingly dangerous, but (without exaggeration) unhinged, protests like those in Serbia – or in Georgia, where democratic forces must confront a criminal, corrupt and increasingly violent ruling clique that’s leading the country towards an abyss – appear as isolated manifestations of collective commitment to a just cause. And all this in two small countries that lie on the margins of major international currents.
The problem is that, no matter how long they last, how geographically widespread they are, or how many people they gather, these protests still lack the potential for radical change – though it isn’t impossible that they may acquire that potential. The broader circumstances in which they unfold do not favour them.
The fate of mass protests like Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, or the Yellow Vests shows that, despite their size and duration, they lacked revolutionary potential – though that doesn’t mean today’s protests will not acquire that potential
With Donald Trump’s return to the White House, the world is entering a period in which state repression – founded on violations of legal and moral norms, whether directed inward or outward – will have an even greater chance of neutralising civil resistance in one way or another, no matter how justified that resistance may be. Along with this, the very driving force behind that resistance – no matter how noble – will also be undermined.
After all, what lasting impact did movements like Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, or the Yellow Vests in France have? Only in the case of #MeToo could one argue that it had certain positive effects, though even those were insufficient and limited in multiple ways. In most other cases, the conditions that gave rise to these movements have only worsened. Nowhere is this more evident than in the unchecked and skyrocketing power of American Big Tech oligarchs.
In general, things are clearly moving in the wrong direction. Current protests in various countries are too specific to local circumstances, unconnected to those elsewhere, meaning they cannot count on solidarity, never mind support. Even worse, ever more protests – like those that erupted in the UK last summer and escalated immediately into destructive riots – are driven by lies and disinformation, prejudice and hatred of others, inevitably leading to violence and deeper divisions.
The threat of violence, therefore, comes from both above and below, and that should concern us all.
Photo by Vesna Lalić
