- cross-posted to:
- luddite@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- luddite@lemmy.ml
Crossposted because I think it’s an interesting take, but I don’t fully agree with the part about protests having no quantifiable goal.
Not all protests for Gaza were meant to gain engagement, many were organized to cause direct economic disruption to those that profit from the war, that is a goal.
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Oh hey I wrote that lol.
Not all protests for Gaza were meant to gain engagement, many were organized to cause direct economic disruption to those that profit from the war, that is a goal.
I actually totally agree with you. I should’ve been more careful in the text to distinguish between those two very different kinds of actions. I actually really, really like things that disrupt those that profit, but those are not nearly as common as going to the local park or whatever. I might throw in a footnote to clarify.
I discussed the original text that this is a reaction to with a Brazilian who claims to be well connected to the original core cell that started the protests and they said that Bevin’s reading is a complete misinterpretation of what happened. I think some other Brazilian here on Lemmy also commented something similar.
Personally I know a bit more about the protests in Egypt, and for these I would also but to a lesser extend say that Bevin’s description of them is very flawed. At the very least some of the people involved are on record stating that the “Twitter revolution” moniker is a complete western media fabrication and social media played only a very small role in organising the protests.
That’s kind of a weird critique, because it’s actually consistent with the book. He spends a lot of time talking about how wildly different every person’s interpretation of the event is, and that’s kind of the problem. It’s part of why these movements are illegible to power. He’s very clear that this is his interpretation, based on his own contacts, experience, and extensive research, but that it’s not going to be the same as everyone else’s.
Same is true with the moniker. Whether or not the people on the ground felt that way about it or not, that story, fabricated without input from those on the ground, is what ended up creating meaning out of the movement, at least insomuch as power is concerned. That’s like the core thesis of the book: The problem with that wave of protests was not being able to assert their own meaning over their actions. The meaning was created for them by people like western media, and they weren’t able to organize their own narrative, choose their own representatives, etc.
edit to add: IIRC, he even specifically discusses how the different people in the core group of Brazilian organizers disagree on what happened.
