This Land Was Made For You and Me

(Hmmm… found this blog entry at the bottom of my drafts folder. Maybe I should finally post it…)

I attended the first protest of my life when I was ten. You see, I’m from Ottawa, where every child’s education  inevitably includes at least one field trip to the Visitors’ Gallery in the House of Commons (along with an equally inevitable lecture during the bus ride back to school about how students are not MPs and should stop copying what they were saying and doing because such behaviour is not appropriate in the classroom. No, really).

Our class did the usual visit in grade four, which was coincidentally right around the Quebec referendum. On our way back to the bus, we ran into a knot of anti-separatist protesters playing the guitar and singing around the Eternal Flame. Our teachers thought it was cute to watch us sing “This Land Is Your Land,” and they probably wanted to delay the moment when the field trip was over and we had to get back to regular lessons, so they let us happily sing and protest our little hearts out over political issues we barely understood.

Fast forward over fifteen years. If we still had ’em, I’d have been in grade twenty-one. (I was the last year in Ontario to get grade thirteen; you do the math.) I spent my Canada Day afternoon attending my second and probably last protest.

Why last? It’s not that I don’t think there are issues that deserve to be protested; on the contrary, I think Canada has plenty of policies and actions that concerned citizens ought to bring to the attention of both the government leaders who can effect change and to the public who may not be aware of these issues.

I avoid most protests because they don’t seem to me to have much impact on the actual issues they’re meant to bring up. Yes, some public protests have spurred important effects, but I’m not sure I can believe that the protests in and of themselves brought about change.  Did there have to be pre-existing political conditions, concurrent movements in other areas, etc.? So many protests in my neighbourhood have seemed to me to be more about the people marching in them than the people they’re marching for — which is fine. Like I’ve said before, I’d never tell someone else not to pray just because I don’t believe in god. I understand that I have no right to define what’s meaningful to other people, and I acknowledge I may be wrong in my beliefs about protests’ efficacy.

And to be fair, I’m a cynic: I find that most mass gatherings, like holiday celebrations or social ceremonies, skim over the really interesting or most important parts of what they’re meant to call to mind. If I can go to the fireworks display despite feeling uncomfortable with much of what Canada Day represents in our historically colonial country, I should be able to tolerate ideals that don’t mesh quite with mine for the sake of a march for a cause that I really believe in.

So, after reading all the allegations of injust and inhumane police actions during the Toronto G20 two summers back, I decided to go to a Canada Day protest I thought would be something I could get behind. I believe now, as I believed then, 100% in a public inquiry into what happened during the G20; if, as many claimed, the police did nothing wrong, then, as it’s alleged that some officers told passers-by subject to having their belongings searched, there’d be nothing to hide.

I used to be dismissive of people who rolled their eyes at, “oh, protests” like it was something that only long-haired hippies living off their parents’ trust funds did, but now I can see at least where they’re coming from. I had no idea that so many attendees would treat the protest like a giant street party for chanting whatever slogans they wanted. Individuals whose main message was clearly not the message of the group (like the guys from some Communist associations, who were shouting out for Canada to leave Afghanistan one minute and for the US to stop foisting its imperialism on North Korea and Iran the next) were often the best able to make themselves heard.

Now I understand that so many of those eye-rollers distance themselves from protests, despite allegedly believing in their causes, for the same reason that many moderate conservatives and Christians wish the Tea Party and literalist fundamentalists would disappear: fringe elements who make their voices heard at inappropriate times (e.g. when the protest is about something completely different) and/or who are willing to put getting public attention ahead of actually reasoning through their points make the mainstream look disorganized and attention-seeking by association.

But more importantly, mea culpa: I came to this protest politically naive, with only cheesy movies like Spartacus and Newsies to tell me how protests work. I’ve been thoroughly disillusioned on that regard. From the description of the event, I thought we were all coming out to tell those in power what we thought. I see now that, instead, many of us were out to tell them how we felt. And not in the persuasive, inclusive way, where you show the other person what’s going on in your heart and why, so that even if they disagree with you, they can still learn to empathize with your position. We were presenting our feelings in the exclusive, you-are-jerks-and-we-are-angry aggressive way — do what we want or else! — that rarely convinces anyone of anything.

So between their confused messages and hostile tone, I can’t honestly say that I believe in the efficacy of public protests, at least not in the kind that are most common in the democratic country in which I’m privileged to live. I don’t even believe in the more organized ones: I can’t help but think to when I pass by them on my way to school or home or a floor hockey game. Unless I’ve been made aware of the protest by news reports or by email and Facebook forwards calling for support from the U of T network, I have no idea what they’re protesting for or against. Even when they have signs, they usually aren’t very informative. And as for chants? I can hardly ever make out a word.

I’m aware that in some cases this is the only way for people with something to say to get their messages across. And I know that I benefit from a wealth of privilege that allows me to ignore information that makes me uncomfortable and that I take advantage of that fact more often than I’d like. And, no, I’m not sure what I’d suggest instead, considering so many other avenues are cut off and others take so long that everyone has forgotten about the initial incident by the time coverage occurs. I’m not trying to tell others what they should do, and of course if your political or personal experience and knowledge is different from mine, you should do what you think is right and/or effective.

For me, I can no longer convince myself that going to a protest is something I’d do out of altruism for other people or out of personal integrity. The only reason I know I have for going is to soothe my shame at my complicity in whatever the protest is about — and while I could convince myself that I’m doing something important for the first little while, it’s hard to believe that disillusionment wouldn’t set in just as quickly the next time. So I’ll stick with the things I truly believe can cause social change: thinking, writing, and working on how I behave in day-to-day life.