Governments tend to define democracy as narrowly as possible. The story they tell is this: you vote; the majority party takes office; you let him manage on your behalf for the next four or five years. If you don’t like one of his policies, your representative will put aside his own ambitions, party loyalties and pressure from powerful interests to ensure that your voice is heard.
We can trust the government to spend our money wisely; protection of minorities against more powerful or larger groups; to oppose undemocratic forces such as oligarchs, their controlled media and corporate lobby groups. We can trust him to ensure that everyone’s needs are met; workers are not exploited; our neighborhoods and quality of life have not been sacrificed for corporate profits. We can trust him not to abuse the political process; not to wage wars of aggression against other nations; not to break the law. There can’t be many people who have lived in the UK – or many other nations – for the last few years and still believe this fairy tale.
We have seen what happens if we leave politics to governments. Fairly elected or not, they will abuse their power without effective public pressure. They will change the political rules to favor their party, subordinate the public interest to that of corporations and billionaires, bully the vulnerable, sacrifice our common future for expediency, and impose ever more oppressive laws to bind us .
Trust in governments destroys democracy, which survives only through constant challenges. This requires an endless disruption of the comfortable relationship between our representatives and powerful forces: the billionaire press, plutocrats, political donors, cronies in high places. What primarily means challenge and disruption is protest.
Women march in Washington in January 2017, the day after Donald Trump’s inauguration. Photo: Bryan Woolston/Reuters
Protest is not, as governments like ours try to make it out to be, a political luxury. This is the basis of democracy. Without it, few of the democratic rights we enjoy would exist: universal suffrage; civil rights; equality before the law; legal same-sex relationships; progressive taxation; fair working conditions; public services and social safety net. Even the weekend resulted in protest action: strikes by garment workers in the US. A government that does not tolerate protests is a government that does not tolerate democracy.
Such governments are becoming the global norm. In the UK, two policing bills in quick succession seek to shut down all effective forms of protest. They allow the police to stop almost any demonstration on the grounds that it causes “serious disturbances,” a concept so loose that it can include any kind of noise. They would prohibit chaining to railings or other fixtures and “interfering” with “key national infrastructure,” which could mean pretty much anything. They expand police stop-and-frisk powers, an effective deterrent to civil action by black and brown people who are disproportionately targeted by them. They can even ban specific people from participating in any protest on what appear to be completely arbitrary grounds. These are the powers of dictators.
In the US, state legislatures are undermining the federal right to protest, giving police the power to use blanket offenses like “trespassing” or “breaching the peace” to break up demonstrations and make arrests. Proposed laws in states like Oklahoma and New Hampshire seek to grant immunity to drivers who run over protesters or vigilantes who shoot them. In Russia, a new law against “discrediting the armed forces” has been used to prosecute dissidents involved in acts as mild as writing “no to war” in the snow. Similar draconian laws are imposed by the governments of many other nations.
Why do governments want to ban protests? Because it is effective. Why do they want us to accept their narrow vision of democracy? Because it makes our power ineffective.
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The protests that governments want to ban are expanding the reach of democracy. They allow us to challenge abuses and oppose oppressive policies. They are the engine of political change and the early warning system that draws attention to key issues that governments tend to ignore. The extraordinary people in these images understand this, from suffragettes picketing the White House in 1917 to Patsy Stevenson being manhandled by the police at Sarah Everard’s vigil last year; from relatives of those killed in Amritsar in India in 1919 to those taking to the streets after the killing of George Floyd in the US.
Almost everything important is rapidly falling apart: ecosystems, the health system, standards of public life, equality, human rights, working conditions. This happens as elections come and go, representatives speak solemnly in Parliament or Congress, heartfelt letters are written and polite petitions are presented. None of this is enough to save us from planetary and democratic collapse. Business as usual is a threat to life on Earth. Breaking it is the greatest civic duty of all.
They will continue to demonize us as a threat to the democracy we seek to protect. They will continue to arrest us and increase the penalties for being good citizens. And we will continue to defy, as people have done for centuries, even when faced with state violence and repression. Everything we value depends on it.
Pussy Riot’s game Red Square, 2012
Photo: Anna Artemeva/AFP/Getty Images
“Pussy Riot was created in October 2011 because we didn’t want Putin to stay in power forever and we thought that if we didn’t get rid of him, he would bring a lot of pain to our country,” says Nadia Tolokonnikova, a founding member of the Russian a protest band and a punk band.
On January 20, 2012, eight members of Pussy Riot climbed onto the platform in front of the Saint Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow’s Red Square and staged a guerrilla performance of their song Putin Zassal (Putin has peed himself). Working anonymously at the time, the women wore brightly colored ski masks while singing and setting off smoke bombs.
“We rehearsed religiously throughout January,” recalls Tolokonnikova. “I come to the square many times beforehand; trying to calculate when there will be fewer police cars; getting climbing gear for our shoes because the catwalk was covered in ice; discussing in detail what to do if we were detained.
Immediately after the performance, the women were detained. “We spent eight hours at the police station and they let us go. Exhausted. But happy.”
This day is remembered as Pussy Riot’s big break. After their next performance – held at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral – three members, including Tolokonnikova, were prosecuted for hooliganism and the veil of anonymity was lifted. Yet through numerous arrests and prison sentences – and as Putin has tightened his grip on power – the group remains determined to give voice to the resistance. As a result of the invasion of Ukraine, the stakes have only risen. “Protest activity is becoming increasingly dangerous in Russia,” says Tolokonnikova. “You face 15 years in prison for calling a war a war and not a ‘special military operation.’ Yet people protest every day. Not because they want to be heroes: because they cannot lie to themselves. GS
Police dogs attack civil rights demonstrators in Birmingham, Alabama, 1963
Photo: Black Star/eyevine
In early 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. described Birmingham as “probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States.” He and other civil rights leaders organized a campaign of nonviolent protests, placing students at the center of the movement. Eugene “Bull” Connor, the city’s commissioner of public safety and a staunch proponent of segregation, ordered the use of fire hoses and police dogs to quell the demonstrations. Charles Moore’s images of a dog attacking a young man on 3 May 1963 drew national attention to the movement in Birmingham – and led to Connor’s removal from office. GS
The Lady in Red in Gezi Park, 2013
Photo: Osman Orsal/Reuters
About three million people participated in the wave of anti-government protests that swept Turkey in the summer of 2013. It began with a small, peaceful protest on May 28 against the planned demolition and redevelopment of Istanbul’s Taksim Gezi Park; the police then tried to disperse the protesters using tear gas and water cannons. This image of activist and academic Seyda Sungur being subjected to tear gas quickly became an emblem of the movement. Images of the “lady in red,” as she was called, appeared on posters and online graphics, sparking protests across the country. GS
Barbara Kruger’s Vision Goes Global, 2020
Photo: Andrzej Golz, courtesy of Sprüth Magers
The work Untitled (Your Body is a Battleground) was originally created by Barbara Kruger as a poster urging people to attend the March for Women’s Lives on Washington in April 1989. The demonstration was organized to protest the Republican administration’s attempts to repeal Roe v Wade that year. A former editorial designer at Condé Nast, Krueger knew how to create a memorable image: “I was able to use the fluency I developed with pictures and words and transform them into my own engagements as an artist.”
Today, Krueger’s rallying cry for bodily autonomy continues to emerge around the world. This photo shows a Polish version of the poster, first produced in 1991, plastered on a street in Szczecin in 2020. Poland’s abortion laws are among the most restrictive in Europe. “Language has power. And the speed and accessibility of that power depend on its readability,” Krueger says of his decision to translate the text to…
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