Mobilizing for democracy? Five myths about protest movements

     

Lebanese security forces fired tear gas, rubber bullets and water cannons Sunday to disperse hundreds of protesters for a second straight day, ending what started as a peaceful rally in defiance of the toughest crackdown on anti-government demonstrations in two months, The Associated Press reports (HT:FDD).

Lebanon’s protests, which began on October 17, have focused on the need to change the country’s power-sharing system and reverse the rapid deterioration in the quality of daily life. But something more profound is taking place. We are witnessing a social transformation, a revolution in the norms underpinning Lebanese society, Carnegie analyst Maha Yahya writes for Diwan:

Lawyers, student organizations, labor unions, university professors, some political parties, and civil society organizations have been organizing these discussions daily across the different spaces of protest. They are tackling topics as varied as electoral laws, the role of media, economic options for Lebanon, the public good and shared commons, how to deal with trauma after the civil war, and what a new Lebanon might possibly look like.

The protests signal a grassroots rebirth of the ideal of Lebanon as a modern and inclusive national project, analyst Hussein Ibish tells Janelle Chalouhi’s THE UNHEARD podcast.

Last week, Iraqi protesters from the southern provinces planned to gather in the holy city of Karbala to march to Baghdad’s Tahrir Square. Although they were prevented from entering Karbala by tribal actors affiliated with the state, their decision to gather in Karbala is steeped in Shiite symbolism, notes Marsin Alshamary, @MarsinRA a pre-doctoral research fellow with the Middle East Initiative at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in the Harvard Kennedy School. Beyond the fact that the protesters are predominantly Shiite, there are five ways that Shi’ism affects the ongoing protests, she writes for the Post’s Monkey Cage blog.

What these protests illustrate is that religious and sect-based symbols need not necessarily feed into alienating sectarianism, Alshamary concludes. Rather, they can be deployed peaceably and effectively by everyday Iraqis to protest bad governance.

This year has seen protests across the globe, as citizens bridle under what they consider the tyranny of their governments, note USIP analysts Maria J. Stephan and Adam Gallagher. From Iraq to Zimbabwe, Hong Kong to Chile, demonstrators even in places with ample surveillance and retributive regimes have worked to make their voices heard.

But alongside these movements, misconceptions about how they work persist – and plague our understanding of their goals, their methods and their outcomes, they write for The Washington Post, including:

Myth No. 1: Social media has made popular movements more effective.

A dominant theory during the Arab uprisings in 2011 held that the rise of social media would help popular movements. “Through social networking sites, Arab Spring activists have not only gained the power to overthrow powerful dictatorship, but also helped Arab civilians become aware of the underground communities that exist,” said a 2012 article in Mic. A Wall Street Journal story about demonstrations in Sudan this year against Omar Hassan al-Bashir said, “Activists whose street protests precipitated the military overthrow of Sudan’s longtime leader relied on social media.” A 2018 Pew Research Center poll found 67 percent of Americans believed that social media was an important tool for “creating sustained movements for social change.” 

However…..RTWT

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is not planning to change the way it operates or end its support for Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests, despite Beijing’s sanctions against US non-governmental organizations, NED president Carl Gershman told the Taipei Times.

“We’re not gonna change what we do,” Gershman said when asked if the sanctions would influence the organization’s activities. “We’re not the reason that people in Hong Kong are demanding freedom.”

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