Some readers may be tiring a bit from the focus on “Occupy” movement, but I find the phenomenon interesting for a few reasons, including the fact that it has some parallels to the Arab Spring revolutions (although the outcome is not likely to be similar at all), and it offers us some potential lessons.
The new style of social protest is fueled largely by online material and social media. The protests against Arab regimes were organized with blogs, twitter and text messages. Social media allowed protests to be coordinated almost spontaneously, as local events became international within minutes rather than days or weeks. This started with the WTO protests over ten years ago, but as handheld devices have become ubiquitous, it is no longer a few people keeping close track of their PCs who can participate in coordinating protests online, but also ordinary people on the street with cell phones/smartphones.
The mainstream media has lost control of the street where the under-30s are concerned. Local and international news outlets are doing all they can to keep up with what’s going on, and have lost the ability to shape opinions and reactions to news. In some of the Arab regimes, the response was to try to shut down the internet, which turned out to be an exercise in futility.
So how can this help men? I think it’s pretty clear. We should have our own demonstration alerts, and get involved in the protests with our own messages. The feminists have been doing what they can to insert themselves into these protests, and they’ve had some success, despite the fact that outrage at banks has nothing to do with feminist concerns, and feminists themselves have been relying on government bailouts for half a century.
A lot of men may be reluctant to take time off to get involved in these protests, but it takes precious few to get one’s message across. A dozen men in one demonstration would be entirely adequate to get some attention, and if the message is well-conceived and suited to the general protest it may well be adopted by other attendees. I, for one, think a message such as “Men (or Fathers) Against Debt Slavery” would be perfectly appropriate. There’s plenty of material to work with.
So, I’ve been thinking about starting some protest network for those who would be interested in showing up at demonstrations to get our issues addressed. Perhaps a number of twitter feeds in various locales that all follow each other would work, but despite my predilection for blogging, I am a bit of a luddite where handheld media is concerned, so I’d appreciate any suggestions from readers as to what the most effective platform would be.
