Abstract

BEKKER, Martin. The soul of protest: Reconsidering the causes, significance and subcomponents of public protest. Tydskr. geesteswet. [online]. 2021, vol.61, n.3, pp.737-752. ISSN 2224-7912.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2224-7912/2021/v61n3a6.

The protest event. In a world steeped in ambient violence, public protest is a vital signal of shared discontent. The essential compulsion at the heart of protest, however, is conventionally not recognised for what it is i continue: solidarity with those suffering injustices. A sharp rise in public protests has been perceived since the early 2000s. Thousands of column inches dedicated to reporting on protests are rivalled in volume only by the reams of academic theories produced around causes. Despite this overabundance of discourses, it often remains unclear what protest, at heart, constitutes. That is, what are we talking about when we talk about protest, and why does this question matter? While stewards of the state often portray protests (and protesters) as "the problem", we have long understood protests as weapons of the weak, at once signalling desperation and civil discontent. In this paper I reflect on the nature of protest as a direct political action that is situated on a continuum that ranges from opposition politics to civil war. By visualising this continuum, I recapitulate how political actions can be represented within three schemas of recognition (by official political parties and agents); reintegration (into official politics); or revolution (i.e., the obliteration of certain political institutions with the aim of establishing an alternative utopia). While there is overlap between the three, we see that actions that are not revolutionary are not necessarily opposed to maintaining the present social order, while those not interested in recognition may be considered as political projects. Based upon these principles, I develop the argument that protest is, in a certain sense, a "continuation of politics by other means", evoking Von Clausewitz in this regard. : protest is, however, not merely politics by other means, but nobler. While protest, a form of direct political action, is an indication of events, policies, or conditions that are experienced as repression, neglect, or injustice, it is simultaneously both a contextually rational response, and a reactive counterweight, a necessary checking of social communication channels, or part of an emancipatory project, enacted to change a prevailing violation and establish what is anticipated to be a more humane or just social order. In this mode, courage and coordination are exerted to better the beneficiaries' quality of life, not to lower the quality of life of another. Thus understood, protest is not merely altruism, but an outflow of care and compassion towards another. Put differently, protest is vitally animated by, and thus an act of, love Next, I justify approaching protest as an ethical commitment by considering the constituent parts of protest formation in the abstract. These parts, which also represent a nonlinear sequence of sorts, include grievances, gestures, and tactics, and may give rise to protest "arcs" (or episodes). I develop an argument to show how individual concerns, invoked amid background violence, snowball into shared grievances, which may be catalysed by a trigger event into the idea of a response, which in turn may precipitate a set of tactics. Referring to Jacques Lacan's "three orders" typology, the idea of the response (or gesture) and the planned action, map onto the Imaginary and Symbolic orders, respectively. The resultant event, contingent and unpredictable (especially with regard to the emergent tumult), is best understood in terms of the Real. Once more, but now approached "from the bottom-up" (as opposed to my former top-down classification-driven argument), my treatment of these constituent parts reveals protest to be, first and foremost, a manifestation of a nonhegemonic ethical commitment to justice, requiring courage and coordination, and whose outcome is always contingent; underscoring the essential quality of love.

Keywords : social movements; protest and unrest; non-hegemonical public collective behaviour; social group forming; direct political acts; public violence; psychoanalysis.

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