G8 Protestors

200,000 people went to the Live8 concert at Hyde Park. I can guarentee in a few months time almost everyone will have forgotten about it and will be back to going about their every day lives.

Would it not be quite interesting if each DP member here, who finds the fact that 1 child dies every 3 seconds in Africa, got together to develope a project to help fight 3rd World Debt. If you think this is a good idea or bad idea post your comments here.

thanks.

 

Oh man... I would totally be out there. It would be terribly entertaining.

It depends, sometimes a positive effect, sometimes a negative one, sometimes it has very little effect.

But I think almost all peaceful protests in general are a pointless. To me, if you have the base to effect change through peaceful protest, then that change was coming already. Peaceful (and violent I supposed) protests seem to me to be more of a blowoff valve for society, a symptom of the changes coming, not the cause.

 

I would disagree with you there.

I believe that politicians especially have to pay very close attention to what the people want and if enough people want something done about the thousands of people who die every day then politicians will have to take notice and apply policies that will deal with the economic situation in these countries.

The reason they have to take notice is because the majority of us live in a Democratic society where the policies decide the votes. (Well... in theory)

 

Although clearing 3rd World debt wouldn't take care of poverty like turning a light switch on and off. There are a lot of leaders in parts of Africa that continue to prosper while their people die. It needs to be a multi prong approach so to save lives.

 

I totally agree. What we don't want to do is apply a band aid covering up the symptoms of the desease. Long term solutions are needed. Yes, it is important to help those in need, but we need to also ensure that things will go uphill from there. If a society cannot carry itself, someone will do it for them. And that leaves an opportunity for any dictator/tyran to rise up.

Political pressure on those leaders is what it takes, holding them accountable for violations of human rights, stuff like that. It's the 21st century for crying out loud, but people are still being oppressed.

 

In order for it to work it has to go directly to the people. Otherwise it just goes to the already well off and the poor continue to be so.

Not to mention the ongoing violence and oppression.

 

Did you know there is enough food produce to provide the Worlds population 1 1/2 times yet half the World is starving.

I definitely agree with you ST that political pressure is also needed to be applied to the leaders of countries as a lot of the aid over the years has been getting no where near the people who need it.

The 3 biggies are 3rd World debt, Fair Trade and Corrupt leaders. Once these are sorted out the aid that is sent to these countries will be so much more effective.

 

I agree although Corrupt Leaders is the first step. Without taking care of that the other 2 have no effect

 

yfs1

a bunch of punks burning a car might to effect the G8 much, but the fact is the violence has people talking, like this thread

If nothing happenend, everyone just sang songs and maybe had a drum circle or whatever. No one would even know there was protests.

 

So some cop trying his best to just do his job and support his family getting hit in the head with a rock and sent to the hospital justifies the cause?

I just don't buy it as the only method to get attention. Peaceful blockades and the like can have a better effect if its attention you are after.

 

I think to go along with corrupt leaders is companies that use the corrupt leaders for profit. There are a lot of countires in africa that have oil, but for the most part none of the profit from exporting the oil gets tricked down to the people.

For the most part a corrupt dictator will sell a countries natural resources for cheap compared to democratic country . So its in a lot of companies best interest to keep the dictators in.

 

I agree. I don't think using violence as a way to get attention helps anyones cause. You wont get people on your side by physically attacking them. The most effective way to get peoples attention is to hit them with the bare facts and anyone that I've met that has actually gone out into these countries and witnessed what is going on themselves have come back feeling guilty and shocked.

 

Often the violence begins due to overzealous policing.

+ sometimes its IS necessary. The Brixton riots changed far more than the antihunt.

2 Million protesting to stop the war did not achieve its goal. 2 Million rioting sure would have.

I am NOT saying I condone violence at all. India gained independance through peaceful protest only, but often it takes something extreme to get everyones attention.

 

Here is a fact for you,

since starting this thread yesterday approximately 30,000 children have died in Africa of which the majority is from preventable diseases.

 

yeah civil disobience works too but mostly if causes a lot of disruption.

the fact is if there so no violence or no major disruption it gets no media attention, without the media attention nobody hears the "facts"

you can strum a guitar and sing about poverty al day no one will listen.

 

I think you're right, and there is plenty of good. But it would take military force, and a LOT of it to fix some of these places. You don't just walk into somalia and start feeding people.

Heard a story of a marine who was guarding a red cross line, just standing there, a guy pulls out a machete and slashes his arm open. Not an isolated incident, these places are extremely hostile to an American (or any foreign) presence, no matter if you are handing out food and clothes or not.

No mere handing out of food and money will solve these problems. The governments are corrupt, yet we can't overthrow them, and we can't help the populace overthrow them. It's a paradox, and we set ourselves up for a horrendous failure when we try to intervene in these situations without a clear plan of how we are going to accomplish our goals.

 

The politicians have to pay attention to what the majority wants, of what the biggest slice, out of all the various slices, wants.

Unless the stage is set, and the changes are already taking place in the minds of the populace, peaceful protests are too small to have an effect.

When they gain the popularity, and the majority agree, then a protest is meaningless, a majority will get it's way, one way or another. A protest is just a vent for the frustration of the majority.

 

ferret, as you can see by yfs statement :

Usually violence has a negative influence. The nazis were quite adept at using violence to gain power. For instance, the brownshirts, just before hitlers rise to power, marched through an extremely poor german district, which was very communist.

The communists were heavily armed, and the brownshirts knew all they had to do was go there.. things got a little out of hand, the police opened fire and killed quite a few people.

Even though the nazis instigated the problem, the current government looked unable to control the populace and the communists looked even more evil in the eyes of the rest of germany.

There is an example of a violent protest causing the change the group wanted, but perhaps in a roundabout way.

 

I agree with you there but it's going off the main point a little. It will take years to ge through to these type of countries and we just have to hope that when new leaders take over that they would be more open to other countries helping their starving and ill population.

The thing with corrupt leaders is that they can be corrupted. Tell me if this is stupid but can our governments not say to the corrupt leader "we'll give you £500,000 if you let us in to give medication to the ill and food to the starving". I suppose the main reason they wouldn't allow this is that because the people are weak it's easy for the corrupt dictator to stay in power.

 

Thats a very linear point of view, for example no other African leaders spoke out against mugabe - why do you think that is ?