Editors' note: Zeeshan Aleem is a Fall 2008 Prospect editorial intern.
The mass media, these days, doesn't seem particularly fond of public protests. While the election has demonstrated its penchant for making the most mundane moments iconic, elevating arugula and lapel pins to the status of major talking points, there has been little coverage of public protests, here and abroad.
While a significant portion of the American population knows the price of John Edwards’ haircut, the number of houses John McCain owns, and the amount of people who cheered for Obama in Berlin, how many people know that, at the RNC this year, roughly 800 people were arrested despite the fact that the demonstrations were largely peaceful? How many people know that 40 journalists were arrested and some were assaulted, had their gear dismantled, and their press passes taken away? How many know that when Iraq Veterans Against the War and a couple hundred supporters were peacefully protesting the occupation of Iraq outside the final debate at Hofstra University, a group of cops on horses accosted them, or that one of the veterans was trampled on so badly his cheekbone was fractured.
How many people know that an estimated 50,000 people marched nonviolently in Baghdad against the Status of Forces Agreement this weekend, and may have played a major role in pressuring the Iraqi cabinet to drop support for US occupation under the terms of the agreement?
Organizing in public space in these times is easily dismissed, perhaps seen as shrill and composed of ideologues who reside on the peripheries of mainstream opinion. But public protest is a literal and powerful example of ordinary people expressing their views -- much more so than stunts like the McCain campaign's embrace of Joe the you-know-what. Furthermore, the protests I’ve just described are not pushing radical ideas. The war is massively unpopular in the US and Iraq, and systematically ignored by popular media outlets.
The brutality that protesters have faced in the US recently is shocking, but the fact that it has been ignored is dangerous for democracy.
--Zeeshan Aleem
