Dani Garavelli: Protesting too much?

ANY vestige of sympathy I had for the travellers of Dale Farm evaporated when I saw the photograph of the crucifix-wielding protester Minty Challis in several newspapers. This reaction was, you may feel, a little unfair; but the woman clutching the religious symbol in front of a dramatic backdrop of burning caravans was not, in fact, a resident of the Essex site, but one of those agit-prop protesters who pitches up wherever there’s likely to be a rammy.

That’s the problem with these tag-along anarchists, familiar from every demonstration from Save the Whale to the G8; with their broad “Down with Everything” agendas, they cloud rather than clarify the issues at stake.

The multiplicity of campaigns they support dilutes the power of their rhetoric, making their commitment to any single cause less convincing. There’s an “If it’s Tuesday, it must be Dale Farm” feel to their activities.

And their flashy stunts – from dressing as witches to encouraging celebrities to come along and lend their support – makes them seem more like circus performers than bona fide rebels.

“If you’re so sure the revolution won’t be televised,” I want to yell at them, “why do you spend so much time coming up with photo opportunities?”

At Dale Farm, a stand-off which was not, in truth, about the rights of a minority culture to live outside mainstream society, but a glorified planning dispute – was hijacked by a bunch of rabble-rousers more interested in moulding the narrative to suit their own agenda than the fate of the soon-to-be evicted residents.

I do not adhere to the Richard Littlejohn view of the travelling community. I don’t believe the residents of Dale Farm were all chancers playing the system. I am willing to accept Basildon council may have been heavy-handed in its attempts to clear them from the part of the site they weren’t supposed to be on.

But when people like Challis compare their plight to that of the Palestinians in Gaza, it throws their problems into perspective. These people were not being prevented from going to work, subjected to a curfew or living under constant threat of shelling; they were merely being asked to obey the same laws as everybody else.

The same goes for those involved in Occupy Wall Street, the mostly peaceful protest against global finance which began near Wall Street in New York and has spread to the London Stock Exchange (or as near to it as they could get) and even to George Square in Glasgow.

It’s hardly controversial these days to declare yourself against bankers; the vast majority of the country feels shafted by City fat cats, resentful about the austerity measures and desirous of a more equal society. But how is wearing Guy Fawkes’ masks and pitching tents next to St Paul’s Cathedral going to solve a crisis so huge it threatens to bankrupt a continent?

Capitalism may be rotten, but there’s no real point in overthrowing a system unless you have something viable to put in its place. More than a month after its demonstration began, Occupy Wall Street still has no manifesto; mostly the protesters say they want to raise awareness that the current economic system has failed. For crying out loud, we all know it’s broken, what we need is someone who can fix it.

One of the reasons I find this kind of nebulous campaign so frustrating is that I’m a big fan of the protest movement. Without it, women wouldn’t have the vote and South Africa would still have apartheid.

But to have any impact, protest needs to be born of unshakable conviction and be driven by a set of realistic goals. Those goals don’t necessarily have to be achieved. One million people took to the streets to march against the war in Iraq. They didn’t stop it happening, but they did make it clear Tony Blair was acting against their wishes. They earned the right to say: “Not in our name.”

Occupy has none of this momentum; the anger it feeds off is justified, but it has no direction and consists mostly of whining. Moreover, as a means of bringing about change, it seems self-indulgent and lazy.

Criticising the status quo is easy; highlighting the establishment’s weaknesses a cinch. Creating something better requires years of hard and unglamorous work. But as the American satirist PJ O’Rourke put it: “Everybody wants to Save the World; no-one wants to help Mom do the dishes.”

For me, protest has its place; it’s important to let governments know you object to what they’re doing when they are out of line. But when the act of demonstrating becomes more important than the cause it purports to be addressing, it’s little more than a leisure pursuit for those with too much time on their hands.

If you really want to make society a better place, then you need to do more than shout your mouth off. In the end, it’s those who engage, not those who drop out, that make the difference.