Is peaceful protest pointless?

[Tastycles]

As a student, I can't go about 5 minutes without being asked to sign a petition or join a march or something like that. It's very now to protest against everything in this country, but it never works. 1 million people marched through London and 7 million did across the country to make us leave Iraq and absolutely nothing happened.

The level of support against Vietnam in the 70s was also huge, and yet nothing happened there either. So it got me thinking, has peaceful protest acheived anything? The only examples I could think of in recent British and American history were the suffragettes, Gandhi and the civil rights movement. The suffragettes' most famous exploits though involved quite physical stunts and they only got the vote because they had worked during the war. Gandhi freed India, largely because India was costing Britain in the wake of the Second World War, and again Independance was a thank you for the Indian effort there.

We're then left with the Civil Rights movement, which I don't know enough about to comment further, but certainly did have some aggression to it. It's probably justmy apathy shining through, but it seems to me that if you want to get something done, you have to go for the jugular. Am I wrong? Can peaceful protest acheive something? I kind of hope I am, really.

 

[BladeRunner]

Although I don't think we should ever be denied the right to protest, I do think that most of the time it is pointless.

Many times, protests do the opposite affect of what the protestors want. When people see you marching down the street in a semi-riotous status, they're going to be less likely to identify with you.

Not to mention protests by their very nature attract extremists. And the extremists are going to go all out, making the more moderate supporters of the issue in question look bad.

I have to say though, it can be a good way to be made heard if you feel like your particular point of view isn't being represented. But the costs of doing it can be an issue.

 

[The Gribbler]

I once argued with my sister about something like this. I must disagree with the OP though, I feel that peaceful protest can draw attention to a certain issue and in some cases can bring that issue to the medias attention.

The government then begins to get hot under the collar when the whole nation begins to question their actions.

So while it doesn't accomplish anything in and of itself, I feel that it can certainly help get the ball rolling in regards to future action.

 

[Serious Mozzarella]

Peaceful protest is absolutely not pointless. Protests have many different functions, but the main function of a protest isn't generally to hurt a company. Picketing outside a building isn't going to hurt business. Protests work in order to raise awareness about an issue.

Let's take the Iraq war, for example. If there were no protests, I don't think the majority of people in America would be as educated as they are in what was really going on both within the government and in Iraq. Support for the war drastically dropped after the protests when the people had more of an idea of what was going on, and it helped shape the attitude of this country toward the Bush administration.