Protest

Introduction

Protest vs Freedom of speech

Tension in the role of government and protests about government

Licensing of protests

No protest represents the entire political will of a populous

The more uniform the society is, the less tolerance we have for questioning of the norm

There are always fun questions about protests that the majority are in favour of and protests that we aren’t in favour of – like in the case of the Freedom movement or, more interestingly as we are going to talking about, Fireproof Australia/Blockade Australia.

Protest and Public Speaking

Public Speaking is a form of protest in and of itself which is interesting.

For class:

A study of protests (zoot suit riots would be at the extreme end of public protest for example)

For competition:

A speech about the individual calculus and response to protest would be interesting

Too often speeches will be about the protest, looking at the action from the outside in and include some of its results, the role of the individual in taking action would be relatively new

A speech about comparative mechanisms of protest, for example the use of votes on corporate boards could provide a different perspective

Protest and Debating

Debating as a way of interrogating an issue—in this case, the social value of protests. Students learn to create two cases through the tension over what is public good—the right to pressure for change, or the right to be undisrupted.

Useful in class because it provides the opportunity for team collaborative brainstorming which tends to enable more in-depth, nuanced analysis than individual thinking.

A variety of topics with different approaches are possible:

That we should ban protests that disrupt public amenities and services.

That we should allow workers to give up their right to strike in exchange for higher wages.

At its best, debating mines down to underlying factors at the heart of an issue, rather than pettier practical skirmishing. With topics around protests, questions can be interrogated about the role of protest in prodding society where it has its collective head in the sand, and, on the other hand, the damage done by extremist action to the credibility of social movements with the general public.

Protest and Critical Thinking

Countercultural movements are interesting - the freedom movement for example - we’ve enjoyed looking at perspectives of that

It’s important to, similar to the mention of the individual that I made in the public speaking section, remember that there are very human factors that can be analysed - hope, discontent, youth

The coverage of media during protests (particularly anti-government sentiment) is interesting. The most recent protests (blockade Australia) show how the media gets used as a pawn - discussing the ramifications of this use could be interesting for discussion.

Protests and violence, protests as a form of expression, protests FOR expression or even protests for rights - are there ‘moral’ or righteous protests.

Takeaways

Don’t forget to compare the ‘type’ of protest as opposed to just looking at the reason for protest - there is a lot of interesting content to do with the types of protests that were undertaken by the suffrage movement, for example.

In the same kind of vein, don’t discount small and effective movements - individual newscasters, for example.