2021 in review: a look at how social action made the world a better place this year — a focus on protest
As the first month of the new year already comes to an end, a look back to 2021 is due. We’ve given a thought to what we achieved so far and set up new goals, some of which we’ll probably forget about in a couple of weeks (like really, how many times have you been to the gym so far?).
In a time where political, social and environmental crises are knocking at our very doors everyday — now even at the doors of those who live in a very privileged condition — we need to politicise our 2021 review — and the same should we do to our new year’s resolutions. Thus we can ask ourselves: what has the past year brought us in terms of social action?
2021 was the second year of the global pandemic that has changed the course of the century; the most important turn in this sense was that the vaccine was finally completed. Unexpectedly (or was it?), this was met not only by great jubilation, but also by anti-vax and anti-mask protests. NYC, London, France, Italy saw their major squares and streets stormed by anti-Covid-vaccine protesters who clashed with police forces at times. Covid also brought about a huge supply chain shock, symbolised by the very powerful image of the blocking of the Suez canal, one of the most important commercial highways in the world, by the ship “Ever Given”.
2021 was also the year of important political transitions: Germany said farewell to Angela Merkel, who held office for over 14 years. Bennet became Prime Minister of Israel; the Taliban took over in Afghanistan once more, all the ill-orchestrated US retreat left the country in a state of confusion and instability. The White House welcomed a new guest, which wasn’t met with acceptance by everyone. January 6, 2021 marked the Capitol insurrection in the US, a moment of social action which definitely did not make the world a better place last year. More than the root of the problem, however, it was the symptom of declining democracy and rule of law that have started way before this year and that have changed the physiognomy of other countries, too, like Poland, Brazil and Hungary.
“Code red for humanity”: this is what the 2021 IPCC report deemed the climate crisis. Whether this led to more aggressive climate action depends on one’s view of the matter. The EU set a Green Deal but not all countries seem to understand how that works; the COP26 in Glasgow addressed some issues but also left some major loopholes open.
Fortunately, the social fight for climate action is one that saw great improvement in the last year. This is the first example we can give while talking about how social action made the world a better place. Protest was arguably the most potent means of social action this year, the ones that really managed to catalyse improvements in many parts of the world.
After only talking about Covid for months, the world began to care about climate change again. As Biden was taking the place of a climate-crisis denier and countries were convening in Scotland to address the situation, in the streets people were pointing fingers at the hypocrisy and laziness of the powerful state actors who were trying to find an agreement. 250.000 activists took to the streets of Glasgow in November, which included indigenous groups, socialist organisations and intersectional associations. They were fighting against the co-option of the climate fight by big corporations and oil-exporting (or oil-importing) countries. Pictures of climate protests boomeranged from Indonesia to South Korea, from London’s Extinction Rebellion blockade to Fridays For Future marches. One thing that 2021’s climate action taught us is that even if corporate action and government policy must be the main driver of carbon offsetting and environmental preservation, it is up to the people to keep screaming, to keep demanding our and others’ right to life, to safety and to health. Climate action in 2021 was great because it reminded us that this is a struggle for life, and as that it must be carried forward as a planetary, apolitical, moral fight to prevent the extinction of the human family from the planet. So even though Cop26 left some important questions unanswered, like the unclear vision for carbon markets and carbon offsetting, the problem of freeriding and the lack of accountability or the danger of ‘green colonialism’, popular participation in marches and demonstrations showed resilience and determination. The message that came across is that people are not going to leave their lives in the hands of those whose priority is profit. This is a powerful insight that we need to use to inspire climate action in the years to come.
As the pandemic worsened again in the first months of the year, technology and the internet gained momentum even on the front of protests and social action, fueling the phenomenon of so-called clicktivism. This was the case for Thailand’s pro-democracy and anti-monarchy protests, too. As police repression becomes ever more violent, social media have proved an effective tool to express one’s opinion without incurring in the danger of being beaten or arrested. Even though protests can be silenced online just as easily, demonstrators have found ways to get around government bans to promote anti-propaganda messages and even coordinate action. Even if this created a debate around the democratic status of online protests, while we talk about it we do have to recognise the powerful addition to social action that internet-led mobilisation provided. In a world that is ever more connected and that is turning more violent by the day, the internet might actually remain one of the few places where people can be in control.
Another way social action improved the world in 2021 were the protests in support of Alexei Navalny. Kremlin critic and founder of the Anti-Corruption organisation, the leader of the liberal-nationalist party “Russia of the future” was poisoned and later arrested on the 17 January for stealing from the multinational company “Yves Rocher” and allegedly violating parole conditions. Navalny’s arrest called for unauthorised protests in 198 Russian cities on an unprecedented scale, which were brutally suppressed by the police. Beyond the specific facts related to this event, 2021 saw massive scale regime resistance and very fierce opposition, one that recalls the above mentioned Arab Uprisings. People started to speak up despite the danger, and this was not an isolated case: anti-racism protesters from Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate revived the legacy of demonstrations that had followed George Floyd’s death in 2020; the civil disobedience of the Myanmar coup protests in February ground the country to a halt; protests in Tunisia led to the President Saied seizing broad powers, which created a very divided public opinion; a huge show of resistance in Cuba against poverty and lack of medicine and vaccines made the headlines in August; Polish feminists took to the streets when the increasingly conservative government passed an almost total ban on abortion; Indian farmers showed disapproval and won the repealing of the Farm Bills, which created a free market system putting small farmers at the mercy of corporates.
The world we left behind on the past 31st December is one that turned much more polemical. It is as though many would have awakened from an apathetic slumber and started to take matters into their own hands. Sometimes for the right reasons, sometimes not. A piece by the Washington Post reports an analysis about 21st century protests and why the world seems to have turned more confrontational in the last years. The main answer found in the article and in the study is that people seem to have grown tired of the lack of ‘real democracy’. So far, so good. However, demonstrations this year have shown that people have very different definitions of the term “democracy”. Some are more inclusive, others exclusive; some are anti-institutional, others aren’t. Protests can have any kind of political background and any kind of outcome.
Clearly they need to be reclassified as potent means of modern democratic participation, but maybe — if we want to set a new year’s resolution for the next year, and try to stick to it — we must also work at the root of the problem, since demonstrations are also a symptom of something that is really not going well globally.
This is something that 2021 taught us in terms of social action, which also made the world a better place. But one that we can definitely strive to improve even more.
