London’s Metropolitan Police arrested another 492 people over the weekend after a protest Saturday in Trafalgar Square, as the Starmer government accelerated its crackdown on opposition to the Gaza genocide.
The entirely peaceful protest was held to oppose the proscription of Palestine Action. It was organised by Defend Our Juries and attended by over 1,000 people. Of the arrests, 488 were for holding up signs declaring, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”.
At what point are people going to riot?
Not rioting is better. Peaceful protest, and thousands getting locked up, is what creates the conditions that might enable real social change.
If that doesn’t work, then you have a proper riot (i.e. of the kind that isn’t bread and butter to the powers that be).
I disagree. We’re past the point where peaceful protests will create change. It’s abundantly obviously that those in charge do not care. And they also got it in their heads that AI makes us less necessary.
If leaders and executives won’t listen to reason, then it’s time to instil fear into them. Remind them there are so many more of us than them, and that their positions are a service to us, not a privilege or an entitlement.
rioting is not the answer. if you are going to take action, be careful and deliberate.
You can target something specific with a riot.
If you could choose between justice and peace, which would you choose?
Peace — not to be confused with passivity.
In a culture of peace, true justice could emerge; it would manifest as support of those who experience violence and rehabilitation of those that feel they need to turn to violence to get their way.
Justice and peace are usually not framed as concepts that exist in a vacuum which one chooses between, but rather as interdependent concepts - one begets the other. Many thinkers argue the exact opposite of what I do: true justice and order creates peace.
I believe that when we choose violence and retribution over nonviolence and rehabilitation/restoration, our manifestation of justice reflects that.
Martin Luther King considered you his greatest barrier to racial and social justice.
MLK didn’t reject peace – he rejected complacency and false order. My belief in restorative justice and nonviolence is directly aligned with his legacy, not in opposition to it.
A culture of peace is proactive, inclusive, and cooperative. I am not the white moderate he spoke of.
Neither at the cost of the other?
It’s a silly question.
There can be no peace without justice.