I am pretty disappointed with the recent article “The trouble with activism.” [Published June 1 online].
Why has the local newspaper taken it upon themselves to publish articles that try to either minimize civic engagement, or minimize issues that people are facing? This article suggests that you should only care about going to work and being the centre of your own universe. This fails to recognize that there are issues that actually do impact many people.
Sure, this man may not be impacted by some of the issues he mentioned, such as abortion laws or Palestinian liberation, but there are people in the world who are impacted by these issues. And some of the best and most successful ways to address such issues is through civic engagements, mass movements, and creating political pressure.
The writer did suggest that he cannot care about these issues because he is too busy working so that he can pay for all his expenses, but guess what: there are also people advocating for affordable housing, against inflation, and for adequate funding for things that would ultimately make his life easier as well.
This article also disregards the fact that not everyone has the privilege to just go to work and pay for their expenses. And for some people, a proven way to change the things that are seriously impacting their lives is protest. A good example that comes to mind is immigration issues.
Disruptive protests and blockades have literally stopped deportations all over the world. In early May of this year, blockades in the U.K. stopped buses full of refugees from being deported and sent to Rwanda as part of the U.K.’s infamous Rwanda plan (note it is a project to send asylum seekers to Rwanda regardless of whether or not they are actually from Rwanda). We have also seen similar anti-deportation protests at YVR, and such protests were similar in minimizing the impacts of Trump’s “Muslim Ban” which led to Biden eventually rescinding the partial ban altogether.
Protests and demonstrations have also been key to many other community fights. In Canada, protests have resulted in communities being able to stop unwanted mining and clear-cutting operations, rejecting landfills from polluting municipal water sources, and even for establishing legislation that we take for granted such as access to parental leave and a woman’s right to vote. Women were not given the right to vote. They fought for the right to vote!
Were these protests disruptive? Sure. Were some people inconvenienced? Of course.
But the next time we are stuck in a traffic jam because of a protest, maybe we should be grateful that the most obnoxious thing we have to deal with is just a traffic jam.
Maryam Adrangi
Squamish
