An estimated one million people took to Chile streets protesting about who knows what, much like France’s yellow vests and Hong Kong’s student uprisings, ongoing displays of dissatisfaction. Around the world, instigators and leaders of social change are invisible, freely muddying the waters with their anonymity and hidden agendas.
“As a Chilean TV reporter attempted to interview protesters heading towards a demonstration in Santiago on Wednesday, one young girl elbowed him and shouted directly into the camera: “Turn off your televisions, the media lie! Get your information from social media!”
Financial Times
Yes, our media propped up by the national purse will tell us what they are told to, but at least the half-awake are aware of their bias and know that social media is not always transparent either.
“What started as a complaint about a rise in metro fares has ballooned into a multifarious protest over a host of grievances.
“One protester might be banging their pots because of pensions, another because of student debt, and yet another because they just can’t take it any more,” says Robert Funk, a political scientist at the University of Chile.
“We each have real complaints. If you target the message correctly, you can gather all those complaints into one cause or movement.”
Given that the demands of the protesters are diffuse and often symbolic makes it hard for the government of President Sebastián Piñera — which has offered some concessions — to provide solutions. Worse still, it is not even clear who they need to negotiate with.”
And therein lies the problem, opportunists perverting genuine grievances for political gain and democracy is powerless to stop them. Addressing collective issues is a real problem.
“A single spark can start a prairie fire,” observed Mao Zedong in 1930, as he tried to convince his followers that revolution was possible in China. Almost a century later, Mao’s observation comes to mind as little sparks set off mass demonstrations across the world.
In Lebanon, the trigger for protests was a tax on WhatsApp messages. In Chile it was a rise in metro fares.
In France, the gilets jaunes protests that began last year were set off by a rise in petrol taxes.
Elsewhere, the roots of popular revolt are more clearly political. In Hong Kong, it was an attempt to allow extradition of criminal suspects to China.
In Algeria, where mass protests have been going on for most of the year, it was an announcement that Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the ailing president, intended to run for a fifth term.
Be formless, shapeless, like water” has been a rallying cry of almost five months of protests that have rocked Hong Kong.
The slogan, originally coined by the city’s most famous son and kung-fu movie star Bruce Lee, embodies the nimble and creative strategies of protesters who have no leader and mostly mobilise through social media.”
How does a government fight insidious revolt? Where it is available, for example in Chile, the government uses military rule.
“The soldier was about 40m away. He looked at me and fired,” said Christopher Madrid, pointing to the patch above his right eye. “I swung away and the bullet grazed [my forehead] and came out, left a scar of four or five centimetres.”
Madrid, a 25-year-old student, was shot last Monday by Chilean army troops as he marched in a street protest near the Catholic University in central Santiago.”
The Guardian
Here, the government simply wants to control social media and shut down free speech. Our tiny population makes us, on the one hand, more aware of interlopers, but, on the other, much more vulnerable to concerted attack by either an errant government or foreign influences.
Question the benefits of multiculturalism or man-made climate change and you will become a pariah. Government employees can kiss goodbye to upward mobility by refusing to embrace Te Reo. Conform to social engineering or risk alienation is our new norm.
The Weekend Australian reported on feminists claiming colonisation is to blame for Australia’s high rate of indigenous domestic violence, which is the same argument used here regarding the high rate of Maori domestic violence. Our inability to address domestic violence is compounded by feminists on both sides of the Tasman who argue the solution is found in addressing gender equality.
Rita Panapa on The Outsiders, Sky News, said about domestic violence “…it’s an important issue and people are using it to push their political barrows.” The loud feminist voice influences politicians to introduce ineffectual legislation such as the “Respectful Relationships” programme taught in Australian schools. But a recent study out of Australia confirms what we already know, that domestic violence is rooted in alcohol abuse and poverty.
“A major study of domestic violence shows it is significantly linked to alcohol and poverty, contradicting government policy focusing on gender equality as the key to eradicating the problem, leading researchers say.
The Australian Institute of Criminology study collected data from 39 previous research reports on domestic violence and found a third of offenders had been drinking or were drunk, and alcohol significantly increased the severity of violence.
The study also concluded violence was concentrated among a relatively small group of repeat offenders, and in more disadvantaged areas.”
The Australian
Greenpeace had no trouble with sleepy NZ minds all too happy to save the endangered Maui dolphin and embrace a clean green NZ by planting forests and ending oil and mineral extraction – up until the farming backbone of the country complained about the economic downside and the high cost of fuel put pressure on everybody’s pay packet.
It seems people will tolerate social engineering only insofar as their quality of life remains intact. When personal financial security is under threat by ill-conceived policy driven by ridiculous agendas, people start paying attention. Dreamers and idealists are outnumbered by realists, which is exactly as it should be.