[asdfologist]

Honest question: how effective are these sorts of protests in achieving their intended goals?

Maybe I'm suffering from confirmation bias, but it seems all the major demonstrations in the last few decades (Tiananmen Square, Iraq War, Occupy Wall Street, post-Iranian election, etc) have sizzled out and failed. The one exception I can think of is the anti-Proposition 8 protests, but Prop 8 was defeated in the courts through routine legal channels (ultimately culminating in the Supreme Court decision on Hollingsworth v. Perry) and it's unclear whether the protests held any sway over the rulings.

[samdk]

You're missing some big ones, I think. In the last few years protest movements have effected regime changes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Ukraine. Those transitions have been at all smooth, but it's hard to claim the protests in each of those cases weren't hugely influential.

The protests in Ferguson, MO are still playing out so it's hard to say what exactly the effects will be, but I suspect not nothing.

In Hong Kong protests in 2003 helped stop the passage of a security law restricting activity that the mainland Chinese government doesn't like (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong_1_July_marches). More recently protests helped prevent a "moral education" bill from being passed here also.

In general I think it's a bit shortsighted to look at protest movements and think they're ineffective because many of them do not produce change. Protests are (generally) a way for people without a lot of political power to have their voices heard. They're going to fail a lot of the time, because protest movements start when people don't have other kinds of leverage or power.

Also, I think it's important to remember that at least part of the goal of a protest movement is getting attention. The Occupy Wall Street protests didn't directly change much, but they did create a national (and international) conversation about equality that didn't really exist before. It's a lot harder to evaluate that kind of indirect result, but I think it would be a mistake to discount it. (The OWS protests also spurred the creation of Occupy Central, one of the organizations that's leading these protests in Hong Kong.)

[saeranv]

The Ferguson protests are a good example. It's already resulted in some sweeping changes to their municipal court system[1], which has been described as, "One Big Shakedown Racket Targeted at Black People"[2]. These are changes the activists and lawyers had long sought, but was refused by the City Council until these protests made that untenable.

It is continuing to force the local police to a higher standards of accountability and transparency then they would have done without[3]. Additionally, this along with the recent national attention to other unarmed black men being shot by cops, has played a huge role in getting police officers equipped with dashboard and body-mounted cameras[4].

eta: grammar

[1] http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/policymakers-eye-big-cha...

[2] http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2014/09/04/st_louis_f...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shooting_of_Michael_Brown#Poli...

[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/28/us/todays-police-put-on-a-...

[saeranv]

Oh, also apparently the iconic 'hands-up, don't shoot' gesture from the Ferguson protests has migrated to Hong Kong: http://www.vox.com/2014/9/28/6860493/hong-kong-protests-mike....

That's pretty cool.

[khuey]

It's a pretty universal gesture when someone has a gun pointed at you.

[briantakita]

At the climate change protest in NYC (over 300k in attendance), there seemed to be consensus & understanding of the necessary systemic change.

A complaint about Occupy Wall Street is there was not much unity. There seems to be unity & respect among the groups now.

[collyw]

I heard that criticism about Occupy Wall Street.

Pretty pathetic, that because there are so may things that Occupy were complaining about, then they should just be ignored. (The real message was that people want a fairer more just system. I managed to get that, why did none of the critics work that out).

[cgio]

There is the Arab Spring which started as demonstrations and ended up as full fledged revolutions which overpowered long standing regimes. Different dynamics, admittedly, but who can claim they can predict the dynamics of a society in turmoil.

The most worrying phenomenon, which I think you allure to, is protests with no clear intended goals which act as a massively confused way to defuse anger. It's like if we need volume for our fundamentally egocentric revolutions and this is why ideology is less of a bonding element in a range of protests lately. Or like crowdsourcing loud proclamations of the least common denominator.

[JDShu]

In my opinion, that's a very good question and one that demonstrators rarely think about. Frankly, and until somebody convinces me otherwise, I think that Occupy Central was and is a strategic failure if the end goal is gain a better form of democracy in Hong Kong. China has shown time and again that it will not back down when things get physical, and in for example, the case of Tiananmen square, the government got more paranoid.

So rationally, I don't think it's a good move by the pan-democrats, as it essentially shuts down any possibilities of negotiation - the pan-democrats have very little leverage now that they've already "done their worst".

On the other hand, protests are not about strategy and rationality. People strongly believe in their ideals and they want to do something rather than sit around waiting for negotiations that may or may not happen. I can understand that which is why I'm not as quick to criticize the protesters as many in HK would.

[edwincheese]

The movement does not happen in vacuum. The Occupy Central movement was initiated by Tai Yiu-ting in January 2013, and Hong Kong democracy movements dates back to 1990s. From the very beginning, Tai Yiu-ting and the two other leading organizers of Occupy Central have stressed that they want to negotiate with Beijing. They even took a very mild stand in the political reform discussion that many other opinion leaders in Hong Kong condemned as "too mild".

Yesterday's events is triggered by Beijing's "ruling" for Hong Kong's 2017 elections. While citizens would be allowed to vote for the chief executive, the candidates for the election would have to be approved by a largely Beijing controlled nominating committee. Beijing's plan is obviously non-democratic, and it is no different than a categorical rejection of all demands made by previous Hong Kong democracy movements.

It is fair to say that the large-scale non-violent civil disobedience movements in last few days and very likely in coming weeks are the result of failing to negotiate, which I think the government with the power should take the responsibility. Since the economic and diplomatic situation of China today is very different than that of 1989, it is not likely that the government could repeat what it has done before. Reopening the negotiation is not something unimaginable IMO.

[wyuenho]

What other alternatives do you have to suggest to fight for a true democracy?

[JDShu]

Two thing come to mind as a starting point: Negotiation and focusing on building Hong Kong's economy.

Negotiation: The truth is, HK politics is very much like American politics. It consists of people blocking any progress on anything because the two sides are so deeply divided. Instead, I suggest making an honest effort to negotiate and take things step by step. For example, the central issue to the protests - the universal suffrage framework described in the Basic Law is strictly better than the current system. Accepting it while signaling that something even better is desired and will continue to be brought up would have been more productive. (Note that the whitepaper came out after the threat to occupy central).

Economy - One of the subtexts of the whole issue is Hong Kong's decreasing relevance in relation to China and indeed on the world stage. The stronger HK is, the more leverage HK has. Instead, real wages are barely increasing, rent continues to skyrocket, and there is basically no economy besides finance - and in that HK's competitive advantage shrinks every year. Instead of saying things like "we are willing to sacrifice the economy if it gives us true democracy", I think it should be accepted that destroying the economy is not likely going to get democrats what they want, and that a better economy would a) free up more people to be able to worry about politics rather than just putting food on the table, and b) make China think harder about killing the golden goose.

Occupy Wallstreet was a game of brinksmanship, but unfortunately that only works when both sides have something to lose. China has nothing to lose today.

[wyuenho]

Negotiation: We have been doing that for at least 30 years.

Economy: I in general agree but let's not forget most of China depends on the banks in Hong Kong for lending. There's a lot of capital at stake here.

[crazychrome]

right. how about previous 150 years? woo, I forget, the Queen sent a Governor who suddenly realise HK needed democracy!

[spacehunt]

It's more like the previous 150 years were ruled by benevolent dictators like Linus so relatively few people complained, but now it's turning into something like XFree86 so people instead wanted to become like Debian.

[lotsofmangos]

The people in Hong Kong demanded the democratic reforms, however they never got universal suffrage while an outpost of the UK, which is something the UK should quite frankly be utterly ashamed of.

[Mikeb85]

Who has a 'true' democracy? In the US all candidates are vetted by business leaders and party backers, and 2 parties are hardly any more democratic than 1 big one...

[cluthe]

A democratic system that is being abused is better than no system of democracy at all. There are many efforts in the USA to get money out of politics and try to get true democracy again. Those efforts are happening within a democratic system, that you seem to be taking for granted, of which Hong Kong and China do not have.

[Mikeb85]

First of all, you must not have read anything about the HK situation, because they ARE being given the right to vote, candidates just have to be approved by Beijing (which is the problem).

Second, do you really think there's no democratic mechanisms at all in China? The communist party still needs to chose leaders from within itself...

And I'd argue that it's better to know one is under a dictatorship than to think one is free whilst being oppressed...

Finally, things in China aren't that bad, especially considering the past. Things are changing there, always for the better, I wouldn't be surprised if they're democratic by 2020. But it has to be at their pace, on their terms. Look how they embraced capitalism...

[cluthe]

I'm from Hong Kong, I'm sitting in Central Hong Kong right now. Read again what I said. If you think being able to vote between 2 or 3 CCP approved candidates is a real democratic system then I don't know what to say to you.

[rjaco31]

Nice try, commie

[barry-cotter]

Give up or emigrate. The CCP aren't stupid and they'd prefer a Hong Kong with an imploded economy and massive emigration because they sent in the PLA to one in which they backed down over protests and showed everyone they can be beaten.

[spacehunt]

I'll just note here that the current protests were not started by the pan-dems at all, rather it was led by high school and university students.

[wyuenho]

Nobody can predict the future. What I can tell is, this is unprecedented in terms of persistence, organization and scale. All of the resistance just self-organized into multiple areas now. We are very very very upset with the government in Hong Kong right now. More and more people are joining the strike today. There's reason to expect the situation will escalate peacefully, and hope will shine thru. Honestly, justice is on our side, this is the most civilized resistance I've personally participated. We even pick up our own trash after sit-ins!

[gurkendoktor]

Okay, so this is not their intended goal, but this protest has probably been pretty effective in waking up Taiwan. It would be even more effective if the Taiwanese media wouldn't self-censor itself so brutally to avoid "trouble". (Look at the goddamn China Times, where the protests are the second-to-last dot in the slideshow!! http://www.chinatimes.com/)

[skrebbel]

I don't know anything about Taiwan. Could you explain why these papers self-censor so heavily?

[gurkendoktor]

In addition to what the sibling commenter said:

* Top industry leaders like the Foxconn boss are deep blue, the blue side has VERY deep pockets * The Taiwanese media is heading towards a pro-China monopoly, see these protests in 2012: http://www.thechinastory.org/2012/12/the-anti-media-monopoly... * Write something critical about China and you might realise that gangsters are also pro-unification: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/hongkong/1066... (during recent student protests in Taiwan, a high-profile pro-China gangster also tried to intimidate participants) * and last but not least, I got the impression that the Taiwanese public is completely tired of the whole pro/contra China conflict and would much rather look at cat pictures or try to fix their income gap.

I was shocked when I was changing planes in the PRC with Taiwanese friends and they did not know that the internet there is censored. Can you imagine that, in a country that is semi-doomed to be annexed by neighbouring China?

[jpatokal]

It's complicated, and I'm not Taiwanese, but briefly -- Taiwanese politics is split into two camps, "pan-blue" (pro-Chinese) and "pan-green" (pro-independence). Taiwan's economy relies very heavily on good relations with China, so the pan-blues do the best they can to butter up China, while the pan-greens try to swim in the opposite direction as fast as they can without incurring an outright invasion. 3 of Taiwan's 4 biggest newspapers are controlled by the pan-blues, so they self-censor (to varying degrees) things that reflect negatively on China, like teargassing peaceful protesters in HK.

[lotsofmangos]

There have been loads of popular demonstrations that have toppled governments recently, from Egypt to Ukraine. Tunisia is one of the few where you could say they have achieved their intended goals though, toppling the government is the easy part.