The world is a theatre of protests (Part-1)

As per the Global Protest Tracker published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on its website https://carnegieendowment.org/publications/interactive/protest-tracker (which was last updated on July 28, 2020), about 100 significant anti-government protests have erupted worldwide since 2017. About 30 governments or leaders have fallen as a result. Eight out of 12 South American countries have experienced significant protests. Some of the most violent government crackdowns against protestors have occurred in Iran and Nicaragua.

The Hong Kong autonomy protests top the list of 'large protests' with an estimated peak size of protestors at 20 lakhs, as per the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hong Kong's protests started in April 2019 against plans to allow extradition to mainland China. And in June 2020, Beijing introduced a special national security law that effectively outlawed public dissent. As per an article published by the US Website, www.thenation.com on August 3, about 9,216 have been arrested during the 12 months of protests, a figure much larger than the total prison population of Hong Kong of 7,023. This discrepancy, combined with a series of mysterious deaths and disappearances that have been explained as suicides or accidents, has made protesters wary of their own safety. Many young protesters have been writing “last letters,” to be read in the event that they don’t return from the protests, explaining to their families why they are protesting, and also to serve as a “no-suicide declaration.”

The Chinese foreign minister has just warned Nobel Prize organisers that awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Hong Kong’s protesters would be unacceptable to Beijing. During Wang Yi’s recent visit to Norway, the first in 15 years by a holder of his office, he was asked how China would react to such an award. Wang, 66, said: “I would only say one thing. In the past, today and in future, China will firmly reject any attempt by anyone to use the Nobel Peace Prize to interfere in China’s internal affairs.”

The protests against police brutality in USA, dubbed as 'Black Lives Matter (BLM)' protests are also listed among large protests with the estimated peak size of protestors at over 1 lakh. Since the 20th century, there have been many public, private, and community efforts to combat police brutality in the US. In May 2020, the issue of police brutality saw a surge in public response following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

On May 25, 2020, George Floyd a 46-year-old black American man, was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota state, during an arrest for allegedly using a counterfeit currency note. Derek Chauvin, a white police officer, knelt on Floyd's neck for several minutes while Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down, begging for his life and repeatedly saying "I can't breathe". Officers J. Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane further restrained Floyd, while officer Tou Thao prevented bystanders from intervening. During the final two minutes, Floyd was motionless and had no pulse while Chauvin ignored onlookers' pleas to remove his knee, which he did not do until medics told him to. The following day, after videos made by witnesses and security cameras became public, protests have erupted in USA against the death of George Floyd. These BLM protests have subsequently spread to many other countries in Europe and Australia.

There was another demoralizing shooting of a Black man by the police in Kenosha, Wisconsin state during last week. A Kenosha police officer shot a 29-year-old black man Jacob Blake, seven times on his back, outside an apartment building. The shooting has paralyzed Blake from his waist down. Law enforcement officials had further shackled Blake to his hospital bed, because he faced an arrest warrant from July on charges of sexual assault, criminal trespass and disorderly conduct. The shackles were reportedly removed later on Friday. This has led to another angry outcry on the streets of Kenosha, with a wearying sense of familiarity. The demonstrations for Jacob Blake, have spread nationwide this week in USA. Civil rights leaders led tens of thousands of people in a March on Washington on Friday, August 28.

Fifty-seven years after Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech at the March on Washington, the families of Black Americans shot or killed by police officers spoke at the same site on Friday, the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. The families of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner and Jacob Blake joined Reverend Al Sharpton and Martin Luther King III at the "Commitment March: Get Your Knee off Our Necks", which drew thousands.

The latest surge in protests in USA reflects something much more — the remarkable way that the Black Lives Matter movement has come to represent a lever for change and a guiding voice on issues of race in America. The recent persistence of Black Lives Matter demonstrations is partly the result of broader grievances in society, including the feeling among many on the left that President Trump represents a threat to democracy, The New York Times wrote. The BLM protests have made the differences in the political agendas of Democrats and Republicans much more pronounced than ever.

(V Venkateswara Rao is a retired corporate professional and a freelance writer)