Languages of the Unheard by Stephen D'Arcy

Author:Stephen D'Arcy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Zed Books
Published: 2014-03-08T16:00:00+00:00

{ Eight }

Rioting

ALTHOUGH MARTIN LUTHER KING’S description of rioting as a language of the unheard serves as this book’s guiding idea, King would no doubt reject my democratic standard. He uses the criterion of nonviolence to distinguish sound from unsound militancy. My standard, on the other hand, discourages forms of protest only if they show too little regard for the value of public autonomy.

In both views, of course, there is a normative contrast to be drawn. One cannot credibly claim that everything that goes on in the course of every act of confrontational protest is sound. Even amoralism (examined in chapter two) holds that resistance is not legitimate unless it ultimately serves moral ends; the militancy of neo-Nazis, for example, would be rejected as normatively unsound by amoralists of the left. The question is where, not whether, to draw the line. But the need to distinguish between sound and unsound forms of protest is especially acute in the matter of rioting, because during a riot, due to the recklessness or irresponsibility of some participants, real harms may wrongly be inflicted on some people for no good reason. In the most intense and confrontational riots, blameless bystanders can end up beaten, dispossessed, or even dead.

That a form of resistance might well lead blameless bystanders to be beaten or killed could stand as a good reason to disavow indulgence in it, especially when other options are available that might be both more effective and less dangerous to bystanders. And yet, holding fast to the importance of public autonomy, King’s observation should discourage a too-hasty dismissal of rioting as always off limits. In some cases – and I would argue in many cases – rioting may serve as a vehicle for fostering social inclusion and civic equality. Rioting has a unique capacity to allow the voiceless to interrupt what King used to call “business as usual”1 with a dramatic outbreak of autonomous refusal. Motivated by moral insight into the unfairness of their situation, and frustrated by intransigent elites and unresponsive institutions that ignore their grievances and thwart their aspirations, the unheard may sometimes find their voice in acts of collective defiance and confrontation. In this respect, rioting is not that different from other styles of militant resistance.

From Riots to Rioting

Rioting does sometimes entail harms to bystanders that are difficult or impossible to defend. Even more commonly, it involves acts of property damage that are, like sabotage or other forms of destruction, controversial. However, it would be a mistake to regard rioting mainly through the stereotyped lens of the most sensational rioting behaviours. Sometimes rioters do engage in burning cars and looting. Sometimes they assault individuals or damage property. Almost always, they clash with the police to one degree or another. But a one-sided fixation on these aspects of some riots makes it unnecessarily difficult to grasp the role that rioting can play in democratic politics, when it is done well.

Consider the case of the Stonewall Riot, in Greenwich Village, in June 1969. Today, with the benefit of hindsight, most people concede its democratic significance.

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