The End of Protest by Micah White

The End of Protest by Micah White

Author:Micah White [White, Micah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-81006-9
Publisher: Knopf Canada
Published: 2016-03-14T16:00:00+00:00


Strategic Insight

The Ghost Dance is a crucial example for activists to consider. It validates voluntarism and theurgism. Protest does not need to directly challenge power in order to be a threat to power. The Ghost Dance wasn’t performed near capital cities, urban areas or government buildings. The implication is that any shared gesture believed by its participants to have political power can become a protest with revolutionary potential. This principle was demonstrated at the end of 2012 when indigenous rights activists organized round dance flash mobs at shopping malls, catapulting the Idle No More movement into a challenge to the Canadian government. The protest quickly spread across national borders and sparked a widespread indigenous resurgence. Performing the Ghost Dance ritual, or the Idle No More round dance, was a method of uniting the people into a mood of fearlessness. Kairos is crucial. It is significant that Wovoka wasn’t the first to propose a Ghost Dance, he was simply the one who called for it at the right time. The failure of the Ghost Dance may have marked the end of an era of armed resistance in the past but there are signs that indigenous groups may take up arms in the future to defend their territories.



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