Ten demonstrations that changed the world - Counterfire

[MattSh]

Note: This is from a British based publication, and so might be a bit British centric. Please note that none of these demonstrations were mostly internet based, performed by people typing their opinions on a computer. And also note that none involved decades of voting for the lesser of two evils until, by some miracle, things just happened to get better.

As the 20 June demo (in London) approaches, it’s worth remembering that mass marches have been crucial to all the most important struggles - Chris Nineham looks at ten of them

The role of street protest is often written out of history and sometimes even questioned by people on the left. But, as the 20 June demo approaches, it’s worth remembering that mass marches have been crucial to all the most important struggles.

Demonstrations almost always help strengthen and focus a movement and keep an issue in the public eye. But they have also helped launch campaigns and revolutions, win the vote, overturn hated laws and bring down regimes.

Marches are always part of a wider process of organising and resisting, but as this (by no means definitive) list shows, they can be a catalyst for strikes, occupations and all sorts of civil disobedience. They are an indispensible method of bringing activists together with the much wider social base necessary for real change.

No doubt I have missed many of the best examples. Send us suggestions and we will publish a master list!

1 - The right to vote | 6 May, 1867 | Clerkenwell to Hyde Park, London

2 - ‘Women’s Sunday’ | 21 June 1908 | Embankment to Hyde Park, London

3 - Toppling the Tsar | 23 February 1917 | St Petersburg

4 - Breaking British rule | 17 March 1919 | Cairo

5 - Freedom road | 24 March, 1964 | Selma to Montgomery, Alabama

6 - ‘Demanding the impossible’ | 6 May, 1968 | Paris

7 - The March against death | 15 November, 1969 | Washington and San Francisco.

8 - Toppling Thatcher | 31 March, 1990 | Kennington Park to Trafalgar Sq

9 - Overturning a coup | April 13, 2002 | Caracas

10 - ‘The second superpower’ | 15 Feb, 2003| Global

Complete story at - http://www.counterfire.org/articles/analysis/17835-ten-demonstrations-that-changed-the-world

[delrem]

1. Demonstrations work but we've got to follow up on them

and I remember that the largest world wide demonstrations in history were against the Iraq war.

The war that happened anyway.

The fuckers.