Violent Protest: An Overview.

Introduction

When a government or organization acts against the wishes of the people, or a portion of the people, it is common for the people to protest to express their opposition. Protest can occur in many forms, but in general, it falls into two categories: violent and nonviolent. Forms of violent protest include warfare, rioting, the willful destruction of property, or acts of terrorism, such as suicide bombings or kidnapping. Forms of nonviolent protest include peaceful demonstrations, marches, sit-ins, letter-writing campaigns, or occupying government buildings through nonviolent means.

Some governments guarantee citizens the right to protest while others limit or ban protest, believing that protest is an action that threatens the government or its policies. In countries that allow protest, nonviolent protest is rarely suppressed (though it is often limited), but violent protest is almost always guaranteed to be suppressed completely, and often through violent means.

The question of whether violent protest is ever warranted when a government acts against the will of its people is the main point of contention in the debate surrounding government protest. Those who support violent protest believe that citizens must have the right to take up arms against an oppressive government that does not respond to the wishes of its people. Activists see violent protest as a fundamental right as well as protection against a government assuming too much power over its people. Opponents of protests contend that violent protest rarely leads to real change; that citizens should exercise their rights by peaceful means; and that violence against the government usually results in government violence against the people.

Understanding the Discussion

Authoritarian regime: A government that actively controls its people and does not allow them to express their will.

Civil disobedience: A form of nonviolent protest that involves individual or group refusal to follow government law, order or demands. Examples of civil disobedience include refusing to pay taxes or join the military during a draft.

Conflict theory: A theory that suggests that to create social change, individuals or groups must struggle against one another. Conflict theory is usually applied to political groups and social classes, but religious, racial, or other groups can be described in terms of conflict theory as well.

Revolution: A protest, usually violent, wherein a large number of people participate to create widespread social change. Revolutions usually lead to a complete change in the government or the creation of a new state.

History

Protest, both violent and nonviolent, can occur as an isolated incident of collective behavior or on a repeated basis, as in the case of protest movements. Examples of isolated protests include race riots, protest marches, and lynch mobs. Examples of protest movements include antiwar movements, civil rights movements, feminist movements, student movements, and labor movements.

Violent protest has a long history that extends to the most ancient civilizations. Rioting and armed rebellion were the most common forms of protest in the ancient world, particularly in times of war or famine, and armed rebellion often led to the destruction of governments and was thought to be acceptable in many cases. In ancient China, for example, the Mandate of Heaven directed the people to protest violently against an ineffective or oppressive government to create change and that the gods favored the winners of such a conflict. In 70 BCE, a gladiator named Spartacus led a revolt of enslaved people against Rome that gathered as many as 120,000 people and threatened the very core of Roman society. While the Romans responded by executing nearly all of the rebels, the near-success of the rebellion encouraged similar violent protest throughout Rome’s history.

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the standard response to government oppression was violent and widespread rebellion. When a rebellion was large and successful enough, the action was termed a revolution. The most notable rebellions of the period were the American Revolution (called in Great Britain the American Rebellion), and the French Revolution (1789–99) that was inspired by the American. Other smaller revolts also led to social change, such as the rebellion of enslaved people led by Toussaint L’Ouverture in 1801 that created the country of Haiti.

It is impossible to discount the fact that these rebellions did succeed in removing oppressive governments and replacing them with new ones. In America, the result was the creation of the United States; most consider this revolution to have been necessary as well as successful. Rebellion in France, however, led to an even more oppressive government that executed somewhere between 15,000 and 40,000 of its own citizens. This government collapsed and was eventually replaced by an authoritarian regime led by Napoleon Bonaparte, and thus was deemed unsuccessful.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, many educated people began to question the value of violent protest and proposed other, more peaceful means of effecting social change. In 1849, Henry David Thoreau, a famous American philosopher, introduced the concept of civil disobedience. Movements inspired by Thoreau’s ideas during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries included the abolitionist (antislavery) movement in the United States, the nonviolent revolution led by Mohandas Gandhi that resulted in India’s independence in 1947, and the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr. The methods pioneered by the leaders of nonviolent protest movements have been very successful, especially in countries that allow their citizens to openly express their concerns.

Violent protest continued, however, despite the success of nonviolent methods. Terrorism became a common form of violent protest in the twentieth century. World War I started when a terrorist assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) tried to separate Northern Ireland from Great Britain by bombing civilian targets and murdering British officials throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Irish Protestant terrorist groups in turn murdered Catholics in Ireland, including nonviolent protesters against the British government. In each of these cases, the protesters saw themselves not as terrorists, but revolutionaries, and used successful rebellions such as the American Revolution as a basis for their argument that if their movements were successful, then their actions would be justified.

Violent protesters have often asserted that their methods were necessary because they were in conflict with authoritarian regimes that would act violently against any form of protest, and thus violence was a more effective defense. Many violent protesters noted that the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, though peaceful, were violently suppressed by the Chinese government, and that violent protest would have led to the same result, but without the enormous number of deaths and arrests that occurred because the protesters were unarmed.

In the Middle East, Islamic fundamentalism has been combined at times with violent protest against authoritarian regimes to inspire terrorist actions. Islamic militants believed that the Qu’ran, the holy book of Islam, condones violent protest against “infidels,” or those who do not follow what is interpreted as “true” Islam. Targets included not only non-Muslims, as exemplified in the September 11, 2001, attacks against the United States, but other Muslims who do not follow the same beliefs, as demonstrated by the violence between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. In each of these cases, the protesters believed that violence was the only kind of protest to which the targeted governments would respond. Such religiously inspired terrorism involves very wealthy people as well as oppressed people experiencing poverty, though the wealthy tend to organize terrorist acts rather than carry them out.

The Occupy movement took center stage in 2011, but its momentum and size were significantly reduced in 2012, largely due to a lack of funds. On March 17, 2012, Occupy Wall Street protesters attempted to reoccupy Zuccotti Park in Manhattan but were immediately removed by police in one of the most violent conflicts in that movement’s history. In May 2012, three court cases were dismissed, including two incidents involving protesters who had blocked traffic. A federal judge, Jed S. Rakoff, ruled in favor of the protesters in June, concluding that the arrests of the protesters who entered the roadway were unjustified because of insufficient warning by police. On September 17, protesters attempted once again to occupy Zuccotti Park for the one-year anniversary of the movement, but police were well prepared and swiftly ended the protests.

After a police officer fatally shot African American teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in August 2014, protests were organized in Ferguson and around the country in the immediate aftermath, at the time of the officer’s acquittal by a grand jury, and again at the one-year anniversary of Brown’s killing. The August 2015 demonstrations saw shootings and looting, as well as more peaceful, though controversial, actions such as forming a human chain on an interstate highway. There was dissension even among protesters and their supporters as to which methods were acceptable, with some locals asserting that those committing violence were outsiders or newcomers whose actions were unwelcome.

Throughout the 2016 presidential campaign cycle, rallies for Donald Trump incited anger and violence among both protesters and supporters. A few supporters brought guns to a Dallas rally for self-defense. Some protesters threatened and chased supporters, burned flags and items emblazoned with Trump slogans, and threw objects at supporters and law enforcement. After Trump took office in January 2017, protests against his presidency and supporters continued. Although the vast majority of protesters were peaceful, some engaged in rioting, vandalism, and violence. Among the latter was a loosely organized left-wing antifascist group called Antifa, which supports the use of physical violence to fight back against what they view as the growing number of far-right fascists, White supremacists, and neo-Nazis encouraged by Trump’s presidency. Although some on the left have supported Antifa, others have criticized their violent tactics.

There has been a great deal of study devoted to conflict theory and the causes of protest to better predict when violent protest might happen. Conflict theory, developed first by Karl Marx (1818–83), asserts that social conflict and struggle, as illustrated by protest movements, is a natural part of all societies. According to conflict theory, social institutions reinforce social inequalities caused by social stratifications of race, class, gender, and education. Conflict theorists seek to understand the root cause of the conflict, often expressed through violent protest, and work to eradicate the conflict and its social effects. Social change, according to Marx, could only occur through challenges to the power of the dominant classes.

Most contemporary studies of social conflict show that violent protest is more likely to occur when the group at odds with the government has had all other forms of expression suppressed, when the group is poorly educated, and when the group cannot trust the government to respond to its demands through nonviolent protest or petition. Any one of these factors may lead to violent protest, but not all conditions have to be met.

For instance, many members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are educated, yet some choose to destroy animal testing labs and threaten scientists because they feel that their cause requires a violent response. Ecoterrorism continued, where climate-change protesters may damage pipeline valves to oppose the fossil fuel industry, even though many environmentalists have other, less violent means to express their displeasure. Leaders of groups who oppose their governments or foreign powers can greatly influence whether a group chooses violent or nonviolent means of protest.

Nonviolent protest in all forms also persisted, even in countries that do not allow protest (though these campaigners generally protest in exile or under house arrest). Political and religious leaders such as the Dalai Lama of Tibet and former US president Jimmy Carter continued to call for nonviolent protest as well as diplomatic solutions to the grievances of the oppressed around the world.

Violent Protest Today

In April 2015 in Baltimore, Maryland, another young African American man, Freddie Gray, died of spinal injuries sustained while in police custody. Protests culminated in rioting in a heavily marginalized, economically depressed area of the city, with arsons, looting, assault, and destruction of property breaking out. In a rare move, the National Guard was called in to restore and maintain order in the city and a curfew was instituted for six days. The Baltimore riots were attributed not only to recent episodes of police brutality—as seen there and in Ferguson, New York City (where police placed Eric Garner in a deadly chokehold), and Cleveland, Ohio (where police shot twelve-year-old Tamir Rice)—but also to police corruption, ineffectual political leadership, endemic poverty, poor-quality education, and an incomplete recovery from the city’s 1968 riots. Thus, longstanding social issues can combine with tragedy to ignite the passions of those who are dissatisfied with the status quo, and the outcomes of those protests can have long-lasting consequences.

Racial tensions continued to inspire protest, both nonviolent and violent, into the 2020s. The debate over whether to remove Confederate statues and monuments led to numerous protests in the mid-to-late 2010s. Most notably, in August 2017 at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, white supremacist and neo-Nazi protesters clashed with antiracist counter-protesters, and one woman was killed. A few years later, following the police killing of another Black man, George Floyd, using a kneehold in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in late May 2020, at least 1,700 demonstrations were held across the US to protest police brutality and systemic racism. Most were peaceful. Protests even spread to other countries, particularly in Europe. However, looting, arson, shootings, vandalism, and clashes with law enforcement also occurred in multiple US cities. The National Guard was called out in about half of the states, and curfews were imposed in dozens of cities. The events following Floyd's death renewed debate over whether and when violent protest is ever an appropriate course of action.

This question arose once more after nationwide protests of the Israel-Hamas conflict broke out on college campuses beginning in late 2023. While the protests, in which people showed solidarity with Palestinians through methods varying from demonstrations and rallies to prolonged encampments on school grounds, were largely peaceful at first, by early 2024 there were increased reports of violent incidents. While some violence erupted between groups of protesters, such as when counterprotesters attacked a pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California, Los Angeles, other cases involved police and protesters. In a statement in early May, President Joe Biden condemned violent behavior, such as destruction of property and vandalism, and chaotic disruption in relation to the campus protests.

These essays and any opinions, information or representations contained therein are the creation of the particular author and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of EBSCO Information Services.

Bibliography

Basha, Riyah, Andie Linker, and Emily Schwartz. “Unrest in Baltimore: Protests following the Death of Freddie Gray Turn Violent.” Chicago Tribune, 6 May 2015. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=763e7959-7377-3f7d-b962-5090af00286a. Accessed 5 Feb. 2016.

Bryson Taylor, Derrick. “George Floyd Protests: A Timeline.” The New York Times, 10 July 2020, www.nytimes.com/article/george-floyd-protests-timeline.html. Accessed 21 July 2020. ‌

Chenoweth, Erica, and Maria J. Stephan. “Drop Your Weapons: When and Why Civil Resistance Works.” Foreign Affairs, Council on Foreign Relations, July–Aug. 2014. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=bd04c5be-fc9e-30c8-97f0-488ee27e09cf. Accessed 4 Dec. 2014.

Cirilli, Kevin. “Violence at Trump Rallies Shows No Sign of Abating.” BloombergPolitics, Bloomberg, 20 June 2016. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=4065adcc-685e-3c18-816c-873649fae6e8. Accessed 20 Sept. 2016.

Conley, John J. “‘Delayed, Not Destroyed.’” America, 8 June 2015, p. 28.

Cortright, David. Gandhi and Beyond: Nonviolence for an Age of Terrorism. Paradigm, 2006.

Cunha, Darlena. “Ferguson: In Defense of Rioting.” Time, 25 Nov. 2014. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=ec2ec4f2-d025-34a8-9807-9ec4c5d33cdf. Accessed 4 Dec. 2014.

Foody, Kathleen, et al. "Israel-Hamas War Protests Close on Handful of US Campuses as Arrests Exceed 2,300." AP, 3 May 2024, apnews.com/article/israel-palestinian-campus-student-protests-war-df5f7cf1547a3ca8fb959b992d6ebe1b. Accessed 3 May 2024.

Haseman, Janie, et al. “Tracking Protests across the USA in the Wake of George Floyd’s Death.” USA Today, 18 June 2020, www.usatoday.com/in-depth/graphics/2020/06/03/map-protests-wake-george-floyds-death/5310149002/. Accessed 21 July 2020.‌

Hudson, David L. “Occupy the Courts: The Nationwide Movement Has Left a Mixed Bag of Legal Results.” ABA Journal, 1 July 2012.

Hutzler, Alexandra. "'Violent Protest Is Not Protected,' Biden Says of College Campus Unrest." ABC News, 2 May 2024, abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-speaks-college-protests-israel-gaza-war/story?id=109870179. Accessed 3 May 2024.

McAuliffe, Terry. “The Inside Story of Charlottesville—and How the Violence Could Have Been Avoided.” Newsweek, 30 July 2019, www.newsweek.com/2019/08/09/what-happened-charlottesville-virginia-terry-mcauliffe-book-1451608.html. Accessed 21 July 2020.‌

Radosh, Ronald. “Antifa Says It’s Fighting Fascists. It Just Might Be Helping to Re-Elect Donald Trump.” The Daily Beast, 11 Sept. 2017, p.1. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pwh&AN=125095431&site=pov-live. Accessed 26 Oct. 2017.

Scarry, Eddie. “Don’t Blame Trump Supporters for the Violence at His Rallies.” New York Post, NYP Holdings, 25 May 2016, nypost.com/2016/05/25/dont-blame-trump-supporters-for-the-violence-at-his-rallies/. Accessed 20 Sept. 2016.

Violent Protest, Contentious Politics, and the Neoliberal State, edited by Seraphim Seferiades and Hank Johnston, Ashgate, 2012.

Wang, Hansi Lo. “Ferguson, Mo., Residents Grow Tired of Violent Protests.” All Things Considered, NPR, 11 Aug. 2015. EBSCOhost, research.ebsco.com/linkprocessor/plink?id=30759b42-b350-3bf3-a3a7-188bbb2c4959. Accessed 5 Feb. 2016.