Protest is a form of healing since it empowers the protestor who chooses to act rather than live under the weight of submission or numbness. The act of dissension has the potential to be a truly liberating process. Protest is rarely comfortable because it consists of one group questioning the authority of another. Authentic questioning carries a deep ethic as it aims to reduce causes and conditions for suffering found in the policies and structures of the ruling group. That willingness to act to reduce suffering confirms the act as compassion.
The protest carries a judgement – a determination to apply the principles of the Buddha Dharma to the heart of the political/corporate establishment. It belongs fully and directly to the Dharma way of life. The Buddha, himself, led many walks, peaceful and mindful. He spent much time protesting about greed, hate and delusion. It is important to keep alive the long tradition of protest.
There is a common view that protest exclusively means involvement in a demonstration. It is one expression. One can become a Buddhist monk due, initially, to protest against consumerism or travel to India as part of a protest against the demands of Western society.
Actions for change
People can change profoundly through meaningful political action, as much as through inner change and working on themselves. Outer change gives support to inner change and inner change gives support to outer change. One kind of important change does not precede the other. The world will have fallen to pieces if people wait to protest until they deem themselves happy, peaceful and emotionally well-adjusted human beings. Yet, if people think that changing the political/financial system without inner change matters most, then such people need to become students of history. Inner-outer abide as inseperable relationships.
Action matters. It is the movement from despair to empowerment, from the restrictions of the self to a wider vision, from the individual to the collective.
It is easy to be spellbound with a myth that our inner life is a self-existent entity, bound to its past, independent of society and environment. This is the privatisation of the self. There is much unhappiness among those in debt and unemployed. There are those who have little education and lack work skills. Millions live in poor housing, work far too many hours with excessive demands on performance. Far too many lack health insurance, live on junk food and remain addicted to alcohol, recreational or prescribed drugs and gambling whether in the stock exchange or online betting. Daily surveillance and the constant monitoring of performance and skills lend itself to fear and srtress. Millions of people feel trapped in horrible circumstances through no fault of their own. Increase in the interest rate of a bank terrible pressure on countless homes with mortgages to pay. No or very little interest eats away at the savings of people, especially the elderly.
Protest against injustice and exploitation of the individual or group expresses an ethic. The ethics of valid protest to stop suffering serve the deep interest of the protestor as well as the rest of society. Authentic empowerment includes making a contribution towards the transformation of the structures, timetables and demands upon the lives of individuals.
PRACTICAL WAYS TOWARDS OUTER CHANGE
1. Acts of compassion
2. Attending and organising public meetings,
3. Boycotts
4. Conflict resolution, use of judiciary
5. Constructive engagement, taking risks , personal contact with opposition
6. Consumer awareness
7. Dialogue groups, facilitation
8. Generosity, service, voluntary work
9. Imaginative initiatives to gain attention of the media
10. Letters, petitions to media, politicians and corporations
11. Mass Gatherings.
12. Meetings at home,
13. Memberships of campaigning organisations
14. Non-violent protest, street demonstrations
15. Posters, leaflets, articles, essays, books
16. Protests on the street
17. Telephone, e-mail, Flickr and website
18. Use of the arts and creativity
19. Workshops, weekly meetings,
20. Yatras (pilgrimages), peace walks, vigils
In 2007, thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns joined courageous laypeople in Rangoon to protest about the Burmese military government, doubling of bus fares and fuel bills on an impoverished nation. Senior Buddhist monks overturned their begging bowl to stop senior officers in the military regime from placing alms in the bowl thus keeping the bowl for the worthy ones. The monks thus denied the army officers the opportunity to make merit. It constituted a very bold protest.
Mercifully, these brave monks and nuns did not spend weeks or months or more on the couch of the analyst encouraging them to look at their feelings. Action matters. It is the same with the courageous monks and nuns in Tibet protesting against the oppression of the Chinese regime or Palestinian and Israeli men and women protesting against the occupation. The actions free people from despair and nourish their humanity.
Psychotherapists and psychologists,unwittingly, tend to support the established order and need to do much more to show clients the way to make viable, effective and empowering protest against social/political issues that damage the lives of their clients.
The act of protest IS therapeutic. The client, who only wishes to unburden some feelings and thoughts, may show a lack of respect for themselves and for others through a passive response to citizenship and neglect of a liberating empowerment.
Can an awakened life ignore the realities of the nation state, political belief systems, armaments, the corporate world, health care, debts and so on?
One person’s protest can make a real difference. Are you the one?