Karl,
I must say that I understand you, because I believe in the working and functionality of the representative democracy as we call it in the Netherlands. But demonstration, protest and resistance and Underground (graasroots) movement activity are sometimes needed in a selfcorrective and societal measure tool. For instance when a democracy moves into the direction of a democrature (a democratic legitamised democratic dictatorship of one party which built a powerbase which was or is to strong for a healthy democracy, because that one party state system becomes a system with a party nomenklatura and apparatchiks who control a society for decades - Do I have examples, yes, I do have them, for instance the CSU who ruled Bavaria for decades, the Parti Socialiste in the French speaking Wallonia part of Belgium, some Social democratic ruled Scandinavian countries -also for decades-), or worse in National democratic Phalangist sense in the case of the Francoist dictatorship in Spain (the Spanish State (Spanish: Estado Español) from 1936 to 1947 and the Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España) from 1947 to 1975)), the Greek colonels regime, Fascist Italy (1922-1943), the Third Reich in Germany (NSDAP rule from 1933-1945), the DDR (SED rule in East Germany from 1949 until 1990).
In other forms a dominant state with a limited to Zero counterveiling powers and checks and balances could create a Neo Liberal technocratic state which limits democratic freedoms, equality, the rule of law (Trias Politica -Separartion of Powers-, Rechtsstaat and a legal system with clear legislation, property rights and trade laws for a well functionating and orderly economy and state system with public utilities) and a quite dangerous pact between state institutions and multinationals with Monopolies. Competition regulators are important. Such economic regulators regulate and enforce competition laws, and may sometimes also enforce consumer protection laws.
Europe with it's Feudal, serfdom, absolutist monarchy, authoritarian, totalitarian, dictatorship past should be very careful to not allow any form of collectivism, authoritarian rule or dictatorship to return to the continent in a leftwing, rightwing, confessional (theocratic religious), reactionary nationalistic, fascist or communist way. With our past of wars, bloody civil wars, terrorism, World Wars (we had 2 World wars and many major continental European wars in the past), genocides (the Armenian genocide, the Holodomor, the Polish Operation of the Soviet security service NKVD in 1937–1938 (+ / - 111,091 Polish deaths), the Holocaust, the Srebrenica massacre (1995; 8,000 Bosniaks, mainly men and boys, that were killed by the Serbs, but before that Bosniak forces under Orić and other Bosniak commanders took control of Srebrenica on 9 May 1992 and started harassment and torturing remaining Serb civilian population, following by ethnic cleansing. Almost none of the Serbs, who lived in Srebrenica before the war, stayed in the town. Bosnian Serb forces committed a massacre in the village of Glogova on 9 May and in Bratunac on 10 May through 13 May. In the following days, Bosniaks who had been hiding in the woods emerged and gradually returned to their houses in Srebrenica. Serb forces surrounded Srebrenica and started to bomb the town. In Bosnia, Krajina (the Serb enclave in Croatia) and Kosovo the results of genocidal ethnic nationalism was shown in full force. The Croatian Serb convicted war criminal and former president of the unrecognized Republic of Serbian Krajina, Milan Martić, was found to have participated during this period in a joint criminal enterprise which included Slobodan Milošević, whose aim was to create a unified Serbian state through commission of a widespread and systematic campaign of crimes against non-Serbs inhabiting areas in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina envisaged to become parts of such a state.
To prevent a dominant majority long term rule of a despotic, totalitarian, ethnic cleansing, Big Brother is watching you, freedom limiting and prohibiting power of sometimes brainwashed or manipulated majorities (by stage propaganda, agitprop, state indoctrination, and collectivist or authoritarian state ideologies, systems and structures and networks) you sometimes need 'opposition forces', 'counter forces', 'resistance', 'Underground movements', temporary Guerrilla warfare, and an uprising of the Intelligent and brave minority. Nazi Germany and Austria, Communist (Bolsjewist; Marxist-Leninist/Stalinist/Sovjet) Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and Fascist Italy unfortunately had a long totalitarian, authoritarian, collectivist and dictatorship rule. Therefor ideas, elements, spores, theories, ideological traces, convictions and thus strong influences of these ideas remained alive due to the fact that former Nazi's, fascists and communists were active, dominant and influential in Post world Europe unde the disguise of 'conservatives', 'Christian-Democrats', 'Social-democrats' amd 'liberals'. These people were active in intelligence agencies of secret services (The Gehlen Organization, Stasi organisation, BND/Verfassungsschutz, and other European inelligence agencies as well as mercenaries for the French Foreign Legion [French: Légion étrangère])
In Europe the first kind of protest movement or demonstration started with a rebellion sof farmers in Germany.
German Peasants' WarGerman peasants were mad as hell and weren't going to take it anymore. The German Peasants' War, Great Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt (German: Deutscher Bauernkrieg) was a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It failed because of the intense opposition by the aristocracy, who slaughtered up to 100,000 of the 300,000 poorly armed peasants and farmers.[1] The survivors were fined and achieved few, if any, of their goals. The war consisted, like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars, of a series of both economic and religious revolts in which peasants and farmers, often supported by Anabaptist clergy, took the lead. The German Peasants' War was Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising prior to the French Revolution of 1789. The fighting was at its height in the middle of 1525.
The war began with separate insurrections, beginning in the southwestern part of what is now Germany and Alsace, and spread in subsequent insurrections to the central and eastern areas of Germany and present-day Austria.[2] After the uprising in Germany was suppressed, it flared briefly in several Swiss Cantons.
In mounting their insurrection, peasants faced insurmountable obstacles. The democratic nature of their movement left them without a command structure and they lacked artillery and cavalry. Most of them had little, if any, military experience. In combat they often turned and fled, and were massacred by their pursuers.[citation needed] The opposition had experienced military leaders, well-equipped and disciplined armies, and ample funding.
The revolt incorporated some principles and rhetoric from the emerging Protestant Reformation, through which the peasants sought influence and freedom. Radical Reformers and Anabaptists, most famously Thomas Müntzer, instigated and supported the revolt. In contrast, Martin Luther and other Magisterial Reformers condemned it and clearly sided with the nobles. In Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, Luther condemned the violence as the devil's work and called for the nobles to put down the rebels like mad dogs. Historians have interpreted the economic aspects of the German Peasants' War differently, and social and cultural historians continue to disagree on its causes and nature.
Liberty Leading the People. Eugène Delacroix. 1830 // Wikipedia.orgIn Europe and especially Germany we have a tradition, heritage, history and cyclic movement of protest and demonstration since that farmers revolt in Medieval Germamy and the French revolution. The protest movement was pre-dominantly leftwing or liberal. Think about the Liberal revolution of 1848 in Europe. The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Spring of Nations, People's Spring, Springtime of the Peoples, or the Year of Revolution, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history.
The revolutions were essentially democratic and liberal in nature, with the aim of removing the old monarchical structures and creating independent nation states. The revolutions spread across Europe after an initial revolution began in France in February. Over 50 countries were affected, but with no significant coordination or cooperation among their respective revolutionaries. Some of the major contributing factors were widespread dissatisfaction with political leadership, demands for more participation in government and democracy, demands for freedom of the press, other demands made by the working class, the upsurge of nationalism, and the regrouping of established government forces.
The uprisings were led by ad hoc coalitions of reformers, the middle classes and workers, which did not hold together for long. Tens of thousands of people were killed, and many more were forced into exile. Significant lasting reforms included the abolition of serfdom in Austria and Hungary, the end of absolute monarchy in Denmark, and the introduction of representative democracy in the Netherlands. The revolutions were most important in France, the Netherlands, the states of the German Confederation that would make up the German Empire in the late 19th and early 20th century, Italy, and the Austrian Empire.
After that you had the Paris CommuneThe Paris Commune (French: La Commune de Paris, IPA: [la kɔmyn də paʁi]) was
a radical socialist and
revolutionary government that ruled Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871.
The Franco-Prussian War had led to the capture of
Emperor Napoleon III in
September 1870, the collapse of
the Second French Empire, and the beginning of
the Third Republic. Because
Paris was under siege for four months,
the Third Republic moved its capital to
Tours. A hotbed of working-class radicalism,
Paris was primarily defended during this time by the often
politicised and
radical troops of
the National Guard rather than
regular Army troops.
Paris surrendered to the
Prussians on
28 January 1871, and in February
Adolphe Thiers, the new chief executive of
the French national government, signed an armistice with
Prussia that disarmed
the Army but not
the National Guard.
On 18 March, soldiers of the Commune's National Guard killed two French army generals, and
the Commune refused to accept the authority of the French government. The Commune governed Paris for two months, until it was suppressed by the regular French Army during "La semaine sanglante" ("
The Bloody Week") beginning on 21 May 1871.
Debates over the policies and outcome of
the Commune had significant influence on the ideas of
Karl Marx, who described it as an example of the "
dictatorship of the proletariat".
Barricade Voltaire Lenoir Commune Paris 1871After that you had the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 in Russia, the German Revolution or November Revolution in 1918 and 1919, and many demonstrations, protests, strikes and riots during the twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties. The radical left has an anti-fascist tradition that goes back to the twenties in Germany with groups like the Roter Frontkämpferbund (1924-1929), the Communist Kampfbund gegen den Faschismus (Fighting-Alliance against Fascism, formed in 1930), the local Roter Massenselbstschutz (Red Mass Self-Defence, RMSS) units formed by Kampfbund members as autonomous and loosely organised structures, the Social Democratic Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold, and the Iron Front (German: Eiserne Front) the anti-Nazi, anti-monarchist and anti-communist paramilitary organization formed in the Weimar Republic. Today the far left, anarchist, Autonomen (Chaoten) of the Black Bloc in Germany use the communist anti-fascist heritage and symbols of the Antifaschistische Aktion (abbreviated as Antifa ) from 1932. And these leftwing extremists know the heritage of Germany of the twenties and early thirties and use that knowledge and heritage to legitimese their actions, tactics, strategies and Agitprop! (
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agitprop )
Authoritarian reactionary conservatives, Monarchists (Carlists), Falangists, Fascists, Nazi's and military rulers and rightwing despotic leaders during the twenties, thirties and forties used the "Red Scare", widespread fear by a society or state about a potential rise of communism, anarchism, or radical leftism as a tool to organise counter revolutions, Freikorps (Free Corps) paramilitary activities, their nationalist conservative style of despotic rule, and oppression of minorities, opposition, counter forces, legitimate peaceful protest, critical voices and independent spirits.
Karl, I very well understand why you do detest protesters. That will have various reasons and grounds. A father who was part of the German military machine of the Wehrmacht, certain Prussian elements which might be installed in you, your loylty to your state, fatherland and employer the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (the Federal Republic of Germany), maybe some Bundespatriotismus (Federal German patriotism), and a dual loyality to 2 states, 2 peoples and 2 democratic systems, the Federal Free and Democratic Germamy and the parlementarian Monarchy Denmark. Both are 2 wonderful, beautiful, great, good, nobel, humanistic, very democratic, independent, Souvereign and sophisticated and progressive states in Europe. I understand why you dislike demonstrators, protesters, critics of these states, systems, authorities, democratic traditions and thus societies. You are right from your perspective. You have something great to defend, be proud of, to cherish, nurture, protect, serve and again to be proud of.
We share, and that is my belief or idea, some reservation against radical demonstrators, extremist opposition, threats to our Rechtsstaten (our legal states), authonomy, souvereignity, independence, stability, peace and status quo. We have built something over here in the past 70 years and we don't want that peace, prosperity, wealth, coexistence of European states, and our constitutions, democracies to be disturbed by extremists, fanatics, radicals, violent demonstrators, indoctrinated protesters, or just protesters who carry an infectious virus of revolution, civil unrest, disturbance of peace and disrupting our societies.
These nude ladies use a sixties/seventies happening/performance like form of protest to object against the Brexit!
Phil Bloom (born 27 November 1945) is a Dutch artist, entertainer and actress. She was the first person to appear completely nude on Dutch television, on 28 July 1967. She was a member of the Fluxus network. This naked statement shocked many in the Nerherlands of that time and conservative voices wanted to sensor the VPRO, the broadcast corporation that aired her nude. It was a sort of nude protest.Cheers,
Pieter