We feel for the Belorussian people. They live under a semi-repressive regime, which takes a less-than-tolerant attitude toward protesters. Activists have therefore developed creative ways to express solidarity with each other and disrupt the equilibrium of the state. Many of these actions take the form of "flash-mob"-type events, organized over the internet, calling upon people to gather at a particular place at a specified time and do. . . something. At 8:00 pm on Wednesday, for example, in a main square in the capitol, dozens (or perhaps hundreds--who knows?) of cellphone alarms went off simultaneously!
Yeah, that was it.
To add insult to apathy, any potential cell-phone cacophony was pretty much drowned out by ordinary traffic noise. All of which raises the tree-in-a-forest-esque question: If nobody knows for sure whether a protest is occurring, does it actually make a noise? And, to be sure, the authorities, who knew about the planned action were similarly befuddled. Should they go around arresting anyone whose cellphone rang at 8:00 PM? What if it was just Aunt Blini calling to ask someone to pick up more Rivkas? (That should probably be the other way around.)
And that, of course, is the point. The protesters did, indeed, accomplish something. They got the attention of the authorities and, since the authorities did ultimately devote extra resources to monitoring the crowd and, of course, arresting some of the protesters, one could say that the flash mob disrupted the powers-that-be.
But doesn't a protest have to be somewhat unambiguous in order to qualify as a protest? 'Cause, if not, we have plenty of things that we're upset about, and we would like to hereby announce the following protest actions we shall undertake forthwith:
We are eating pizza to protest anti-gay-marriage initiatives nationwide!
We refuse to eat Brussels sprouts until there are free and fair elections in North Korea!
We are going to play "Jungle Jewels" in support of animal rights!
And now, we are going to take a nap to express our utter contempt for partisan political posturing!
See you tomorrow!
Solipsistography
"Sound of Post-Soviet Protest: Claps and Beeps"
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