COP part two: research from podcasts

It was suggested I listen to a podcast by Scroobius Pip and Killer Mike that in part discussed protests and riots and this information has really kick started my project. There were lots of interesting points including:

• even if protest is not "successful" it will always be successful in that it is a tool to bring together oppressed communities and provide hope and comradeship, which is not something I had thought of before. It made me think of the Students Fees protests which were famously not successful and wonder if, although it didn't work, it may well have bred a new generation of politically aware students which is no short of a good thing.

• what can protest do if you are protesting in the way the system wants you to? to really get your voice heard you may well need to retaliate. "if the system does not change under the will of the people then it is the responsibility of the people to attack". However, it was suggested that an alternative, long term solution is to instead become the system, through becoming police officers, governors etc. But when peoples' lives are at stake, such as in Ferguson, then the voices need to be heard now.

• different countries are better at protesting than others! there was a quote along the lines of that Britain is good at conquering others but not ourselves. 

On the other hand, whilst trying to find other podcasts about protests or riots it turns out they used the words as metaphors and were not at all relevant to my research! There were a couple of relevant ones, but they provided much less information and I noticed they didn't seem as passionate either, maybe because the speakers themselves, such as the ones on Women's Hour, were not so directly affected by such powerful issues such as Mike and Ferguson.

But similar points were made, such as "the system only changes when the terms of debate change" and "protest is not weak- it is no longer a procession to mask the concession of its objectives".

These two other podcasts I listened to (Women's Hour and Victoria Derbyshire) were also quick to dismiss rioting and violence at protests as foolish and not legitmate, which after listening to SP and KM I found hard to agree with completely, particularly under certain circumstances. When innocent people are being killed by their country I cannot place blame on those that react with such anguish.