They forbade me from flying, despite all my protests and arguments. After being once in space, I was desperately keen to go back there. But it didn’t happen.
I remember being in Washington for high school when the city was on fire and those were troubling times, the Vietnam War, the protests.
Say what you will about Americans, but one thing they are not is passive. The Bush administration may have pushed through the Patriot Act weeks after 11 September, but, as the American public got to grips with how the law was affecting their individual rights, their protests grew loud and angry.
I was one of the key people responsible for building Facebook’s News Feed. When we launched it in 2006, users hated it. There were ‘I Hate Facebook’ groups; random people organized protests. We even hired a security team.
Even those of us who do not understand the nuances of economics have come to accept that reform cannot be bloodless. We are often impatient with the predictable, do-gooder campaigns against development. We argue passionately against the humbug protests of those who never want the poor to get rich.
There are always protests, whether you do something good or bad. Even if you do something beneficial, people say you do it because it’s advertising.
As a left-wing campaigner for 35 years, I’ve been arrested on picket lines, led anti-imperialist demonstrations and spoken at anti-deportation protests outside police stations. I’ve made speeches at street rallies, in prisons and universities and at pubs.
People are absolutely free to criticize the government and protest, but their protests should be in such a way as to improve the situation in the country and their life.
In 1999, I was in St. Louis with Martin Luther King III as we led protests against the state’s failure to hire minority contractors for highway construction projects. We went at dawn on a summer day with over a thousand people and performed acts of civil disobedience.
During the Gezi protests and PKK terror campaigns, the unity and solidarity of the Turkish nation were attacked.
It is important to show up. Showing up at marches and rallies and town halls and protests.
Non-violent protests are signs of a healthy democracy, not an ailing one.
Demonstrations must be dignified and nonviolent, as the overwhelming protests in Ferguson and Staten Island have been. Do not confuse anarchists who don’t want the system to work and thugs who want to exploit a situation with the majority who from day one have operated with impeccable nonviolence and clear goals.
Mass protests often get books or films banned, but very few people take to the streets to challenge the right of the State to decide what we can read or watch – it’s still someone else’s problem.
Even as a child, I was witness to protests against a film or a play or a book. All through my growing years, I found various people or organisations protesting against something.
Protests are the very essence of America! It is a country founded in protest.
The only thing I wish I had kept were all the peace beads, because in the 1960s people made these and hung them at protests and it was a wonderful thing.
Nonviolent, visual protests have a long history of forming images that can quickly go viral and set a powerful tone for a moment.
I live in a dumb house. Which is not to say that I don’t love its quirky charm, its drafty windows and leaky fireplaces and an electrical system that protests when too many people are trying to vacuum and microwave at the same time. But charm is not always user-friendly.
In Venezuela, we have movement for freedom, for democracy, that has taken years and sacrifice to build, and a majority through protests to win elections to align ourselves with the world that recognizes the fight for democracy in Venezuela.
I do not lead the Hong Kong protests, because no one person leads the protests.
My mum was always extremely political. I have fond memories of making signs as a child for the nuclear disarmament protests at Greenham Common, or helping her bake cakes for them.
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