The Protester named Person of the Year 2011 by Time Magazine

Posted on December 16, 2011 by Marcus Ampe

Time Person of the Year 2011 The Protester

TIME has named the 2011 Person of the Year and it’s no surprise: The Protester.  Highly inclusive, it covers Occupy Wall Street, the 99 Percent, Tahrir Square and the rest of the Arab Spring and actions in Europe and across the globe.

History often emerges only in retrospect. Events become significant only when looked back on.

No one could have known that when a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire in a public square in a town barely on a map, he would spark protests that would bring down dictators in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya and rattle regimes in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain.

Sometimes a nearly unnoticed fact in other countries can be the trigger which gets the ball rolling all over the world. (Think about Sarajevo and the First World War)

Everywhere this year, people have complained about the failure of traditional leadership and the fecklessness of institutions.

Protester's fist - Photograph by Peter Hapak for Time

Some years ago news got to get throug by wires and in the newspapers. Today the major news events are still chronicled strictly by professionals and printed on paper or transmitted through the air by the few for the masses. But we got a new medium which brings other writers getting incidents made known quicker. Occurences are brought onto the screen of many all across the world. An incident or event is trumpetted by many occasional writers are people interested in certain facts who bring their ideas to the forefront on the internet.

Fifty years ago it were the dedicated people who wanted to march for their ideals and  marched for civil rights, peace and against the Vietnam War. Any unrighteousness in the world was protested by those who had their heart fixed on an ethical point of view or on a political view. Either it was to protest for more human rights or to protect nature; in the ’70s, they rose up in Iran and Portugal; in the ’80s, they spoke out against nuclear weapons in the U.S. and Europe, against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, against communist tyranny in Tiananmen Square and Eastern Europe. Protest was the natural continuation of politics by other means.

When there was a demonstration all felt united and went for the same thought. Today that is not any more the case. Even actions with the same name can be totally different of in- and output.

When we look at the Occupy protesters we clearly see that they don’t all have the same agenda. Some seem to focus on Citizens United,  or on the in-equality of peoples finance,  focussing on the gap between the rich and the poor, others look more at the banks and again in other countries they may look more at the political system. It looks like we can melt it down to the essence of a general human rights issue.

The last decennia we had many green protestors and anti-nuclear-power-plant groups, while the political-economic points were left more aside. But today those economical factors and political structures of how governments are handling people do lie in the forefront. After the 1990ies the rare large demonstrations in the rich world seemed ineffectual and irrelevant. When there were some protests the activists were looked at as some loonies. And all those pacifists and ‘greens’ were considered not of this world. Only the Apartheid Actions could get good results and got a better system in South Africa from 1994 onwards.

“Massive and effective street protest” was a global oxymoron until — suddenly, shockingly — starting exactly a year ago, it became the defining trope of our times. And the protester once again became a maker of history.

French support Bouazizi

A french protest in support of Mohamed Bouazizi, "Hero of Tunisia" 15 January 2011

The old trick to put oneself on fire was taken on by the son of Mannoubia Bouazizi. 26-year-old street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi, who lived in the charmless Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, 125 miles south of Tunis renched himself in paint thinner and lit a match, to protest against the bullying of the police. “In Tunisia,” his 16-year-old daughter Basma says, “dignity is more important than bread.” And lots of people who did find they could not live in dignity any more went on to the streets.

Started off in North Africa it continued to spread like a virus. In Spain the Los Indignados got on their feet to march to the ‘heart of Europe’ and let their voice to be heard in Brussels.

At the new millennium people wanted to go forward in anew age. But more and more they felt pressure from outside their home. They also got the feeling more and more that their work was not valued and respected as it should be. They thought that they had liberated themselves but found themselves in the handcuffs of the employers, bounded to a more restricting income. Instead of being able to continue to progress and to become better off or ‘richer’ they felt that they could do less with their money.

Lots of people want to get away of the smokescreen plus want a clear articulation and codification of the practices being used, with at flexible system that protects both  Constitutional rights, nation’s security and the environment of this world we have to live in and have to be able to survive. It is as if people at last have seen that we cannot continue in the way our materialist world was moving. People are “sick of business as usual.”and want some clear signals of change and more righteousness.

Everywhere this year, people have complained about the failure of traditional leadership and the fecklessness of institutions.

Anti-Chen Protest Day 32 - Million Men March

In a few short months the protest movements could capture Time’s Person of the Year award.

Rick Stengel in Time writes: “Is there a global tipping point for frustration? Everywhere, it seems, people said they’d had enough. They dissented; they demanded; they did not despair, even when the answers came back in a cloud of tear gas or a hail of bullets. They literally embodied the idea that individual action can bring collective, colossal change. And although it was understood differently in different places, the idea of democracy was present in every gathering. The root of the word democracy is demos, “the people,” and the meaning of democracy is “the people rule.” And they did, if not at the ballot box, then in the streets. America is a nation conceived in protest, and protest is in some ways the source code for democracy — and evidence of the lack of it.”

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Time Person of the Year 2011 The Protester

Read the

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Four runners up:

  • Kate Middleton is the Duchess of Cambridge and wife of Prince William, , who married Britain’s Prince William in April
  • Ai Weiwei is an influential Chinese contemporary artist and dissident.
  • Representative Paul Ryan, a US Congressman; House Budget Committee chairman, whose deficit-reduction plan makes him the “most influential American politician.”
  • William McRaven is a US Navy Admiral. (Head of Joint Special Operations Command and commander of the SEAL Osama operation)

Find out how Care2 members voted

°°°

Signs of the times

Occupy protesters in Conway. (Jamie Gemmiti)

Protesters were prime makers of history for 2011.

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About Marcus Ampe

Retired dancer, choreographer, choreologist Founder of the Dance impresario office and archive: Danscontact-Dansarchief plus the Association for Bible scholars, the Lifestyle magazines "Stepping Toes" and "From Guestwriters" and creator of the site "Messiah for all". - Gepensioneerd danser, choreograaf, choreoloog. Stichter van Danscontact-Dansarchief plus van de Vereniging voor Bijbelvorsers, de Lifestyle magazines "Stepping Toes" en "From Guestwriters" en maker van de site "Messiah for all".
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