May Day protests

May Day – May 1 – is the annual international workers’ protest day. Although it also presents an opportunity to air economic grievances, voice political demands and other specific national preoccupations, what marked out last week’s protests was the meshing of labour issues with huge pro-Palestinian protests in many countries, except here in sweet Trinidad and Tobago.

Trinidad and Tobago’s Labour Day celebrations on June 19 are linked to the 1930s struggles of Uriah “Buzz” Butler and others for better oilfield and sugarcane workers’ conditions and wages.

But members of the Joint Trade Union Movement (JTUM) also observed May 1 last week in solidarity with workers worldwide by marching through the streets of San Fernando.

We might reflect upon why there were no reported protests over events in Palestine or why no Trinidad and Tobago marchers had anything to say about the issue.

Perhaps most workers in Trinidad and Tobago simply do not care. We know geography, culture and language are important factors in deciding what interests us, but we should concern ourselves with current affairs in the Middle East and the barely credible events in Palestine.

Even if we are ambivalent about Palestine, we should notice the behaviour of Israel, which refuses to be reined in by any authority or opprobrium, driven only by vengeance and a desire to control disputed territories and understand how that creates a seismic shift in the pursuit of peace and the international rule of law.

We would also know about Israel’s importance as a technology giant and how clearly it understands its key role in world economics and affairs.

Those affairs affect us as much as they do everyone else globally. “We” includes workers, whose wages and well-being are linked to goings-on in Ukraine as much as Gaza. Those events dictate the price of oil and gas and how we live.

Maybe we feel frustrated by the knowledge that regardless of how much we earn from our energy production, it does not convert into available forex for all citizens, better roads, workable public administration, a stronger, bigger economy, less crime and more literacy.

Ask the economists why, and they will say that we missed the chance to float our currency and now we are paying the price. They might not all agree, but you will ignite an argument about devaluation of our currency, which is a dead argument, so let’s park it and consider whether protest and group public complaining can shift things.

Our TV screens were ablaze last week with the tear gas, stun guns and water cannon used by US police on over 2,000 students occupying university campuses across the country in protest over events in Palestine. Hundreds were arrested. Will those students risking their physical and reputational wellbeing be worth it? Will it change events in the Middle East? And, how can we know?

According to a 2020 report by CSIS (Centre for Strategic and International Studies, US), we are living in an age of global mass protests that are unprecedented in frequency, scope, and size. CSIS classifies all the reported protests in the last decade as part of a quickening trend, "eclipsing historical examples of eras of mass protest – the late-1960s, late-1980s, and early-1990s.” Uprisings such as the Arab Spring, they reckon, were not isolated phenomena but rather “especially acute manifestations” of that trend.

CSIS found that while each protest has a unique context, “Common grievances overwhelmingly centre on perceptions of ineffective governance and corruption as well as economic growth, worsening effects of climate change, and foreign meddling in internal politics via disinformation and other tactics.” CSIS forecasts that protests will continue to grow in number and intensity.

Both individual and mass protests are effective. Consider that in 1955, when Rosa Parks refused to relinquish her seat to a white passenger on a racially segregated Alabama bus service, it led to the 13-month-long Montgomery Bus boycott, which ended in the desegregation of public spaces and launched the civil-rights career of Martin Luther King Jr.

The 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom at which Rev King delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech led directly to the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

In Europe in 2018, the protests of schoolgirl Greta Thunberg, outside the Swedish parliament calling for a “school strike for climate,” triggered strikes in over 163 countries worldwide.

Also in 2018, the Arab Spring toppled several leaders, even if it led disastrously to the present instability in the region.

And, although over 2,000 US protesters were arrested following George Floyd’s death in 2020, his manslaughter brought policing under worldwide focus, triggered more protests and birthed the international Black Lives Matter movement.

In Trinidad and Tobago, we have had successful mass movements, but now we seem devoid of the appetite for protest, except for niche causes. Maybe we know that those with power can ignore us, since society has been successfully fragmented. along racial, religious, social, educational and party lines.

Let’s see if we can be moved to protest over the badly framed constitutional reform we have been promised.