Much of the civil rights movement was based on this premise, that when the police or regime paramilitaries come and engage in brutality, it makes sympathists of bystanders, activists of sympathists and militants of activists. This is COIN 101.
(In the case of counter insurgency, the model reminds the state not to let their police be brutal with the protesters, but putting down the resistance is through hearts and minds. But authoritarian states don’t usually listen to counter-insurgency experts, and in fact, enjoy seeing their troopers stomp on heads.)
To be fair, another part of the Civil Rights strategy was then to take police departments to court, and get their municipalities to pay for damages. That way, it hurt the institution, and the administrators would feel it and turn to discipline the police department.
But now we’re in an age of ubiquitous phone cameras and an internet where video can be directly streamed. And that amplifies the recruitment effect when police get brutal on video. In fact, I think this is why the various nations are trying to lock down the internet through age verification (de-anonymizing) and saturation with slop. Seeing people on the ground get hurt is visceral and develops support for social movements from across the world.
Sometimes the point of a protest is to put yourself in a position to get knocked down.
Much of the civil rights movement was based on this premise, that when the police or regime paramilitaries come and engage in brutality, it makes sympathists of bystanders, activists of sympathists and militants of activists. This is COIN 101.
(In the case of counter insurgency, the model reminds the state not to let their police be brutal with the protesters, but putting down the resistance is through hearts and minds. But authoritarian states don’t usually listen to counter-insurgency experts, and in fact, enjoy seeing their troopers stomp on heads.)
To be fair, another part of the Civil Rights strategy was then to take police departments to court, and get their municipalities to pay for damages. That way, it hurt the institution, and the administrators would feel it and turn to discipline the police department.
But now we’re in an age of ubiquitous phone cameras and an internet where video can be directly streamed. And that amplifies the recruitment effect when police get brutal on video. In fact, I think this is why the various nations are trying to lock down the internet through age verification (de-anonymizing) and saturation with slop. Seeing people on the ground get hurt is visceral and develops support for social movements from across the world.