The first book I read this year was Andreas Malm’s How to Blow Up a Pipeline, which details the merits and shortfalls of strategic violence and pacifism within the climate movement. I had initially learnt about the book when trying to read up on the FBI and other law enforcement’s warnings about the 2021 film it inspired. I had also just read an interview with Malm in which the interviewer blurted out a question that any sensible person would ask when confronted with the climate crisis, “Could you give me a reason to live?” I figured that maybe Malm’s writing might give me that. While I wouldn’t say it gave me a reason to live per se, it reinvigorated my activism and expanded my conceptions of what can be done. One of the arguments Malm decries for strategic pacifism is the notion that “the state loves a fight of arms [because] it knows it will win.” Malm argues that the state has an advantage not just in the domain of violence but in “virtually all” others like coordination, tangible resources, legitimacy and, most importantly for the purposes of writing this essay, the media. Any time the question of 'violence or nonviolence' arises—whether it be by the feminist, civil rights, climate movements and so forth—it is almost always accompanied by another question: What is violence?

One of the most important tools within the arsenal of activism is the protest. In most countries that call themselves democratic, all citizens have the right to protest. However, this right often comes with some stipulations, the most important one being that the protest remains peaceful. For this reason, protesting is probably the most eminent form of nonviolent action. Instead of literally blowing up pipelines, for example, we take to the streets and use our voices. One would think that surely, that is peaceful enough a course of action.

Unfortunately, there’s no such luck thanks to the weakly-formed definition of violence. Any protest can suddenly cross the line into “violent” territory even in the absence of any changes in strategy. What can be lauded as a peaceful protest today, can be considered violent barbarism tomorrow. On the flip side, what was violent barbarism in the past can be celebrated as legitimate protest today. The Suffragettes, who were dismissed and decried at every turn, are now celebrated for their heroic acts by the same apparatus that antagonised them in the past. Very importantly, however, it is to be noted that the suffragettes' more violent acts of protest have systematically been erased from pop history. From this example we can see that in the present day, the word ”protest” has undergone two linguistic processes: narrowing and pejoration. The narrowing can be seen through the loss of a wide variety of protests.

The average person sees the word “protest” and can usually only think of people with signs marching through the streets because that is all the press refers to as “protest” these days. The second process is pejoration which is when a word develops a negative connotation. By constantly interrogating whether protests are violent or not and over-reporting on friction during protests, the idea of it becomes a tricky, risky and dangerous thing. This framing of protest acts as a deterrent for some people who would otherwise also be fighting for change. State apparatus, much like a playground bully, enjoys the act of name-calling. They call us violent, riotous and criminal but that doesn’t necessarily mean that is who we are. When the playground bully decides to give you a nickname like Stinky, you don’t go by that name for the rest of your school days. You have your own name and that’s what you’ll continue to go by.