Takin' it to the Streets

Perhaps not since the 1960s has the world witnessed so many large-scale demonstrations. In Iran, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Bolivia, Britain, Iraq, Haiti, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Spain, Algeria, Sudan, and other countries, vast throngs of protesters have taken to the streets to decry corruption, authoritarianism, and economic stagnation. The repercussions for the dissenters have included numerous cases of injury, imprisonment, and death.

The protest movements of 2019 and now into 2020 aren’t directly connected to one another, but the demonstrators—often younger people—share the belief that the older generations in power fail to appreciate the “fierce urgency of the now,” as the Rev. Dr.  Martin Luther King, Jr. once put it, or as Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg’s global environmental activism currently reflects.

Read the full article, "Takin' it to the Streets," written by Robert Polner