What point is Riley Stovka trying to make here? (Re: "Not all protest movements are created equal" in the May 2 edition). For a protest to be considered valuable and righteous, must a protester practice self-immolation?
That seems an extreme requirement given that one of the tenets of democracy is freedom of expression and right to protest. Who is allowed to anoint a belief as ‘righteous’?
Assuming that Stovka is referring to the protests which are currently dominating the news cycle, I would like to understand why he feels as though the anti-Vietnam war protests were righteous and the Palestine protests aren’t… In the 1960s, the civil rights movement was considered by many to be people making much to do about nothing. Without the dedication of people who championed their beliefs, those protests would have been looked back upon with the same mockery that Stovka seems to reserve for current political ideologies.
Jemma Cotton,
Airdrie, AB
