The right to protest, or the RIGHT protest?

MY REVOLUTIONARY friend, whom I love dearly, proposes three avenues to achieve change.

- ASHLEY GREEN-THOMPSON

The first is to influence - manipulate the ideas that dominate public discourse, which are positive about the change that is needed. So, the media, politicians, religious leaders and other authorities need to appreciate their influence on how people think and behave, and adjust what they say.

The second avenue, my revolutionary friend suggests, is to install a strong leader (a dictator?) who is not afraid to make difficult decisions and is not beholden to others to keep their position. The proviso is that there is a fail-safe mechanism to remove them from office once the change has been achieved. No lifetime presidency.

The third caught me unawares, as my radical friend is a democrat committed to human rights. They argued that a strategic act of violence that impacts the individual in authority would help focus that individual’s mind on the consequences of bad behaviour, or corruption, or failure to deliver on the promises they made. Consequence is key to accountability, and I think you’d be hard-pressed to find a right-thinking individual who hasn’t at some point thought of a strategic act of violence to shake up their local or national politician or civil servant.