The Death Knell of the Social Justice Movement

Government is the body that effects change in the country that it governs.

This simple point is so obvious that it goes without saying and yet it is too complicated a point for the leaders of the social justice movement to understand. As I listen to the attempts of the Social Justice movement to assert itself once again I am filled with remorse for a movement that had so much potential and yet has collapsed, perhaps under by the weight of its own success.

If tonight’s demonstration is anything to go by the movement is finished and is simply yet to lie down. I attended the demonstration but left near the beginning after a speaker insisted that all political placards were put down. The intrinsic contradiction of being at a demonstration, the purpose of which (by definition) is to effect political change only to be told that the whole endeavour is entirely non-political is such a ridiculous idea that I find it impossible to take the thing seriously. The leaders of it simply don’t know what they are doing.

The announcements to take down the placards went largely unheeded, a large bunch of Meretz banners were being shaken defiantly by some green T Shirt clad characters. Again I thought back to last year and and wished that at the critical moment Daphne Leef et al had engaged and linked the movement to a political party that would have given them the chance to actually have some kind of control over the changes that were, are being brought in as a result of the clear recognition of the country’s discontent.

The small demonstration held tonight that failed to bring the huge numbers of almost a year ago will serve not to frighten the government but embolden them with the knowledge that the movement that, at one point, had them on the run is now a spent force.