The problem with the message is not the messengers but the delivery. In the US it has been a mess. There is one person in charge, the Commander in Chief, yet no one has organized to focus all their attention on the White House by surrounding it with small printed signed all the same that say “Stop the Genocide Biden.” Instead, the widespread opposition is scattered around the country, and on college campuses they are saying “divest from the university, and stop by Starbucks coffee.” Ugh. The solution is political because only politicians command war. Corporations don’t care by law in the US. They must by law return value to shareholder and that is their only obligation. Their lawyers know this and their CEO, and they follow the the law.
The UK, with the same peaceful intent, has had what looks like from here less violent opposition by the police. But the saying “Not in my name” deflects the blame, doesn’t what is not in their name, and whose name and why. There is no focal point. The message, “King Charles Stop the Genocide” and surrounding Buckingham Palace with that message and only that message on a printed poster board would work. Stay silent, hold up the sign for an hour. He is technically Head of the Military, and again the attention is deflected away from him for 300 years so the British believe that he has no real power, is symbolic, and his title is not technical and legal. It is. Gaslighting since 1660 when Charles II overthrew the democracy set up by the people has been highly effective and has erased UK history. And it doesn’t matter what they believe if they can focus all the blame on him it is still a symbolic victory. You can rid of the PM but you can’t get rid of the King, so the stain stays.
When your message is unfocused, and everyone is holding random cardboard signs with different messages and no call to action, then there is nothing that will happen except unfocused political pressure. That’s good, but it’s tolerable. If people really believe there is a genocide taking place (which they do) then they need to act to stop it, not to appear with no call to action, various signs, and blaming no individual as though they don’t know that military action is carried out by the heads of government. “Stop the Genocide King Charles” or Biden in a focused and unified message works. The campaigns of Martin Luther King or Gandhi were effective because there was training to remain peaceful, to cooperate with authorities and how not to, how to link arms to prevent inside agents implanted by the government into the protestors from starting violence to “activate” the police into violent response justifying that the use of force and allowing political leaders to blame the protestors for unruly student rioting and discrediting them. Mohammed Ali didn’t stop the war, though I greatly admire his braveness and we need much more of it from popular people.
Right now there is no discipline and not focal point for the silent message, and no one the protestors are pinning the blame on, and even the term “ceasefire” is not nearly as strong as blaming the King or President for the genocide, which they are and it is blame focus on the right person. It is. None of the protestors have leadership and ability to focus with a sharp unified vision. On the other side, Netanyahu has internally successfully organized campaigns to connect the Holocaust to October 7, making his continued “reaction” in the mind of the general population of Israeli almost unimpeachable. His focused, organized, and disciplined to stay on message. And he is winning. Evil is organized, peace is often not.
Being right morally does not mean highly organized governments who are in the wrong will back down. If you don’t blame the leaders, naming names, then no one is guilty and there is no genocide they have to answer for.
