raging against
notes on protests, journalism and democracy
Every time I listen to one particular playlist I find a part of me burning, it splurges out of me, a boiling rage. A reminder of my raison d’être, what I stand for and a deep nauseating feeling that somewhere along the line I lost track of who I was. I shiver in memories; screaming lyrics in a pounding crowd, like-minded, it was reassuring to know there were others.
There is an established connection between the music we listen to in our formative years and how it makes us feel. It reactivates memories, a buried part of ourselves resurfaces. Listening to RMA turns me back inside out, it is the playlist I made at university when I was the most engaged, my most authentic self in a way.1 Following my guts and values, burning for my passion, waking up at dawn, maybe still a little bit tipsy, yet in always reading the news or a book.
Recently, two distinct yet intricate events enraged me. The violent repression of the student protests, and someone bragging about how happy they were now they had stopped reading the news. I may be reaching but all I can see are symptoms of the democratic decline and the diseased freedom of the press. A dichotomy between fiery anger, stirred up by dusty governments, and the over-coddling of ourselves, living in ignorance for the sake of peace.
The student protests against the genocidal war on Palestine are now reaching our coasts and with it, the violent and undemocratic repression of peaceful protests.2 It tears me up writing this, thinking about the shattering state of our democracies. Truly, a broken generation evolving in a state of constant crisis.
At Columbia, a university renowned for its journalism program, where the protest over the war in Gaza started, the police have violently arrested protestors and reportedly threatened some student journalists. Now, tell me if I’m wrong but as students in journalism, seeing their university invested in Israel - a government currently murdering thousands of people, including over 90 journalists, has to sting, to say the least.
Then there’s that note I read on substack, someone bragging about how they gave up on reading the news. It had, at the time, over 100 likes and comments - all applauding the decision. I’ve heard a lot of people proclaiming similar ignorance is bliss mantra and, to be controversially mean, I find it pathetic. I understand people taking breaks from the ever cycle of the media, it’s good for your brain for sure, for sure. But claiming loud and proud ignorance is bliss, that you avoid the news because it makes you sad? Get out.
We sit and watch our dance of death
As we slowly drown in this selfishness
This is the end, you're one of us
I can't go out like them, better ash than dust
Better ash than dust
Pursuing journalism in a quest to understand and a passion for democracy, a bit too fiery at times, I always thought we, as citizens, had a role to play no matter how small.3 A lot of us grew up in a democracy, a recent and fragile concept. It requires a lot of work from informed and educated citizens and willing politics, to function. The state of it, as we enter the mother of all elections year, is in disarray. We have become lazy, resting on our acquired laurels, forgetting to put in the work, and some people have noticed. Fucking authoritarian predators, jumping at its throat.
In a bedroom in the middle of nowhere, I feel so powerless and that has never been who I longed to be. I spent the last few years looking at myself a little too much, in a race for self-optimisation, it’s so easy to drown out the noise and get comfortable, to turn off the world and be content. But I read the news and I scream, like a football fan at their TV, powerless in front of the scenes developing on our screens.
Yet I rise, ashes burning, a vibration in my guts. I’m ready to scream again.
/extra notes/
sickening memories surge of my time as a student in journalism, of ISIS beheading journalists and attacking the Charlie Hebdo office in Paris
democracy can only work if citizens are properly informed and educated
maybe if journalism and the media were better people would actually inform themselves, but for that the industry needs money
in 2024 about 49% of the population is heading to the poll, i hope politicians can find inspiration in the protests and get their shit together
on a recent call, a friend told me she always saw me as the most passionate about journalism and it made by day. honestly, it transpires, bleeds out of me
it is absolutely crucial to understand how good of a system democracy is, at a time when people are increasingly seduced by authoritarianism
/sources + resources/
The Ultimate Election Year: All the Elections Around the World in 2024, by Kow Ewe for Time, 28 December 2023
Israel’s alarming shutdown of Al Jazeera, by Nicole Narea for Vox, 06 May 2024
The lessons from colleges that didn't call the police, by Abdallah Fayyad for Vox, 03 May 2024
What the backlash to student protests over Gaza is really about, by Ellen Ioanes and Nicole Narea for Vox, 03 May 2024
Why music causes memories to flood back, by Marlene Cimons for The Washington Post, 26 February 2023
Why impact of Israel-Gaza war has become harder to document, by the CPJ, 06 May 2024
I’ll get back to this in a few weeks, spoiler: it’s a scam.
Not that the British government waited for that to repress our freedom of protest.
I know, I know, democracy is the best system by default of any other, it’s the tyranny of the majority….
loved this!! last year i graduated with my BA in journalism and i’ve always held journalists in such high esteem. i’m right in that boat with you — frustrated about the state of the world, wishing for better days ahead, and stuck with an awful taste in my mouth about how student journalists are being treated. i’ve been trying to remind myself that our power is in our words and we are using them to support and lift up those who might not be able to do it for themselves, and to turn on the news (even if it is full of hopelessness from time to time) and remind myself that there are great journalists out there fighting that fight.