The Fascination With Peril.

Is it decline, or just another protest?

Protests can be amazing catalysts for political change. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they are forgotten. Most of the ones that we refer to (or are taught) are the ones that worked. The others can be studied on the prison walls of the protesters who survived the riot but not the law. This is where the power of narrative comes in. The agitators have the demonstrative advantage but those who get to spin the narrative have the last say. In history textbooks we see leaders of successful riots and protests make speeches at the end that propel them into being leaders of their movements and eventually leaders of their societies. Nowadays, the verdict lies in the spin. Spin is what happens when the political connoisseurs use every rhetorical tool in their arsenal to write posts/articles, host debates, get on the news shows to push their version of what they think the protests represent.

The sights of the weekend of October 18th 2026, in France have been seared into our recent memories. France though famous for the art of protest has never quite sent shockwaves across the globe. Protests and riots were happening in other European countries such as Belgium, Italy, Spain and Albania but everyone is talking about France. The potency of the situation in France is largely about its potential for spin. The current electorate in France is quite similar to a lot of their neighboring countries and parallel western societies across the globe. The spinners know winning the narrative will have far-reaching effects not just in France but in Germany, Belgium, Italy, United Kingdom and even as far as the United States, Canada and Australia.

In 2020, the United States dealt with protests that ended up working against what the majority of the activists were after. Legal street demonstrations turned into opportunities for civil disobedience which necessitated the involvement of law enforcement and thus, bad press. These protests gave life to a lot of activists and pundits on the right. On January 6th 2021, a group of right-wing protesters stormed the Capitol building in protest of the election results. This was bad press for anyone even those who were moderately conservative. The country moved left. By 2024, economic uncertainty, cultural discord and state-sponsored military involvement had the country’s college students protesting in several campuses. Our president was aging and political vitality was in question. When everything got slung together the only element people seemed to have control over was the cultural discord, and the country moved a little to the right.

Nowadays, being on the right or the left bears no significant political advantage anymore because both camps are effectively just pawns in a bigger game. However, one thing that has been making its way into the hearts and minds of the vast majority of the Western electorate is the promise (or fear) of decline. This “decline” has become the favorite boogeyman of all scope minded commentators. We have the historians, political scientists, economists, religious fanatics all singing the hymn of decline because… what else?

But my question is, could they (or we) be mistaking uncertainty for decline? Are we mistaking ignorance for decline?

What happens when the main tool of activism – protest, no longer begets the results your history and civics classes taught you they would? Could it be that we are trying to make sense of our modern reality by an assessment of the selective history with were taught?

In France, the youth started the protests because they were no longer sure how to get their instructional needs met and the recent graduates had a gripe about what their overall options were. The politicians elected and appointed to office could no longer offer guarantees on how to meet these requests because their options available would not be tolerated by the electorate. They seem to be in a bind. Much of the electorate and elected of western nations are in a bind. Admitting it could be worse than admitting defeat. Thus, the only option left to bail us out of structural quagmire is a submission to DECLINE.

By Julian Michael Yong