Peter Jones

Is there any point to protests?

[Getty Images] 
issue 18 November 2023

Street protests are all the rage at the moment. Among the crowds marching up and down in London, there are those holding up banners urging Palestinians to destroy Israel. When ancients protested, they did so to serve their own interests.

Athenians did not need street protests. They invented democracy (508 bc), and all male citizens, meeting in Assembly, debated their protests there.

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