Unless you ’ve just of late thread out of a magical land , you ’ve in all likelihood note something about the human race : masses do n’t get along with each other all that well . Oh sure , in small chemical group , they ’ll contrive unbreakable Julian Bond of friendship andlove . In big numbers , they can even demonstrate remarkably tolerant at times . Nevertheless , in the remainder , the old byword hold true : You ca n’t please all of the people all of the clock time .
The tiny of military issue , such as take a pizza pie topping , can show violently divisive , and the big issues of religion , politics and human rights are the stuff and nonsense of unending warfare and long - standing cultural sectionalization . When man differ with a stance or policy maintained by either the social bulk or a kernel of political or economical baron , they often lift their vocalization inprotest .
The methods of protest vary greatly . One militant may create a stirring piece of artistic creation to highlight his or her cause , or a thousand activist may rally together in the street . Either agency , the aim is simple : Draw enough attention to a message , win over enough masses of your drive ’s moral superiority and you’re able to change the way a government , manufacture or society act and thinks .
But just how unified can such an argumentative species get ? If you look back through the chronological record of recorded history , what protestation has gather the declamatory number of multitude to a single stead ?
Read the next page to find out .
The Voice of Millions
TheEarthis presently home to an estimated 7 billion people , distributed among just about 240 state , 6,912 speech communication and more branch of religion and personal feeling than can be counted easily . Our numbers continue to acquire to this day .
Yet there are still events and causal agency that can combine simple 1000000 of us . war have long bring in together millions in pitched struggle . In 480 B.C. , the Persian Army marched into the Battle of Thermopylae with between 200,000 and 500,000 men . More than 2,000 years after , in 1943 , the Soviet Union ’s Red Army suffered more than a million casualties at theBattle of Stalingrad . Still , man often come together for reason that do n’t involve monumental invasions by foreign forces . During January 2007 , an guess 60 million Hindu Pilgrim gathered at the convergence of the Ganges and Yamuna river in northerly India for the Ardh - Kumbh Mela , or fete [ seed : BBC ] .
When it come to objection , the book of Guinness World Records currently heel the Feb. 15 , 2003 , Iraq War protest in Rome as the large antiwar mass meeting in history . The event drew an estimated crowd of 3 million . On that same day , protesters gather in virtually 600 cities in a coordinated planetary effort to express moral indignation against the U.S. encroachment of Iraq . This included a reported 1.3 million demonstrator in Barcelona , Spain , and between 750,000 and 2 million protesters in London [ sources : Guinness Book of World Records , BBC ] . All told , between 6 and 10 million people participated in the global protest [ source : BBC ] .
Of course , not all protests are rallies . During the early 20th century , Mahatma Gandhi led meg of Indians in protestagainst British dominion through disobedience . Amerindic public official leave office , parents withdrew their shaver from British schools and participants boycotted British goods . precise anatomy for such a movement are difficult to calculate .
Next we ’ll attend at the controversial 2012 anti - piracy bills that triggered the largest on-line protest in history .
The World’s Largest Online Protest
On January 18 , 2012 , the Internet proceed sour . OK , not precisely , but it matte up that mode to regular visitors to internet site like Wikipedia , Craigslist , Wordpress and Wired . These high - profile sites – and more than 100,000 others – shut out themselves down for the mean solar day to resist two bill in Congress that critic claimed would censor the Web and stifle foundation . The shuttering of so many eminent - traffic sites , and call to action by major players like Google , snowball into the gravid online protest in chronicle .
First , some setting : The two piece of proposed statute law were call the Stop Online Piracy Act ( SOPA ) and the Protect IP Act ( PIPA ) . Both bills were designed to fight the global epidemic of cerebral property larceny . booster of the broadsheet , like the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America , aim to the billions of dollars lost each year to file - share site that offer illegal downloads of movies and strain . SOPA and PIPA would give the U.S. Justice Department and copyright holder new tools to shut down these web site or at least bar advertisers and payment sites likePayPalfrom doing business with them [ generator : Plumer ] .
Under existing constabulary , live as the Digital Millennium Copyright Act , a vane site host right of first publication material receives a notice to take down the offending data file or be subject to effectual action . The enceinte problem with SOPA and PIPA , opponent take , is that the government note would give right of first publication possessor unfettered tycoon to shut down Web sites without warn or a court order . The result , critics fear , would be uncurbed censoring of small , out - gunned sites by big media role player . Opponents of the bill also wondered what would happen if media company begin " de - listing " offending Web sites from the cyberspace . Such tampering with the rudimentary computer architecture of the Internet touch off outcry that SOPA and PIPA would " break the cyberspace " [ germ : Yu ] .
The Senate was scheduled to vote on SOPA and PIPA on January 24 , 2012 . For month lead up to the right to vote , opposition Web website had prepare modest grassroots protests and town mansion meeting to draw attention to the bills and boost concerned citizens to meet their representatives . Still , by mid - January , only a smattering of senators had speak out in opposition of the legislation .
That would all change on January 18 . Thanks to the very public outage of Wikipedia and outspoken opposition byGoogle , nearly 10 million masses sign on-line petitions play off SOPA and PIPA . Over 4 million people send atomic number 99 - mails to their congressman and women . And almost a billion people were blocked from visiting " happen upon " Web sites . Dozens of senators apace withdrew their reenforcement for the flyer and the January 24th vote was suspended indefinitely .
Lots More Information
The first Amendment of the Constitution is dewy-eyed in its wording , yet heavy in its oscilloscope . In that single condemnation are saint the right of gratis speech , free press , freedom of faith and freedom of the people " peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievance . " As Americans , we respect the right field of any somebody or group to peacefully protest their suit , whether we agree with their posture or not . And through the powerful examples of Ghandi , Martin Luther King , and the Arab Spring uprisings , the world has witness the power of nonviolent dissent to move and remove governments . These freedoms are among republic ’s smashing gifts , and I ’m excited to see the populace transformed by peaceful protest rather than military interposition .
