camped outside St Paul’s Cathedral.
“The current system is
unsustainable . It is undemocratic
and
unjust . We need alternatives… one of the protesters
said. Although they planned to stay indefinitely, police
evicted them in February 2012.
While the Arab Spring
and the Occupy
movement were about
different issues, they
did have one thing in
common. In both cases,
protesters used smart
phones, the internet and
social networking sites
to
spread the word . This
meant that the protests
grew very quickly
because people heard
about them
in real time ,
in particular via YouTube,
Facebook and Twitter. In
fact, the effect of social
networking was so great
that some governments
even shut off the internet
to stop protesters from
communicating with
each other. Previously,
news of protests spread
much more slowly, via
posters and word of
mouth.
Protesting is a very
powerful way for people
to show they’re unhappy
about something. And,
as recent events have
shown, the power of
protest is alive and
well thanks to mobile
phones, the internet in
general, and sites such as
YouTube, Facebook and
Twitter.
GLOSSARY
the underlying cause n
the real/true reason
civil rights n
the rights that people have in society:
the right to equal treatment, equal
opportunities, etc.
segregation n
the practice of keeping people apart.
In some states of the US this was done
on the basis of race
a monopoly n
if a company has a “monopoly” on
something, they have complete
control of it
