Critics have missed the point of annoying protests — they’re meant to be annoying
Shouting at the King during an official reception may be impolite, but it grabs international attention. And that is the whole point of protest, something many critics seem to have forgotten.
Most people in the UK would not have heard of Lidia Thorpe until this week. Some people in Australia might envy them.
In Australia, Thorpe is often dismissed as a professional agitator, loudly protesting to grab as much attention as possible — something she certainly managed when she heckled King Charles at Parliament House in Canberra.
Thorpe is a senator, in the upper house of Australia’s federal parliament, and one of the loudest activists demanding action on Indigenous rights.
Elected as a Green candidate, she broke with them last year over the party’s support for the Indigenous Voice to Parliament — a plan to set up a body to advise politicians on how their laws impact Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
The proposal was rejected in a referendum, but Thorpe argued The Voice was insufficient, and that instead those who colonised Australia should agree a treaty with the descendants of the people whose land was stolen.
Much of the press coverage of Thorpe's protest has centred on its “disrespect” to a visiting dignitary. Thirty years ago, Charles was shot at during a visit to Sydney, so arguably being shouted at for a few seconds was probably not that big a deal.
The political fallout has verged on the ludicrous. In 2022, Thorpe got into trouble for trying to swear allegiance to “the colonising Queen Elizabeth” as she entered Parliament — this week she tried to argue she had pledged herself to the late Queen’s “hairs”, not “heirs”, leading some to suggest her position in the Senate may be invalid.
(There is, by the way, no provision to expel members from Australia’s parliament)
Angry protest leads to angry reaction leads to more anger — but is any of it constructive?
Attention-grabbing stunts tend to grab attention
If Lidia Thorpe’s purpose was to spark a debate in the UK on Britain’s role in the colonisation of Australia, and the injustices served on its Indigenous population, job done.
Britain’s media would not have spent one minute discussing those issues this week if she hadn’t shouted at the King, prompting a wave of “who is this Lidia Thorpe?” articles that can’t then avoid at least mentioning the issues behind her protest.
And while her actions were less of a surprise in Australia, it did put the issue of Indigenous rights back on the front pages.
The furious denunciation of disruptive protest tends to miss the point — protests are meant to be disruptive, meant to grab your attention, meant, sometimes, to inconvenience and annoy you.
In Australia, that means Lidia Thorpe. In the UK, it’s Just Stop Oil — you may think throwing soup over a priceless painting or glueing yourself to a road a childish prank, but those doing it would trace a line going back to the suffragette movement.
For some, it’s counter-productive, turning them against the cause that inspired such disruptive action. But even getting angry at protestors is a response that requires you to at least think about the issue.
That, frankly, is why they do it.
