ANDREW AZZOPARDI

3. YOUTH ACTIVISM
Social Movements in the Making or in the Taking?

INTRODUCTION

Youth activism as a social phenomenon was defined in the mid- to late-

nineteenth century when young people began forming labor strikes in
response to their working conditions, wages, and hours. Mary Harris
“Mother” Jones organized the first youth activism in the U.S., marching
100,000 child miners from the coal mines of Pennsylvania to the U.S. Capitol
in Washington, D.C. in 1908. Youth newspaper carriers soon followed. …
Youth Congress presented a “Bill of Youth Rights” to the US Congress.
Their actions were indicative of a growing student movement present
throughout the US from the 1920s through the early 1940s. The 1950s saw
the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee bring young people into
larger movements for civil rights. In 1959, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
engaged youth activists in protesting against Bull Connor’s racist law
enforcement practices in Birmingham, Alabama. Coupled with the youth
activism of Tom Hayden, Keith Hefner and other 1960s youth, this laid a
powerful precedent for modern youth activism. John Holt, Myles Horton and
Paulo Freire were each important in this period.
(Accessed on 12/7/2013 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_activism)
These last years have been particularly eventful in terms of direct action. We have
seen protests spread like wild fire for so many different reasons across the whole
World, or most of it. The Arab Spring, the protests in Brazil, Italy, US, UK, Egypt,
Turkey, Russia, Ireland, France amongst other. Issues are as varied as they come,
fluctuating from economic matters to human and/or civil rights, minority issues,
voice, representation, participation, nonconformity, insurgence against the system,
feelings of being short-changed, violence and discontent with the institutions. This
is direct action that is essentially addressing corruption, social and environmental
snags.
Young people are the protagonists in this discourse of resistance and seem to be
aware of the struggle for public space, ‘fighting’ to reclaim the ‘legroom’ that will
contribute to helping them access society. They are increasingly conceptualising
transformations and reacting to them due to their awareness of democratic values,
human rights, freedom of expression and at the same time all of this is blended
with the opportunity to connect and change their communities (Azzopardi, 2010).
Probably the biggest bone of contention remains the side-lining of young people in

A. Azzopardi (ed.), Youth: Responding to Lives, 45–56.

© 2013 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
ANDREW AZZOPARDI

the development of policy (Foucault, 1977). This adds to more frustration brought
about by a lack of voice and the opportunity to contribute.
Society finds it difficult to appreciate that young people have a mind of their
own and that community-led resistance lies in their determination and conviction to
design, enact and challenge the status quo (Berner & Phillips, 2008). Young people
are possibly at the centre of such events leading often powerful social movements
focused on vigour and protest (Suri, 2005) that are pivotal in the transformation of
human history by using the language of dissent. One can easily claim that young
people have always distinguished themselves as being deeply and fundamentally
important to every progressive movement (Shaw, 2001).
Designed to protect the existing political order and repress movements for
change, détente gradually isolated politics from the public. The growth of
distrust and disillusion in nearly every society left a lasting legacy of global
unrest, fragmentation, and unprecedented public scepticism toward authority.
(Accessed on 13/7/2013 http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=
9780674017634)
Having young people lead the way brings about change and transformation for
innumerable reasons. Essentially, the key perspectives of youth agency and
involvement seem to be transposed across different cultures and different agendas
(Azzopardi, 2012). It is a fact that young people can be powerful agents of social
change and are often at the forefront of these social movements (Reed, 2005).
The concept of citizenship … becomes a means of not only choosing who fits
in a nation state but also dictates the degree of ability that people have to
shape the state they are part of. (Bugeja 2011, p. 16)
Youth can voice truth to power, in ways their peers can hear (Azzopardi, 2011).
Young activists often engage in speaking up about such issues as human and civil
rights collectively. What is characteristic of young people’s engagement in such
movements is their ability to operate outside formal channels. This contrasts
heavily with public opinion that tends to perceive young people as disengaged and
completely disinterested. Evidence keeps surfacing that young people are at the
forefront as powerful social movement actors (Brown & Isaacs, 2005).
Protesting against the establishment is not a new phenomenon. Indeed,
throughout history one finds countless episodes of ordinary people using
collective action outside of the established political institutions to express
discontent, or try to bring about social change (Zinn, 1999; Buechler, 2000).
It seems that today it is an even more common occurrence. One needs only
open the newspaper to learn that somewhere, whether on the other side of the
globe or right outside one’s street, there are people acting in unison on a wide
variety of issues (Crossley, 2002). Whether in the form of the indigenous
Zapatista movement in the jungles of Mexico, anti-globalisation
demonstrators outside global trade meetings or far-right groups mobilising

46