The Million Mask March happened this week, with mixed success. It was a significant victory in terms of mass participation and organisation, but what about the message?
Now that the event has passed, many want to know where this movement is heading, and more crucially – can it achieve its aims?
21WIRE’s Patrick Henningsen looks at what happened on the ground, and also poses some interesting questions about what the Guy Fawkes mask really represents in 21st century counter-culture…
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Can the Million Mask March turn a vendetta into a victory?
.Patrick Henningsen
RT.com
…Despite the media blackout, this one was still hard to miss – an international Million Mask March organized by demonstrators around the globe and fronted by the hackivist confab known as Anonymous.
The million masks they are referring to are that of the Guy Fawkes caricature made hugely famous by the blockbuster film, “V for Vendetta,” which was adopted as the public face of hacker group Anonymous.
Marches took place at 450 locations in cities all over the world. Different regional groups had various, long lists of grievances, but you could boil it down to systemic corruption throughout government and censorship in the media – all for the benefit of corporations. It’s hard to argue that this isn’t the case everywhere.
Sparse mainstream media coverage of one of the largest events, in central London, was almost exclusively fashioned around celebrity personalities in attendance, like Russell Brand, who could be seen tweeting from Trafalgar Square, and who, amidst all the Guy Fawkes masks and black balaclavas – provided a recognizable anchor for media photographers and journalists.
At first, I was skeptical of this march for a number of reasons, not least of all because of the opaque nature of this version of civil disobedience – hiding behind a mask. Beyond the Hollywood references, what does it really mean?…
Continue this article at RT.com
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