The Enormous Power of Symbols
Symbols speak to the human need for flourishing
“History shows that all protest movements rely on symbols — boycotts, strikes, sit-ins, flags, songs. Symbolic action on whatever scale — from the Montgomery Bus Boycott to wearing a simple wristband — is designed to disrupt our everyday complacency and force people to think.”(Hugh Evans, Australian humanitarian)
China has been rocked by rare public protests over the country’s draconian Covid-related lockdowns, which have heaped misery on ordinary people’s lives. Sometimes, people in a city have to spend months in their homes.
The protesters do not carry placards, they wave pieces of blank A4 white paper.
The blank paper is a symbol of people’s resistance against censorship. The Chinese censors will not allow any written criticism of the government.
“The white paper represent everything we want to say but cannot say.”(Chinese protester)
Dictionary.com defines a symbol as
“something used for or regarded as representing something else; a material object representing something, often something immaterial.”
Symbols evoke the power of silence, of the unstated powerful words. Sometimes, silence is more eloquent than noise.
