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I've been thinking about this a fair bit over the past couple of years. On May 15th 2020, I went to my first (ever) protest of any form. It was the day the real hardcore lockdown was lifted in Romania, and I was seething. I remember the protest vividly, and perhaps it's made bigger through a retrospective lens, but I figure there was a decent turnout that time. Enough to cause sizable disruption in the biggest intersection in Bucharest.
Since then, I've participated in dozens such protests, demonstrations, and marches, alongside family and friends who were, rightfully so, appalled by what was happening in the world. And much as I hoped we were making a difference... I don't think we were.

I was behind the "cause", but I was never delusional, and found it hard to believe that a couple hundred people protesting in the street would really make a difference before our government. Sure, the leaders of the protests would start the back-patting whenever some restriction or another was lifted or modified, but most likely, that decision had nothing to do with us, at all. It was just probably slated to happen that way.


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Last week, whilst in London, we attended a demonstration outside the UK Home Office, opposing the extradition of Julian Assange, a cause very dear to my heart. To say the turnout was infuriating would be a copious understatement, considering the sheer size of that city. As I walked among the British protesters, catching bits of conversations, I realized it was the exact same thing. Just a bunch of people for whom such protests have become routine. I'm not gonna lie, during the pandemic, the nigh weekly protests served as a chance to socialize and mingle, as much as an outlet for our frustration. And I imagine it was the same here?

I think the papers later reported a turnout of a few hundred for the Assange protest. I don't know about that. We got there about an hour after the protest was slated to start, due to Tube malfunction, but I wouldn't say there were more than 150 people on the scene. In a city of almost 9 million.

You'd have to be deluded, unfortunately, to believe so few could make a difference. It seemed clear that, should Assange's extradition be blocked by Patel, it would be a decision made behind the scenes, unrelated to the, what, handful of people protesting globally.


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For me, these protests matter, not only for myself, but also for my younger brother, who is 14 now. I feel it's important for children to be shown that you should speak out against what you find unjust. That if you don't, nobody will,and that, even if almost no one is with you, that doesn't make the thing you're protesting against any less unjust.

So maybe, that's the only true merit of such protests. Sure, today, we are but a few dozen. A couple hundred. But maybe that's worthwhile, maybe the protests of today matter, in the hope our children will retain the courage to make their voices heard. 

**Do our own voices matter? Maybe not today, but in the future, hopefully.**