‘You Go on One of These Protests,Your Child Could Get Hurt . . . ’ Fighting Political Fear and the ‘Sinister’ Narrative During the Irish Anti-Water Charges Campaign (2014–2016)

Factors in Creating the Sinister Narrative

Jeffries (2012) offers the view that a fundamental conceptual error lies at the heart of much of the literature on social and cultural fear in that there is an overreliance on a ‘cultural reproduction’ perspective, where fear engulfs all and that the social world is reducible to little more than ‘. . . those whose critical capacities are paralysed by fear and by those who are busy promoting it’ (p. 38). This particular cultural treatment of fear resides in considerations of risk, anxiety and modernity (Beck, 1997; Giddens, 1990), societal insecurity (Orton, 2015) or as a cultural expression of ‘political exhaustion’, where ‘politics has internalised the culture of fear’ (Furedi, 2005: 131). Yet, a core differentiation must be made between a politics that merely reflects a cultural angst, and one that is essentially an exercise in power geared towards subjugation and control. In addition, limiting political fear to a by-product of cultural reproduction removes any focus on agency and strategy and tellingly contributes to a dearth of research that examines resistance to fear (Jeffries, 2012). To counter this, Jeffries (2012) proposes a focus on how fear is experienced ‘differentially’, and, referencing the work of Jesús Martin-Barbero (1993), shows that fear narratives from above are mediated and interpreted through ‘everyday appropriations’ and crucially, such narratives are opened to ‘contestation and contradiction’ (p. 47).

In turn, the notion of ‘everyday appropriations’ carries a resonance with Debrix and Barder’s (2011) argument that as an exercise in power, political fear operates by highlighting threats of ‘. . . not being able to live one’s normal, regulated, or optimized life as a member of the public, population, or society’ (p. 59). The relationality of power, not least in the context of whose expectations of normal living is to be threatened, ensures that certain deployments of fear may be perceived as a public good (Johnson et al., 2020). Less benignly however, political fear in the guise of the sinister narrative represents an attempt at eliciting hegemonic compliance by seeking to create the conditions of ‘non-participation’ or demobilisation in the campaign in order to encourage a public quiescence with respect to water charges policy (Bachrach and Baratz, 1962; Gaventa, 1982). This is achieved by first framing the protests as dangerous spaces and ultimately through the threat of criminalisation of activists.

Generating political fear is a collective venture (Robin, 2004), requiring a ‘mobilisation of bias’, and constitutes ‘deviance framing’ (Gitlin, 1980), where the media gaze relies on the actions of protestors as ‘spectacle’ (Murray et al., 2016), rather than engaging in substantive issues that inform the campaign. For instance, Ashley and Olson’s (1998) examination of media framing devices deployed in the portrayal of the women’s movement in the United States between 1966 and 1986 demonstrate how the feminist movement was effectively marginalised and delegitimised as the movement was ‘treated with humour and puzzlement’ (p. 272). Meanwhile, Lynn and Williams’ (2018) research demonstrates how movements that are deemed as outsiders, who utilise ‘visible protest’ and are perceived as constituting a threat to the status quo, in this case Occupy Wall Street, are particularly vulnerable to being demonised by sections of the news media.

Within this context, the sinister narrative signifies an attempt at deviance framing that relies upon well-worn classed and gendered tropes. The narrative recalls characteristics of the ‘dangerous classes’, historical narratives that focus upon a politics that, according to Scheu (2011), represented ‘. . . threateningly perceived irrationality, excessiveness and violence . . .’ (p. 117) and is directly associated with working-class movements (Mulholland, 2012). In more contemporary contexts, such fears extend to the term ‘populism’ which carries with it more than a hint of the dangerous classes, incorporating hate, anger (Rudolph, 2021), racism and the pronounced threat of violence (Joosse and Zelinsky, 2022). Sitting alongside fear, contemporary narratives include a revulsion and stigmatisation of working-class communities, that become ‘symbolic and material scapegoats, the mediating agencies through which the social decomposition effected by market deregulations and welfare retrenchment are legitimized’ (Tyler, 2013: 9). Meanwhile, Ashley and Olson (1998) identify a gendered dimension to deviance framing where they pointedly argue that ‘the news coverage of women, not social protest, may be the operable flash point’ (p. 274). Tyler (2013: 164) specifically indicates in her research how ‘abjectification’ is meted out to working-class women, finding congruence with Lawler’s (2004) research that shows how deviance framing of working-class communities specifically vilified women for their bodily appearance, as well as their role as mothers. Lawlor concludes that such stigmatisation itself forms part of an ongoing narrative of working-class communities and families as ‘. . . a chaotic threat to the established order’ (Lawler, 2004: 118).

The sinister narrative itself is built upon an assumption that the ‘mob’ is populated exclusively by angry, working-class males and as such echoes Stabile and Rentschler’s analysis of crime-generated fear where such narratives rely heavily upon an ‘aggressive masculinity’ (Stabile and Rentschler, 2005). It is a fear, according to the authors, articulated from ‘white middle-class, heterosexual positions . . .’ particularly regarding ‘what to fear, who is the most fear inspiring, and how fear should be defined’ (Stabile and Rentschler, 2005: xii). Such narratives impact on female activism, according to Blais (2023), whose research on feminist activism in Quebec and Swiss Romandie identifies a ‘gendered dimension of feminist fear of police violence’ (p. 3). However, fear threats can also energise female activists, a point illustrated in Sandra Moran’s personal reflections on post conflict violence in Guatemala, where between 2000 and 2012, over 7000 women and girls were murdered (Jeffries, 2015:133). Violence and the threat of violence was utilised as a means of intimating and silencing Alianza Politica Sector de Mujeres – a prominent coalition of women’s groups. However, instead of surrendering to fear, the coalition organised a public demonstration, a move to highlight that the group would not be silenced or demobilised through fear.

Crucially, both deviance framing and stigmatisation have very real consequences, especially in contributing to the criminalisation of certain types of activism. For instance, the sinister narrative creates the fear threat of working-class activists as violent, hateful and posing a threat to expectations of normal living for the general public. This framing then leads to the almost inevitable threat of criminalisation being visited upon protestors, itself a fear narrative that seeks to create conditions for non-participation or demobilisation of activists. In this context, protesters become both the subject and object of fear and carry a certain resonance with Lynn and Williams’ (2018) research where media frames on the Occupy Wall Street movement emphasised ‘unruly’, ‘disorderly and illegal behaviour’ (p. 747) and ultimately led to arrests and criminalisation.

Challenging Fear From the Ground Up

While threats to normal living constitute the framing and substance of the sinister narrative, a reappropriation or reframing of normal living offers an important route to contesting fear. The notion of a ‘counter spectacle’ may be viewed, according to Woodworth (2015), as an indication that the ‘spectacle’ itself (in this case, the deviance framing of working-class protestors) is subject to a process of contestation and in the context of this discussion involves the use of visual imagery, messaging, humour and satire as a means of disrupting fear (McCrow-Young and Mortensen, 2021). Here, images and humour, particularly the use of irony, seek to depict narratives of normal or everyday living as a means of challenging deviance frames. The relatability of the counter spectacle plays a key role in its credibility, particularly in relation to ‘. . . how essential a movement’s ideals are in everyday life . . .’ (Harlow and Johnson, 2011: 1361). At times, counter spectacles involve what Spears et al. (2012) refer to as ‘undoing strategies’, where a proliferation of fear is undone by the reframing of a situation in a positive light; a focus on action-orientated problem solving; and finally, ‘infusing ordinary events with positive meaning through building social bonds or through good deeds’ (p. 81).

Along with its role in the promotion of counter spectacles, social media was utilised by anti-water charges campaigners in challenging mainstream media’ narratives (Silke et al., 2020), and crucially, in the creation of networks between local campaigns (Hearne, 2015). The impact of social media on campaigns and activism has been well documented elsewhere (Carty, 2002; Harlow and Johnson, 2011; Navumau, 2019; Sullivan et al., 2011). Yet, its overall significance remains very much contested within the literature and is evident in debates surrounding ‘slacktivism’, online activism that is ‘low-cost and low-risk’ (Schuman and Klein, 2015), but can negatively impact on a physical commitment to protest or struggle. For instance, Navumau’s (2019) research on the use of social media during the Belarusian Silent actions protest movement demonstrates the limits of its use where protesters succumbed to the notion that online support would translate to physical attendance at called protests, which simply did not happen. More critical assessments of slacktivism suggest that it amounts to little more than ‘. . . lacklustre support hidden under the guise of simple “shares”, “likes”, and “favorties” . . .’ (Cabrera et al., 2017: 400), while ‘slacktivists’ have become ‘. . . the epitome of lazy, self-serving digital acts conducted by a narcissistic, tech obsessed millennial’ (Madison and Klan, 2020: 32). In one sense, it is tempting to argue that the ‘slackivist’ discourse emerges as a reaction to an overly optimistic viewpoint on the potential of digital activism, evident in Jeremic’s (2019) assertion that ‘. . . digital public spheres transcend traditional public spheres that limit access and participation to become sites of struggle in which “the people” are generally able to participate with fewer barriers . . .’ (p. 111). Despite this initial promise, debates have, according to Hofheinz (2011), ‘. . . oscillated between the search for revolutionary developments and the admission that all too high hopes for radical techno-driven political change have not been borne out’ (p. 23). Yet, such oscillation misses the nuances of the use of social media in contemporary activist settings. To reduce all online activities to the status of slacktivism is ‘too simplistic’, while there must be an acknowledgement that its importance has been somewhat ‘overstated’ by certain commentators (Cabrera et al., 2017: 405–406). In this context, digital activism becomes a strategic option for movements, for instance, where physical protest is not an option, rather than a defining feature of a campaign. Ultimately, Freelon et al. (2020) make the argument that ‘digital political activities – including low-cost ones – are a complement to, not substitute for, their offline counterparts’ (p. 1197).

At a fundamental level, challenging political fear directly involves countering its isolating and individualising nature by mediating its effects through community and collective lenses. This requires something of a personal reckoning, particularly when confrontation with authority involves transgression of everyday norms. More pointedly, it involves making personal resolutions (for instance in a personal decision not to pay a bill or private anger/fear over the prospect of ongoing austerity), very public pronouncements through participating in visible protests and ultimately, in facing the threat of criminalisation when directly confronting the police. The nature of this latter threat is indicative of the debates on the role of repression as a determining factor in the mobilisation or demobilisation of individuals. According to Honari (2018), while there is no consensus, a common omission in the literature is to fully appreciate the role of agency within such scenarios. Honari (2018) highlights Jasper’s (2012) concept of ‘choice points’, ‘. . . dilemmas that an individual must solve with regard to how to respond to repression’ (p. 960) and can result, for instance, in deciding to refrain from protest, altering the nature of campaigning or even escalating activism. Writing from a Foucauldian perspective, Lilja and Vinthagen (2014) adopt the term ‘self-reflexiveness’ for this particular moment that is intrinsic in determining ‘. . . either to resist or to discipline and subjugate oneself in line with the current order’ (p. 112).

A key factor in determining such outcomes resides upon the visibility of a collective, political endeavour. Opposing political fear, as Jeffries (2015) points out, cannot rely upon the notion that ‘. . . we as individuals will be courageous’. Instead, ‘. . . interpersonal interactions mediated by social networks . . .’ become an important feature in opposing repression (Siegel, 2011: 993), offering a means of socially mediating individual responses to fear. This in itself is a recognition of the centrality of emotion in shaping activism, which is a relatively recent development, primarily driven by the women’s and LGBTQ movements of the 1970s and 1980s (Jasper, 2014). At a fundamental level, it is indicative of a rejection of a conceptual rational-emotional dichotomy within social movement literature (Eyerman, 2005) which allows for a focus on the management and mediation of emotions (including fear and anger) as a key dynamic in responding to repression, as well as determining mobilisation (Honari, 2018: 961).

The management of emotions seeks to ensure that even seemingly ‘negative’ emotions such as fear provide a rallying point for collective action. For instance, Griffiths (2017) points to how fear, along with ‘threat and humiliation’ of activists on the West Bank, becomes an important tool in resistance. Similarly, Kleres and Wettergren (2017), in their study on the emotional impact on climate activism, identify the central importance of social processes in emotional management and suggest that ‘. . . fear can motivate (rather than, as often argued, inhibit) action. Hope is essential in this because hope manages fear . . .’ (p. 508). The idea of hope managing fear points to another important feature of emotion management within movements. Blais (2023), in her research, observes that initial fear quickly gives way to anger or indignation. In other words, as a mobilising factor, ‘. . . fear is rarely felt in isolation . . .’ (p. 5), instead forming a part of ‘emotional sequences’, where ‘. . . fear sometimes occurs first, giving way to anger . . .’ (p. 6). Therefore, fear, along with anger, hope or confidence, becomes a potential ‘catalyst’ for collective responses and actions (Jeffries, 2015; Van Ness and Summers-Effler, 2018). As such, shared emotional responses provide a collective, mediating mechanism for challenging political fear and becomes a fundamental block to developing solidarities, where ‘every demonstration of shared anger or hatred towards a policy or a group reinforces the reciprocal emotions: they feel the same way I do, they must be good people . . .’ (Jasper, 2014: 209).

Jasper’s (2014) observation of the role of emotion in contributing to solidarity points to a final, salient feature in relation to the sinister narrative, that is, the contested and seemingly contradictory manner in which the expression of certain emotions are effectively legitimatised or otherwise, through framing and political processes. In the context of this study, eliciting emotions for the purpose of creating conditions for quiescence and non-participation in relation to the anti-water charges campaign is framed as a legitimate, public good. At the same time, the sinister narrative derives much of its political vitality by appealing to the threat that emotions and emotional responses pose to the stability of normal living. The notion of the irrational and the dangerous, of emotions of the darkest kind, is firmly linked with the protestors themselves and sits in contrast to the framing of rational, reasonable policy initiatives that the introduction of water charges represent. Anger in particular would appear to play into the sinister narrative, given that, as Lyman (2004) claims, it can be readily used to frame groups and individuals in terms of ‘loss of control’ or ‘emotionalism’ (p. 143). As such, the weaponisation of what is deemed illegitimate emotional responses feeds into Lyman’s (2004) argument that such a move is simply a political strategy ‘. . . that justifies domination by silencing the voices of the oppressed’ (p. 134). Yet, as Stapleton and Dawkins (2022) contend, anger is readily sewn into liberal democracy as it is commonly utilised by elites to fuel the rage of supporter, where stoking ‘congealed anger’ becomes a stable of ‘the everyday activities of political parties’ (Ost, 2004: 230). Therefore, the contested nature of the social mediation of emotions becomes a crucial battleground in confronting political fear.

Moving From Anger to Deconstructing Fear

Interviews with protestors and organisers focused on the use of political fear during the campaign and, importantly, how fear threats were challenged and overcome. Initial responses to threats of water scarcity and to reduce non-paying households water pressure to a trickle produced an angry response. For instance, one research participant recalled the reaction to the ‘trickle’ threat thus – ‘working class communities will bristle at that, you know, absolutely bristle at that’. Another respondent observed that ‘these threats though kinda made the movement stronger because these were ordinary people being threatened . . .’ Other respondents pointed out how the threats associated with the government’s approach to water charges and austerity in general, effectively, in the words of one respondent, ‘politicised’ them. Another recounted how physically witnessing their own father being intimidated by the Gardai led to a realisation – ‘. . . it opened my eyes to political power and establishment and the fear they can put into people, you know, I was like, fuck . . . and this is only water charges!’ Ultimately, one national organiser suggested that ‘. . . a lot of people were pissed off and way more likely to listen to us’.

Moving from this, one research participant was keen to point out the central importance of actively ‘deconstructing’ fear threats. Here, the campaign made use of social media as a way of challenging narratives and offering an alternative framing of issues, with one national organiser stating that the anti-water charges campaign ‘. . . was the first mass campaign in Ireland where social media was extremely widely utilised’. Social media assumed a number of core functions for the campaign, including as a means of organising local activism (which is discussed below) as well as coordinating larger, national days of action. It was also used as a means of monitoring the movements of meter installers and as acted as an instant rebuttal tool to government and news media claims. According to one respondent, ‘. . . every time that the media came out, we’d come up with a political or economic statement. We’d come up with one to counteract that . . .’.

Activists devised a number of ways of both deconstructing and reframing the sinister narrative, specifically targeting aspects that sought to portray working-class activists as inherently violent and, by extension, male. One respondent identified the assumption that working-class protestors were ‘. . . these big burly men’ and it was males that were targeted for arrest during the Jobstown protest. The involvement of women in all aspects of the campaign, however, including confrontations with meter installers and Gardaí, directly challenged this gendered narrative with one respondent claiming – ‘. . . it was women. . . . it was like, deck chairs out, cheese, mugs, coffee out, and you ain’t getting in . . .’. One of the more visible features of certain local campaigns was the ‘pink Ladies’ (Hearne et al., 2020), women who dressed in pink high-viz’ jackets and played a prominent role in protests and vigils outside police stations. The ‘pink ladies’ played a key role of in confronting the ‘fear of working-class males’ narrative, with one research participant stating ‘. . . we had to deliberately set up like the pink vests, the pink vest ladies as a way to say, we’re not a sinister fringe. And it worked in our favour’. Elsewhere, the use of humour, music and spectacle were used to counter the notion that the protests were inherently dangerous spaces. On national days of protest, a concerted effort was made to create a family-friendly atmosphere. According to one national organiser,

. . . I remember we posted a video of an old couple dancing, like ballroom dancing at the front of the stage. And we remember posting on to the Right2 Water page . . . and . . . here’s the sinister fringe at today’s protest . . .

Building Confidence and Solidarity

The term ‘confidence’ was specifically mentioned several times by respondents in discussions on overcoming fear. One research participant who was involved at both local and national levels stated:

We had to explain to people that you can actually and effectively resist this with non-payment. Simple messages and slogans around those things I think gave people confidence.

Yet, in a very real way, fear threats operated at an individual level and appeared to be most effective on those who would have been isolated from the physical protests, for instance, through location or age. Some respondents intimated to the individualising nature of fear, both from the perspective of being confronted by it and then making the decision to challenge it. For instance, one participant recounted the following:

I was . . . going door to door, a very rural area, and it was an older woman. She said, ‘I really don’t want to pay it. . . . I don’t want to do this but I’m afraid’. . . .

Here, social media played a key role in challenging narratives from sections of the news media that sought to downplay the size and significance of turnout numbers. As one respondent put it,

. . . when you’re an old-age pensioner, you’re living out in the country, you’re listening to the radio whose saying that there are 5,000 to 15,000 people in Dublin. It’s not a great turnout. . . . But then, when you’re on social media, you’re looking at thousands going by.

However, even those who were directly involved in the local protests were not immune from personal fears that came with joining the anti-water charges campaign. One respondent recalled fearing for her job if she was arrested as part of engaging in protests and recounted anxiously waiting to see whether the Gardaí would call to her place of work in order to question her. Another research participant alluded to the view that the issue of confidence itself was sometimes overlooked by more experienced activists, acknowledging the quite significant psychological barrier that novice protestors faced, particularly in confronting the Gardaí –

. . . you kind of forget that the first time you did that, you know, were afraid. . . . I’d forgotten that, that the Guards [Gardaí], the sight of the Guards, intimidates, um, you know, people who aren’t used to political activism, they, they think it’s game over.

Social media was identified in playing a key role in developing networks of support between local campaigns, and by extension, building confidence. As respondent put it, ‘the big thing for me was that people were able to build personal connections with each other and networks . . . which allowed the campaign to be mobilised and responsive to what was going on the ground’. Social media’s benefits in building confidence and a sense of community also had its limits, with research participants were keen to point to more ‘traditional’ modes of organising and campaigning. One research participant reflecting on the limits of social media in this regard –

. . . if people come to a meeting, they’ve committed to something, at least, you know, they’ve physically gone somewhere . . . you know, it’s a degree of commitment. Social media is just too easy. Sometimes, you know, you click a ‘like’ button and you share, you know, you can be uninvolved and you’re kind of expecting others to do the, you know, the, the graft on the ground.

As a result, the use of social media was augmented by other campaigning tools such as leafletting. Face-to-face contacts were also vitally important, as one respondent recounted, ‘. . . it was so regular. It was meetings every week. It was, it was door to door . . .’ Yet another respondent pointed out the importance of ‘building for real life events’ and summed up the impact of physical interaction on confidence-building thus –

. . . getting people together in big meetings in local communities, lots of local street meetings, and big demonstrations gave people confidence. They looked around and saw their neighbours and friends were planning to resist this and it gave them confidence to join them.