A list of demonstrations planned around the world against the war on Ukraine

This raises the most cynical of questions for me. Is "protesting" even a thing any more?

I grew up in an era when the Greenham Common Women were on TV nightly. Month after month they protested, until eventually their demands to remove US nukes were heard. Protest was not merely acceptable, it was a middle-class duty from the heart of Britain.

As a young adult I marched in London with a million people against Iraq II. The result; absolutely jack diddley squat! Lots of drums, lots of face-painting but I most remember row upon row of police photographing the crowds, intimidating peaceful families trying to express their preference for not bombing a city full of civilians. The media coverage was muted and dishonest, and our government were intransigent.

Since then there's been a slow and steady war in the UK, against protest. A trickle, then a torrent of legislation and surveillance measures designed to make the most law-abiding and upstanding citizens feel afraid.

From talking to my students I know that 20 - 30 year-olds simply do not believe in street protest as a worthwhile endeavour. They live in a culture of learned helplessness, in fear of the face recognition cameras, the drones and helicopters, and what that might mean to their job prospects. We've stymied our own liberal values more than some tyrannies have, and now the West would benefit from great spectacle of opposition, who will come?

Let's all change our profile pictures, join hands and sing kumbaya too.