Unpaid lady health workers, a slow investigation of a target killing, electricity breakdowns — regardless of the cause, the protests are usually all the same: burning tyres or buses, pelting stones, closing main roads. The message is lost in the rioting and its management by the state.

How do the silenced speak when there is none to speak for them? It requires creative thought to ensure the message is communicated.

In the Bhutto era, when Section 144 was imposed banning the assembly of five or more people, the lawyers made an effective protest: four lawyers followed at a 20-foot distance by another four in a long procession along the road, not breaking any law, not stopping the traffic and yet having an impact. More recently the ‘Fix It’ movement has been effective in getting the authorities to repair manholes.

The poet Shelley wrote The Mask of Anarchy in 1832 that may be the first manifesto of peaceful resistance, asking protesters to “Stand ye calm and resolute” and “Look upon them as they slay/ Till their rage has died away.”

Peaceful resistance in the form of Satyagraha and civil disobedience was adopted by freedom movements in India, the American civil rights movement, conscientious objectors, anti-Vietnam War sit-ins, at the time of Egyptian independence from the British, South Africa’s war against apartheid, Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution and many more.

There have been many effective ways of protest that gave little opportunity for violent suppression. While the individuals initiating it may have been persecuted, the message was spread peacefully.

These strategies, however, do assume violent suppression by the state such as during the Palestinian Intifada or the single Chinese man who stood in front of tanks in Tiananmen Square.

In a world stained red with war and violence, we no longer have the appetite for voluntary bloodshed.

There have been many effective ways of protest that gave little opportunity for violent suppression. While the individuals initiating it may have been persecuted, the message was spread peacefully: the Avaaz signature campaigns, Green Peace activism, boycott of products, Banksy’s graffiti, Ben Shan posters, Maya Angelou poems, Billie Holliday’s song Strange Fruit or Nina Simone’s song Mississippi Goddam that became a key part of the civil rights movement, the poems of Faiz and Jalib, a poem on a rickshaw, Francisco Goya’s war paintings, Wilfred Owen’s poems, John Lennon’s song Imagine to name a few.

The work songs and ‘hollers’ of slave chain gangs, the simple act by Rosa Parks of refusing to give up her seat on the bus to a white passenger after the white section was filled, the Toyi-toyi feet stomping and chanting dance of South Africa protesters, emboldened leaders to speak out.

The hurling of two shoes at President Bush by Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi, one a farewell kiss from Iraqi people, the other one for the widows and orphans, made something simple like a shoe an important symbol of indignation. One may even interpret Qandeel Baloch’s infamous Facebook account as a bid for personal freedom. In our times, mass movement is easily achieved via the internet, WhatsApp or SMS. We should need no water cannons or rubber bullets. A virtual call for a four-day boycott of overpriced fruit in Karachi this Ramazan was surprisingly effective.

There have been many creatively conceived protests. For example the women of Pinochet’s Chile quilted images of missing sons. Peruvians gathering to wash the flag tarnished by dirty politics; women beating empty pots and pans in many countries and cities from Venezuela to Faisalabad; thousands of pairs of shoes in Paris’ Place de la Republique when the French government banned large scale protests at the Climate Change Summit; around 250 bottles of hand sanitiser been given to Mark Elliot Zuckerberg before he met Narendra Modi — meant symbolically to wash off the blood stains of the 2002 Gujarat riot victims; or the #SilenceisBetrayal Sydney flash mob in which young Muslim men and hijab-wearing girls symbolically re-enacted the war in Syria.

The power of the word strengthened with knowledge by orators such as Muhammad Ali Jauhar, Martin Luther King Jr, journalist Mehdi Hasan or Shashi Tharoor compel people to re-think.

Even small gestures, such as a painting of a shocked Jinnah on the Pakistani 100-rupee note can transmit a powerful message. Consider also songs such as Awaz’s Mr Fraudiye, Shehzad Roy’s Laga Reh, Arjumand Azhar Hussain’s video of Rahman Malik trying to get on to a plane delayed for him, Sabir Nazar’s political cartoons, the placing of hand fans on an electric pole by university students to protest load-shedding and endless SMS jokes. Andrew Stroud, Nina Simone’s husband, re-directed her anguish at the killing of four black children saying: “Nina, you know nothing about killing; the only thing you got is music.” We have to ask ourselves, what have we got?

Does protest change anything? No, only legislation can. Protest is the first step in raising awareness. It requires listening ears of those in authority to act.

Perhaps Khwaja, interviewed by the BBC, who sits on a village charpai and rustles up customised mobs for hire with a few phone calls, can be replaced with a group of creative minds who can get messages across peacefully.

Durriya Kazi is a Karachi-based artist and heads the department of visual studies at the University of Karachi

Published in Dawn, EOS, July 2nd, 2017