"Death to the United States:" A Protest Chant in the name of Liberation

     This image is a screenshot from a video captured by the Guardian, a bird's eye view of a mass demonstration in Yemen; protestors are protesting against the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and against US-British retaliation against Houthi rebels who attacked US vessels in the Red Sea. In this image, we see a mass: thousands of individuals who gathered, chanting “Death to the United States,” carrying the Yemeni and Palestinian flag side by side. The orientation of the protestors is organized, tightly packed in what appears to be a large road. The Palestinian flags are the largest flags represented, captured perfectly when viewed from above. These protestors are uniformed, organized, and when you hear the audio from the clip captured–passionately calling for Palestinian liberation from the occupation. Yet what interests me is how this photo–to Western audiences–interacts with contradicting ideas of what and who is afforded liberty, and who gets to decide that. 

I find that this image and the current, prominent discourse on Palestine today directly conveys the ideas depicted by Alexander. “Civil society is a sphere of solidarity in which individual rights and collective obligations are tensely intertwined,” and in the discourse of Palestine, we have powerful Western institutions/government figures characterizing Palestinian protests as “terrorism” (a word used throughout Alexander’s piece), and US-British intervention and alliance with Israel under the discourse of “liberty” and “civilization” (56). This binary analysis that Alexander describes determines who is worthy to be a part of the civil sphere; this serves as the logic of the civil sphere, as Alexander states “There is no civil discourse that does not conceptualize the world into those who deserve inclusion and those who do not” (54). Yet, this discourse isn’t new; Alexander writes, “Political struggles… have always involved discursive struggles over whether and how the discourse of liberty can be extended and applied” (61). Thus, Alexander argues that civil society holds its own language, characterized by a binary logic and set of cultural norms. In effect, while civil society holds discourse, it is also guided by a sense of solidarity; civil society is always changing what and who is characterized on each side of the binary, but the binary always exists in civil discourse throughout history. 

Alexander wrote this piece in the midst of a national historical shift in which civil rights were being redefined; today, we are experiencing an international civil discourse rooted in the discussion of Palestine and Israel. Even mentioning the topic of Palestine in academic spaces today triggers deep emotion and discomfort in people–because we are dealing with a collective examination of what is liberty, liberation, terrorism, global democracy, and more. These are not just abstract concepts, but they hold material weight on the outcome of human lives; while Alexander was referencing the civil sphere in a more nationalistic analysis, today we also see conversations within a global civil sphere. People internationally are examining, questioning, and upholding their perceptions of what their collective obligation is; here, we see thousands in one nation set on their collective obligation to not only protest for Palestine–holding multiple, large Palestinian flags alongside their own–but to also defend the Houthis–a resistance force currently labeled as terrorists by multiple Western organizations. Visually, we see this mass of people identify their resistance alongside Palestinian resistance; their inclusion in civil society as one aligned with the inclusion of Palestinian’s in the civil sphere. These are Yemeni civilians, but even in the midst of a large mass of individual people, we see repetitions of Palestinian colors, which are also Yemeni colors. This picture–in essence–captures and portrays unity in the civil discourse: Yemen’s solidarity with Palestine depicts a solidarity in how they are defining liberty and liberation in this discourse. 

Their fervency is similarly captured with their intentional chants calling for the “Death of the United States.” The United States holds an image of maintaining democracy; to call for its death seems to be synonymous for calling for the death of what the U.S symbolizes. Again, this is within the binary language Alexander describes: if the West is the democracy, anything against the West is against democracy. But masses of people are calling into question this binary. This image of thousands of people attending a protest for Palestine isn’t limited to this particular photograph from the Guardian; internationally people have been protesting in masses numbering the thousands–included in the United States. These protests, and specifically this Yemeni one I highlight, are illustrative of an ongoing civil discourse on who–in language of Alexander– “deserve[s] freedom and communal support,” who is worthy of being protected and defined as a part of the collective civil sphere (55). This international discourse–utilizing the language of the civil sphere, depicted and symbolized by this photograph–shows the process of re-evaluating who is a part of the international civil sphere.

Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2006. The Civil Sphere. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

 Sabbagh, Dan. 2024. "US Launches Fresh Strikes on Houthi Rebels in Yemen, Military Says." The Guardian, January. Retrieved March 28, 2024 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/12/houthi-threats-of-retaliation-and-mass-protests-in-yemen-after-us-uk-airstrikes.