What’s the point of getting arrested? Examining the motivation of pipeline protesters

By: 
Erin Sommers Graphic-Advocate Editor

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I spent two Saturdays last month watching out-of-town protesters converge on Calhoun County fields, showing their opposition to the Dakota Access oil pipeline with chants and, eventually, acts of trespassing.
It’s not, I was quick to tell my friends, how I would choose to spend half of my weekend. As I thought about it more, I do have to admit that it is the kind of news event that the reporter in me can enjoy.
Every time the pipeline protests come up, the conversation inevitably takes the same turn, with the person learning about the protests pointing out that no amount of protest is going to stop the Dakota Access pipeline from being built. After all, people tell me, the pipeline is in the ground.
True enough. I have huge doubts about the ability of these protesters to stop this particular project, though perhaps the protesters in North Dakota, with a century-old treaty in hand, may fare better.
But the point of a protest isn’t always just to stop one project. Think about this: two weeks ago, I cast my ballot in the 2016 presidential election. My mom, my grandmother, my sister, my mother-in-law, my sister-in-law and my female cousins did the same. The fact that I can vote is … routine, mundane, even at this point. I’ve voted in five presidential elections. And yet, women born a century before me never thought they would get that chance. We all learned about Susan B. Anthony in school – born in 1820, she was a suffragette, fighting to give women the vote. It was an effort that did not achieve her ultimate goal in her lifetime – she died in 1906, 13 years before Congress ratified the 19th Amendment. Were her protests in vain? Or was she playing the long game? Certainly she would have wanted to cast a ballot, but barring that, at least the women who came after her were able to.
The pipeline protesters are probably playing at the same long game. They absolutely want to stop this pipeline – and all the ones that may come later. Eight protesters walked on to a Dakota Access construction site near Rockwell City Oct. 30 with specific intentions of getting arrested. They carried with them a note from the landowner that denied giving permission to Dakota Access to use the land, and that explicitly gave the protesters the right to be there. It’s a specific legal strategy, an opportunity to go to court and argue against the use of eminent domain to benefit Dakota Access.
These protesters also likely know they’re not going to win the first time they get to court. They are facing years of appeals, with the intention of forcing the courts to clarify Iowa’s eminent domain laws. It’s a hard fight and not one they’re guaranteed to win.
But as much as I don’t have any intentions of going out and protesting with them, well, I can kind of understand how they got there.

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