Protest, civil disobedience and other forms of activism have helped to define the last decade as one characterised by
dissent. Protests have sprung up across the globe in order to oppose authoritarian regimes, material inequalities, economic austerity and environmental degradation, amongst others. These collective manifestations demonstrate the power of ordinary people to challenge authorities and raise consciousness. All protests require visibility in the public sphere if they are to be taken seriously by the public and politicians. For their part, protestors have a number of strategies and tactics at their disposal to ensure visibility such as assembling in urban squares or marching. Going hand-in-hand with this global surge in protest has been the proliferation of masks worn during protests from Santiago to Cairo and from Hong Kong to London. A common feature is that dissent is symptomatic of mask wearing.
Masks have become common currency for protestors, partly because they are easy to make or acquire. Masks take a variety of forms including elasticised veneers with human or animal guises, face-painting, balaclavas, eye masks, dust-masks, monochromatic facades, and gasmasks. Masks are worn for a number of reasons from functional to transformative.
Mask-wearing during a protest is functional, in order to conceal one’s identity. It helps protestors to obscure their identities from authorities and thus it has a protective role. At the same time, this challenges the evolving surveillance technologies of governmental authorities and their respective capacities to recognize protestors. Masks have a dual function; they help attract attention especially in the media, and so the wearer becomes highly visible yet at the same time is able to remain anonymous.
Yet, masks also carry the potential to communicate identity and solidarity. They help to ascribe belonging to a particular cause, idea, interest, identity or ideology. This helps to signify a show of strength, a force to be taken seriously. In the same way that soldiers would don war paint before a battle to show unity (and well as signifying a fearsome foe), a mask delineates belonging with the wearer performing solidarity.
Certain masks communicate ideas and values. For example, the «Anonymous» mask is the proto-typical protest mask and is ubiquitous in protests all over the world from revolutionary struggles to climate change. This mask has become a symbol of anti-establishment and anti-authority, originating from the 2006 movie «V for Vendetta», about Guy Fawkes’ attempt to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605. More recently, the mask from the 2019 movie «Joker» serves to highlight the importance of replication through cultural artefacts with wearers sending a clear message of disenfranchisement to authorities in Lebanon, France and Iraq. In this respect, masks become a language which transcends linguistic boundaries and state borders, with wearers expressing dissent against diverse regimes and politico-legal practices.
Masks thus carry a number of symbolic and performative dimensions, increasing visibility (therefore facilitating consciousness-raising), supporting the rituals of protest whilst communicating messages of solidarity both within the movement and to opponents (invariably the police or the government). For example, recently, home-made knitted masks have been created and worn by feminist collectives in Chile. These retain a hand-made and creative aesthetic. These masks are simple, egalitarian and made by the community, to show strength and signify a challenge to the government.
One other important role for masks in protest is their transformative potential. By this I mean that protestors who wear masks become someone else, at least for a moment. This is much more in line with society’s traditional use of masks.
Historically, masks have been used in ceremonies, during carnivals and theatrical performances. They render the wearer simultaneously unknowable, unpredictable, mysterious and potentially threatening. As humans we read people’s faces, their eyes, their expressions in order to gauge how we interact with them. A mask erases that readability. It presents the wearer as withholding information, and as such it is confrontational, as it disrupts how we interact and communicate with fellow citizens. The wearing of masks is not illegal (although authorities in Hong Kong attempted to make it illegal in 2019) but is read as a subversive act by those in power as it nullifies its potential to control populations.
The daily reality for most of us is that we are pliant, predicable, and obedient citizens. We go to work, pay taxes, raise families, obey the law, access social services, consume media, and engage in democratic debates. According to political anthropologist James Scott, a state exerts much of its energies and financial power attempting to make its populations «legible» through registration, census, elections, and other forms of bureaucratization. The wearing of masks during protest is a reminder that the state can never fully «know» its population, in spite of its best efforts. But it also demonstrates that freedom of assembly and freedom of expression are rights which are frequently curtailed, thus protestors wear masks to realise their democratic potential. They are transformed into active citizens, claiming rights and demanding presence in public life. The mask emboldens and encourages this transformation.
But the wearing of a mask is always a temporary condition. Nobody can wear a mask too long. It slips off and reveals our true selves underneath sooner or later. Protesting is also a temporary condition. We go on marches and demonstrations, occupy public spaces, buildings, sign petitions, strike, chant, etc, but soon we return to the mundane, obedient world we live in. The mask helps us to embody our freedom of expression and to assert our rights, a vehicle to help us become citizens. In doing so, it communicates democratic ideals, and serves as a reminder to those in power where the real power lies. Masks imbue us with power, transforming us from obedient to subversive citizens, helping us to realise our democratic potential.