Cold Logic, or Fiery Emotion?

            Protest comes in many forms.  It can be done silently, or at a loud and excited rally.  It can be peaceful, or violent.  It can function mostly based on logic, or appeal mostly to emotions.  For this reason, protest speeches also come in many forms.  Aung San Suu Kyi’s “Freedom from Fear” speech appeals mostly to the first, while Malcolm X’s “The Ballot or the Bullet” speech focuses on the latter option.  Often times, while speeches based on logic can be persuasive, they often pale in comparison to speeches that focus on emotional appeals. 

            Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech is powerful.  It points out flaws in government and offers solutions, and many of its lines are concise yet moving, intriguing in the ideas they present.  However, it is based entirely on logos.  The speech is nice for an acceptance speech, nice for saying “hey this should change”, but it lacks the ability to make an audience leap to its feet in enthusiasm.  It does not give the reader the desire to go out and make a change, nor does it really change one’s life.  It just is.  She lacks stylistic techniques such as short sentences and anaphora (both of which emphasize a point).  She rarely repeats herself, and while this is nice for a tired AP student who has read speeches which say the same thing over and over again for 20 pages, it admittedly does lack the power of a speech that does repeat itself, or that does sneak in short, powerful sentences. 

            Malcolm X, on the other hand, accomplishes an effective protest speech through the use of the very techniques that Aung San Suu Kyi ignores.  On the first page, in the first paragraph, he already is using anaphora.  He repeats “I’m not here”, “problem”, “catch hell”, and “white man” three times each, which truly drives home the point of the paragraph: We all have a problem that will bring hell: the white man.  He also repeats the phrase “the ballot or the bullet” frequently throughout the speech.  The phrase is simple, yet elegant.  The length gives it extra power, because it emphasizes the ideas within the sentence. 

            Another technique used by Malcolm X is the use of rhetorical questions in order to engage the audience and make them think about what he is saying.  “What is a Dixiecrat?” he asks.  “What does this mean?” “Why can’t they pass something that will help you and me?”  All of these questions make the audience pause for a moment to reflect on his words.  This time to think makes his message more powerful, because it allows the audience to agree.

            While I wish that Aung San Suu Kyi’s speech was the best speech of all time, it is not.  It uses heavy logos, which is great in theory (and something oddly lacking in wartime propaganda), but drives people away.  It makes writing feel uncaring and cold.  The best protest speech will include logos and pathos, similar to how Malcolm X does.