Initial Notes on Occupy Movements and Repression

10 shantz auto cx2 4/25/12 9:02 AM Page 239 Initial Notes on Occupy Movements and Repression Jeff Shantz On September 17, 2011 several hundred people who had gathered for a public protest against corporate dominance in contemporary society, and government support for corporate dominance, took the decision to occupy Zuccotti Park at the heart of the financial district of New York, and the Western world— Wall Street. Ostensibly responding to a call by Vancouver based alternative lifestyle magazine Adbusters to “Occupy Wall Street,” the occupation of the park, and the camp that quickly followed, served as a nodal point in the articulation of anger, frustration, and dissatisfaction against corporate power and political corruption that had been building for a broad cross section of people over years of economic crisis and re- cession. This simple symbolic act, given special richness in the wake of occupations of public space in the uprisings of the “Arab Spring” which had toppled dictator- ships in the Middle East, provided a great source of inspiration for many, across the Global North, who had yearned for some collective expression of public re- fusal of business as usual and who sought alternative ways to envision society free of the economic, political, and environmental abuses of capitalism in the twenty- first century. Over the next two months hundreds of Occupy camps were set up in locations ranging from large cities to small towns. People in a variety of countries, including Canada, the US, and the UK, became actively involved. Taking up the slogan “We are the 99%,” Occupy movements sought to ad- dress the growing wealth gap and associated economic and political inequality in the US and other liberal democracies of the Global North (and the reality that 1% of the world’s population owns and controls almost all of its wealth, resources, and the necessities for human survival). Not simply making appeals for social and economic change from elites, the Occupy camps sought to re- alize, in the here and now of everyday life, working alternatives in economic and political equality. Occupy camps became self-governing through entirely open and participatory General Assemblies in which any and all present could 239 10 shantz auto cx2 4/25/12 9:02 AM Page 240 240 10 · INITIAL NOTES ON OCCUPY MOVEMENTS AND REPRESSION speak, debate, and discuss issues, and from which all decisions were based only on some form of collective consensus rather than a simple majority vote. The Occupy camps, and the broader movements and actions that sprung up around them, suggest potentially important shifts in practices of resistance in Western liberal democracies. They pose the possibility of a new wave of protest and dissent beyond the summit protests of the earlier wave of organizing against capitalist globalization. How these movements will develop and advance re- mains very much an open question. The real significance of the Occupy demon- strations and associated practices is yet to be assessed. Indeed, the movements are evolving as participants discuss and decide how best to build more durable and effective challenges to corporate and government power. In times of mass mobilization and spreading social struggles the learning curve can grow dramatically. Events move rapidly and often unpredictably and people have to learn very much on the fly, so to speak. Decisions have to be made quickly, in response to unexpected moves by authorities. At the same time with many people becoming active for the first time, engaging in protest with little previous experience, important lessons from past struggles, often won through painful first-hand experience, have not yet been learned and internalized. From the beginning, differences in understandings and analyses regarding conditions of social struggle and state activity in the current context of ne- oliberal capitalist globalization became apparent. Many newer Occupy participants expressed what might be called naïve views of police institutions and policing practices. They suggested that the police were their allies or identi- fied police as part of the 99%. More experienced participants, many with decades of tough experience as community and workplace organizers and activists, situated policing institutions within lengthy histories of state repression and violence and explained the role of police in maintaining systems of inequality. They warned that repression would come, particularly if the movements came to pose a real challenge to existing relations of authority and power. By October, after an initial period of uncertainty, states were ready to move to shut down the Occupy movements before their influence could build and grow. In perhaps the most shocking early eviction, in Oakland, California a vet- eran of the Iraq War, Scott Olsen, 24, suffered a fractured skull when a pro- jectile shot or thrown by police hit him in the head. This police violence actually served to increase public support for Occupy protests and led to louder public outcry against police repression. In many locales, including Oakland, protests grew in number and in militancy following the violent eviction of the Occupy camp. According to some counts of media reports in cities with Occupy camps in the US, more than 5,000 protesters have been arrested over the two month period of the open space Occupy protests. 10 shantz auto cx2 4/25/12 9:02 AM Page 241 10 · INITIAL NOTES ON OCCUPY MOVEMENTS AND REPRESSION 241 The Occupy camps have raised new questions of strategy and tactics not only for community organizers and demonstrators. They have also spurred shifts in the approaches taken by state agencies at all levels to manifestations of domestic dissent and resistance. Once again, a dialectic of struggle has emerged as demonstrators and government agencies, notably police, learn through confrontation and engagement and adjust and readjust their strategies and tactics for overcoming their respective opponents. Occupy movements and state responses to them suggest that a new period of social struggles has been opened— one that is still in play, still developing and evolving. As fall turned into winter and Occupy camps were evicted, often violently, in quick waves, activists shifted to new terrain, discussing and debating how to build upon the success of the initial camps while assessing the failures and working out strategies to make the still emergent movements more durable and effective in challenging economic and political elites. Why Occupy? From initial beginnings as a symbolic act of awareness-raising at Wall Street, the Occupy call developed into a broad, large-scale, movement with public space being occupied and camps being set up in cities and towns in numerous countries globally. As camps were established and evolved over days, weeks, and months, the Occupy sites became spaces for political discussion, strategizing, and organizing. Within Occupy camps working groups would emerge to ad- dress specific concerns such as ecology, workplace issues, and education. While mainstream, corporate owned, mass media repeatedly advanced the claim that Occupy movements lacked any clear aims, targets, or proposals, Occupy participants were consistent in expressing opposition to corporate (if not capitalist) dominance and control of social life (if not capitalism itself) and the un- democratic and exclusive character of politics within Western liberal democracies. Rather than being vague or unfocused, Occupy movements expressed fairly ac- cessible criticisms of social inequality and the dominant influence of economic and political elites in all spheres of society, from the economy to culture. For anyone seeking a clear expression of Occupy concerns, aims, or targets they had to look no further than the early Declaration of the Occupation of New York City. The Declaration was accepted by the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street on September 29, 2011. It reads as follows: As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injus- tice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so 10 shantz auto cx2 4/25/12 9:02 AM Page 242 242 10 · INITIAL NOTES ON OCCUPY MOVEMENTS AND REPRESSION that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies. As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attain- able when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self- interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our govern- ments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known. They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage. They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses. They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation. They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and under- mined the farming system through monopolization. They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices. They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to ne- gotiate for better pay and safer working conditions. They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

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