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عـــــــ مراقب ــــــــــــام للأقسام
 الديانة : الحمد لله على نعمة الاسلام
 الجنسية : ارض الانبياء والاتقياء والشرفاء الانقياء
عدد المساهمات : 1083
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نقاط : 19401
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تاريخ الميلاد : 29/08/1988
تاريخ التسجيل : 11/01/2011
الموقع : http://baghdadsniper.net/ar/index.htm
 العمل/الترفيه : القراءة والاطلاع
 المزاج : بخير والحمد لله
 |  موضوع: America's 'Millbank moment' Protests that started at Wall Street have spread, revealing the crisis of representative democracy 2011-10-16, 5:32 pm | |
|   | The '99 per cent' movement is a statement about under-representation and democracy [GALLO/GETTY]
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The Occupation of Wall Street, which has successfully and peacefully
resisted an eviction attempt by New York police by sheer weight of
numbers, has inspired similar occupations across the United States and
across the world.A demonstration which began with a handful of protesters getting
pepper-sprayed on the pavements of Manhattan's financial district has
mushroomed into a national phenomenon, with labour unions rushing to
offer solidarity and high-profile supporters lending advice and
mindistance.After a year of police violence and savage crackdowns on protest
across Europe, the injection of energy from across the Atlantic is more
than welcome.There are good reasons to be watching what's happening in Lower
Manhattan right now. The idea of Wall Street as the heart of a global
financial system whose collapse threatens the future of human
civilisation is as important as the space itself, and while this is no
Tahrir Square - the occupiers are hardly storming the skyscrapers above
them - the brash symbolism of the protest is hard to ignore.
At the demonstration on London's Westminster bridge
last weekend, I was handed flyers reading "We are the 99 per cent". As
Britain gears up for a fresh wave of student demonstrations beginning on
November 9, the mantra of the Occupy America movement, somewhere
between an cry of rage and a threat, has begun to resonate around the world.What does it mean?
As a slogan, "We are the
99 per cent" is inclusive to the point of inarticulacy. It is neither a
demand nor an ideology, simply a statement of numbers. While intended to
set the majority of ordinary citizens against the elite "one per cent"
who, it is alleged, own and control most of the world's wealth, the
slogan has been criticised for its formlessness: Does it mean: "We are
the 99 per cent, and we're here to take back the money you stole?" Does
it mean: ''We are the 99 per cent, and we will be pleased to serve you
dinner whilst you confiscate our homes?" Does it simply mean "we are the
99 percent, and we're screwed?"It means none of these things: The slogan is a statistic, a simple
statement of majority. "We are the 99 per cent," it says. "Why aren't we
represented?"
At their heart, these protests are about
democracy. They are about the crisis of representative democracy taking
place across the world, as party politics consistently places the
interests of business above the interests of society.
Fault Lines: The top one per cent
|
This morning may turn out to be the "Millbank moment"
for the "Occupy America" movement. When union activists arrived to
swell the numbers defending Liberty Plaza, prompting the city
authorities to back down from their planned eviction, reports from the
occupation were wild with triumphant energy, and the chanting of: "All
day, all week, occupy Wall Street!" is probably still going on right
now.What I saw and heard in Liberty Plaza when I visited was the same
shocked excitement I saw in London almost a year ago, when student
demonstrators smashed into the headquarters of the party in government
at Millbank: It was young people who have spent their entire lives
feeling powerless and alienated suddenly realising that, with enough
numbers and enough courage, they can be unstoppable, that they can take
on the edifices of power and win, at least for a little while.
The
difference is that New Yorkers have achieved this without breaking a
single window. The scrupulous non-violence of the Occupy America
movement leaves the right-wing press unable to tell a simple story about
"feral kids kicking off against the cops": Instead, the images that
have been broadcast around the world are of New York police
pepper-spraying young women in the face and peaceful protesters being
beaten away from Wall Street while chanting the First Amendment in
chorus.On the morning of Friday, October 14, hundreds of thousands watched
online as the authorities failed to remove the ordinary, indignant
people of the United States from Liberty Plaza. When Americans do
symbolic protest, they do it utterly without irony.
In one way or
another, we are all standing in the shadow of Wall Street. The
dignified defiance of the New York occupation has inspired the world,
and may yet provide some relief for the weary fighters on the European
front of what looks set to be a long and punishing fight against
austerity and state repression.The question now, for the occupiers and for everyone else is: What will the 99 per cent do next? | |
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