#OWS: A Fork in the Road pt.1/4
Note to the Reader: This is part one of a serialized editorial on Occupy Wall Street
This is part love letter and part constructive criticism from someone who admittedly is notcurrently camping out at any occupation, but has been observing and supporting these events when able. This, I hope, will spark discussion among those with the inclination and the will to take action. These are analyses and thoughts for the future from someone who would like to see all this continue and expand as far as possible.Those who condemn this nascent social movement will likely take this post as further evidence of what they perceive as the “ineffective” and “counter-productive” nature of Occupy Wall Street.
So, we’ve seen the usual criticisms dusted off by politicians, mainstream media; all those struggling to understand what the hell is actually going on with OWS… And working to build negative public opinion against the movement as well. The most common criticisms I’ve seen levied against the movement are:
1) “What is this movement trying to achieve? Why are they there? The protesters need a clear unified list of demands.” A variation on this is, “How long do you protesters plan on occupying, when does it end?”
2) “It’s chaos down at those occupations/general assemblies/protests. I agree with the sentiment behind Occupy Wall Street, but I won’t get involved until there’s some sort of leadership/hierarchy there.”
3) Ad hominem and straw man attacks on the people involved with and supporting OWS. I.e. “They’re just a bunch of dirty hippies.” “They’re just a bunch of violent anarchist thugs.” “They’re just a bunch of condescending liberals.” “They’re just a bunch of low-level terrorists.” “They’re just a bunch of homeless people that should get a job.”
4) “An occupation is a tactic not a strategy.What is occupying a public park really going to accomplish?”
“Beyond the tyranny of recognition. Which imposes recognition/acquaintance as a final distance between bodies. As an unavoidable separation.
Everything PEOPLE — my boyfriend, my family, my environment, my company, the state, public opinion — see me as – that’s what THEY want to hold me to.
By constantly reminding me of what I am, of my qualities, PEOPLE would like to extract me from each situation. PEOPLE would like to extort from me a faithfulness to myself that’s really just a faithfulness to my labels.
PEOPLE expect to act like a man, like an employee, like a jobless person, like a mother, like a militant or like a philosopher.
PEOPLE would like to contain the unpredictable course of what I’m becoming within the bounds of an identity.
PEOPLE want to convert me to the religion of a coherence
that THEY chose for me.
The more I am recognized, the more my gestures are trapped, internally trapped. I’m stuck in the super-tight wire-frames of the new power. In the impalpable net of the new police: THE IMPERIAL POLICE OF QUALITIES.
There’s a whole network of apparatuses that I slip into, in order to “integrate myself,” a network that incorporates these qualities into me… I struggle within it.”
~from ‘How is it to be done?‘ by Tiqqun
I can’t say it’s surprising, hearing people like Ann Coulter saying Occupy demonstrators “need a point” and the generally distasteful coverage circulated in the news suggesting/pushing OWS to become associated with institutions like the Democratic Party. I have a few thoughts about these types of comments.
Occupy Wall Street represents a progression in social action in the United States (as well as abroad): To use a term from the anti-globalization era, OWS is a “movement of movements“, its participants come form a diversity of perspective and have varied goals and motivations. Somehow, the atmosphere, structure and tactics of these occupations draws these eclectics groups of people together, allows them to cooperate and work toward shared goals.
Divide and conquer tactics are nothing new, and neither is recuperation. When someone says that OWS needs one specific issue, demand, or goal, they are attempting to divide the movement, whether they realize it or not. When a politician talks sweetly to campers at a press conference, promising the sky and the moon “if only the campers would elect a leader” and come to an agreement with the government; that person is offering protesters a poisoned apple, and I’d advise anyone with common sense not to eat it.
When a mayor like Jean Quan offers some homeless shelters vouchers, and proposes occupiers leave the larger, more public occupation outside city hall in exchange for “permitted” use of an out-of-the-way park; she’s making what’s known as a strategic concession. That is, she’s offering protesters something that won’t actually change anything. Its a tactic those in power use all the time to divide social movements, offer meaningless concessions at a press conference, an investigative committee, a toothless act of legislation, a corrupt investigation into some horrible wrong-doing… It’s usually a win-win for the political class, if the protesters agree to the terms, and accept the concessions, the demonstrations will probably die if they only covered one issue. Furthermore, the politicians will have incorporated dissenters and social antagonists back into the existing power structure, quelling the possibilities of more radical action in the future… And if the protesters disagree, if they don’t agree to the city or state’s terms, then the pittance offered by the politician covers his own ass. It allows him to order hundreds of riot police (armed to the teeth) to evict, brutalize, arrest, intimidate, harass and surveil citizens who are assembling in public space. “Well,” the politician says to the cameras after the raid, “the protesters should have taken my deal, but they didn’t, so that means they must only be after chaos, and not real change.”
Those in power and those who’d like to see this movement go away would love to see the protesters go back to fighting single-issue struggles. They’d love to have a concise list of demands proposed by some “protest leader”. That way they can quantify what’s happening… A list of demands can be read, picked apart by an ignorant news anchor or passerby, demands can be debated by politicians at length (so long sometimes, that people forget there’s anything else to be done except making demands and debating), demands can be used as a wedge to make demonstrators compromise on any reasons they had for taking action in the first place… And if its a leader making these demands, well… nowadays you can expect that leader to be promptly jailed and/or tortured and/orheld indefinitely without trial And then you can expect a movement that relies on a leader/leaders for inspiration to either disintegrate into jockeying for power among participants or to dissolve into ineffective and impotent obscurity.
“AN OCCUPATION IS A VORTEX, NOT A PROTEST. People will go on and on about their ideologies and what “we should do”, but consciousness is determined by one’s experiences, one’s material conditions… A number of things have happened in the past few days which would have been almost too ridiculous to expect, almost right up til the moment they happened” ~ communique on Kerr Hall Occupation of 2009
An occupation begins from a failure of the status quo. Why do people camp out in public parks in inclement weather? Why do they sit through exhausting, hours long consensus meetings? Why do they risk everything in the face of state violence and intimidation; when at times it seems like all they’re defending is their prerogative to assemble in a public and usually forgotten space. Why, in the face of overwhelming cynicism, apathy, and odds, does anyone ever occupy anything?
The answer is clear:
The occupation gives them something they can’t get anywhere else.
Here’s what I’d say if I could talk to every single occupier and potential supporter at once: “Congratulations! Step one accomplished! You’ve managed to bring together disparate and unique individuals and groups of people. Furthermore, you’ve begun to work together without formal leaders and without a set list of demands.
Ok, I get you’re still worried. I am too, it’s disheartening to see so many occupations cleared with such extreme measures by the state. But if ever there was a time to stay true to your roots, its now.
In the life of the occupations we’ve shifted away from hierarchical organization and centralization, and shifted towards horizontal association and autonomy. We’ve moved towards mutual aid and cooperation and away from capitalist competition. In light of these truths, I ask you this: What do you really want?
-A “people’s government”, or no government whatsoever?
-A “better”, more “tolerant”, “fair” and “eco-friendly” capitalism? Or a new type of economyentirely?
-A job that works you long hours and barely supports the necessities of life? Or the ability to not have to sell your labor to survive?
-A society that separates, divides and funnels all the people who compose it into their little enclosed boxes, into ghettos and prisons, into gated communities and college campuses, into gerrymandered political districts, into suffocating workplaces and onto smog-filled streets after a way-too-long day’s work, into boot camps that brainwash and battlefields that breed bullets, brain-injuries and… death; do you want a society that does all these things while stifling any realization or chance or glimpse or dream or fantasy of something better? Or an open society, where its participants can work together when they need to (even if they hate each other with a passion) because they acknowledge that cooperation is mutually beneficial? A structure that coerces its people into a false unity, or a structure that thrives on the diversity of its participants?
