The following thoughts came to my mind after reading the tumblr post on the Occupy! movement of my friend Jürgen (which can be read here:http://weareallguilty.tumblr.com/post/13782332996/think-twice-before-occupy ).
I can understand Jürgens train of thought. Nevertheless, there are so many more factors and point, which have to be added to this when speaking about Occupy! and other social movements, which formed in 2011 like the one in Spain. I’m not a member of one of those movements but I try to follow what’s going on and support most of the actions. Coming back to Jürgen’s post, I’d like to let go some of my ideas and views on things.
The above-mentioned movements do not have the aim to form a kind of conflict of blue collar workers against white collar workers as stated. Occupy! is a melting pot of ideas and opinions which have certain things in common. In the same sense society is not divided into revolutionary classes as bourgeoisie and working class. Society is much more heterogeneous, and thus, by picking up the terms again, also in the Occupy! movement there is not an attempt of the working class to challenge the bourgeoisie - the white collar workers in Jürgen’s post.
A central thing about the heterogeneity is that protest of single groups are most likely to not be heard if they do not come with certain violent acts. It is the mix of ideals, lifestyles and opinions, which makes the current social (urban) movements get recognised and this is also the reason why media is covering it for month. You somehow can compare it to what’s going on the small scale here in Vienna. While I totally see the necessity of self-organised spaces, squats and the alternative use of empty buildings, the way squatting here is happening right now will not succeed simply because it is one single group of people not connected to any other (more moderate) groups which probably would support the idea of giving empty buildings an alternative use as well. Thus this discourse will never be recognised by the neighbours, society and the media in a positive light and has to fail without the support of these people. Examples from Hamburg (Gängeviertel) where young radicals, old leftist, artists and neighbourhood groups connected, exchanged ideas and developed plans to squat shows completely different results: together they succeeded. The point I try to make here is that the heterogeneity of people which share one central idea(l) is the biggest potential.
As Jürgen states: there are more reasons than the (ridiculous) striving for money of a few. It is the whole system, which builds up on this. The striving for surplus and global capital accumulation found new ways with globalisation and rising mobility. No doubt about that. Nevertheless, the global manifests in the local: Social fragmentation, segregation but also new bank districts, super expensive neighbourhoods which appear like islands in cities and gated communities which should serve as enclaves for the rich and have the aim to separate. All these phenomena are a form of ‘glocalisation’ and this is true for the social movements as well: it started somewhere, it spreads, it’s talking place in cities. Thus, one could see Occupy! as a form of localisation of global disbelieve in the current system.
Another point why I think the current movements cannot be pinned down to the notion of ‘the mob’ vs. “white collar workers’ is that by occupying public space a lot of questions are (often unconsciously) raised as:
- Who’s space is this?
- Is it for residents of simply for consuming and tourism?
- Who has the right to stay here
- ……
That’s also why I think that this movement is much more than any other movement, which focuses on demonstrations etc. It raises the very central question of:
Who’s city is this?
With the privatisation of public space and the creation of semi-public space today, more than ever it becomes important to think about this question. Most of the public spaces and squares lost the actual function of being centres for public debate as it was the case in the agora of ancient Greece and the Roman Forum. Movements like Occupy! Somehow give such functions back to the public space. As I have seen it at Plaza del Sol in Madrid in May of this year: the central square which usually is mainly used by tourists and does not have any urban furniture for hanging out there became a completely new face as people who occupied the square built up an infrastructure mainly out of garbage and donations. Temporarily a library, a kitchen, corners for debate, a cleaning service and garbage collection was organised. The current urban movements do not only stay for certain ideals but also question the whole systematic misuse of public space in cities around the world today.
So now after writing way too much, making way too much typos, I would like to go back to Jürgen’s post. I do not see it as a disadvantage that movements as occupy! do not have clear concept. It is to be understood as a constant work in progress and does not necessarily need such a thing. It’s a agil movement which has the potential to change and reinvent itself. Otherwise it would run risk of becoming yet another idea somebody developed somewhere which is supposed to be . Current social movements in my opinion do not need to have a clear concept or an alternative for the current system.
Since I wrote this without having an outline I’m sure some people will be a bit confused by reading this since I mix a lot of different things in rather short paragraphs. Well… it’s my view on things and Jürgen, we should meet for some wine tasting next week :).
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weareallguilty said:
As I stated I took no stand against or for the movement, just think about it, and it seems you did ;) I am totally with you on most of your points. Since I did not define terms they can be interpreted otherwise as I did. I’ll come back to this :)
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