Occupy: 2012 and Beyond

There is great promise for the social movements that took root around the globe this past year.

Let us make sustainable hope our resolution for 2012. We need to be done with demoralizing cynicism, not least to honour those who have risked, or even lost, their lives in the non-violent global movement for a better world. My research evidences a number of reasons for a new, sustained, and committed hope that Time magazine’s determination of 2011 as the year of The Protester will translate into more than media spectacle in 2012. My research also attests that hope is flourishing among long-time activists and the (no longer disaffected and disenfranchised) younger generation engaged in the Occupy movement – and it is a hope unlike that of 2008’s “Yes We Can,” which was pinned to a single person.

Last spring, I received funding for a three-year study to explore how young people are redefining democracy and using social media for protest. At the time, I did not anticipate the Occupy movement, and was fully prepared to hear hundreds of interviewees and survey subjects give reasons for cynicism and despair. However, this fall, I visited five Occupy sites (Wall Street, Oakland, San Francisco, Toronto, and Minneapolis), studied infinite Twitter Feeds and LiveStreams, studied national and international news coverage, and observed three marches (including the fateful Occupy Times Square on Oct. 15, when the movement “went global”). I’ve also responded to dozens of media calls on this topic, in which journalists inevitably ask, “Why hasn’t the Occupy movement made specific demands?” Other pessimistic voices – even the sympathetic – complain, “They can barely organize to distribute food,” or, “I don’t want mob rule deciding our future,” or “They have become so mired in inclusive discussions that they can’t get anything done.”

But there is rhyme and reason to the organic process of participatory democracy. When we surveyed 50 people under the age of 30 at Occupy Toronto in November, the most frequent responses to our question, “What is your hope for the outcome of Occupy?” were visions of a better world, hopes for different values guiding government (such as people before profit), and demands for substantial public input into political decision-making at local and national levels.

These visions indeed defy summary as a single legislative act. Though criticized for idealism and insufficiently specified goals, the Occupy participants stand in the shoes of respected American philosopher Henry Thoreau, who once said: “I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government. Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.” Thoreau’s words on civil disobedience echo Gandhi’s philosophy, adopted by many in the Occupy movement. For Gandhi, the “means are like the seed” while the “ends are like the tree.” Thus, the means (ongoing inclusive dialogue) ensure the end: creative visions and participatory democracy grounded in non-violent inclusivity.

With that in mind, here are five reasons you should make sustainable hope your minimum resolve as people around the world sacrifice and risk their lives for the sake of your human rights and economic justice:

1. We are seeing the growth of globally shared altruistic concerns and non-violent means in an unprecedented, transnational movement for economic justice.

From Tunisia, Egypt, London, Syria, and Bahrain to Spain, the United States, Canada, and Russia, whether governed by dictator or oligarchy, the people around the world demand an end to the morally unjust accumulation of wealth and power by the one per cent. The Arab Spring seems to have awoken even complacent North America to the need for altruistic civil disobedience. Altruism? Yes. To date, militarized police have arrested 5,000 people in North America. Occupy Wall Street launched in September, modelling itself on the 2011 Los Indignados of the Democracia Real Ya! movement in Spain, from which Occupy borrows such practices as hand-gesture communications used at general assemblies, food distribution, and horizontal organizational structure. Today’s global protests include participants of almost every cultural, religious, and political stripe. The common denominator is not an ideology, but globalization’s economic crisis demanding awakening and creative collective solutions. Occupiers introduced the slogan “We are the 99%,” forever changing our international lexicon, and, potentially, the future of politics.