From New York to London, Amsterdam to Toronto, Tokyo to Santiago and hundreds of other cities anti-capitalist protesters have set up crowded encampments in what, however temporary, has fast become a global movement. These peaceful, well-organised events are giving powerful expression to the anger and frustration of ordinary people from all walks of life around the world. And are being recognised for it. Just ask the daily capitalist bible, the Financial Times, from which leader comment the previous sentence is taken. It goes on: “…the fundamental call for a fairer distribution of wealth cannot be ignored. The cry for change is one that must be heeded.” Indeed.
As Stefan Simanowitz reports from his visit to Zuccotti Park (page 10) many of the protesters are far from the usual kind of suspects. As his interviewee Shaun Bickard, a 41-year-old electrician, puts it: “Deep down, I never believed this movement could change anything. But, after today, I’m beginning to think it can”.
It may be optimistic to hope to see tangible results, immediate or otherwise, from the protests but that they are having an effect in giving voice to
millions is undeniable.
The message from these encampments is more powerful, it appears, than that coming from politicians in their respective national parliaments. As one protester put it succinctly outside St Paul’s in London: “There’s no oomph! coming from the politicians.”
So what is that oomph? Didn’t Ed Miliband set out a forensic critique of the global crisis in his speech to Labour Party conference? And hasn’t Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls outlined – not least in the pages of Tribune – a five-point plan for dealing with Britain’s end of the problem? Yes. But for whatever reason, and a right-wing press which does not want to listen or faithfully report any alternative to cuts, the message is not getting through. Or perhaps there is another reason. Perhaps the message simply is not bold enough. Perhaps because that very same press would be even more hostile. Or perhaps a sufficiently critical mass of the party leadership does not believe in being bolder in the first place. Slavoj Zizek, another of those interviewed in Zuccotti Park, may have put his finger on the dilemma when he said: “There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want. But what do we want?”
Well, we don’t want the general public to pay for the banking crisis and we don’t want politicians to accept cuts as an absolute, unavoidable necessity. That’s in the short term. In the longer term, let the St Paul’s protesters speak for all of us: “We want structural change towards authentic global equality.”
Is that too simplistic, or too dangerous, a concept to shout about at Westminster?
