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A Revolution of Ideas.

This Revolution Will Be Intellectual.

This Revolution of Ideas Will Take Place Globally Online.

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OCCUPY CANADA PHASE II

On October 15, 2011, North America  witnessed the rise of millions of indignant faces, no longer voiceless, no longer invisible.

However, this movement had no specific origin date. The spirit of this new global revolution did not ‘start’ in Tunisia nor Egypt, not in Spain nor Greece, not in Wall Street nor Toronto. This global manifestation of indignant faces and voices has been materializing slowly, not within one particular geographical location, but within all people. The inherent contradictions of our global economic system whose existence is contingent on the perpetuate oppression of labour, peripheral nations, wealth concentration, corruption, violation of human rights at home and abroad, have slowly been expressing themselves, articulating through the infinite struggles of individuals, families,social groups, even entire nations.

For the last three decades, we have been experiencing new forms of resistance gaining momentum around the globe converging new voices, new issues to the political agenda. According to Carl Boggs, they represent:

“…a range of diverse and popular forms of revolt over issues that seem endemic to the phase of mature industrial development: economic stagnation, ecological disequilibrium, militarism and nuclear politics, bureaucracy. It is this confluence of objective circumstances and subjective responses, historical opportunities and ideological themes, global crises and popular movements that promises to fundamentally alter the terrain of theoretical discourse and political action.”

There are many names for it: Global Revolution, Take the Square, Occupy, in as many languages as there are manifestations of the same global social movement, each located within a global framework of oppression, injustice, and usury, yet each unique in its focus, strategies, and narratives. We are witnessing the uprising of the power of the people who revolted against their corrupt dictatorial governments, we observe the frustration of an entire generation born into a system of public austerity aimed at protecting the privately held trillion dollar banking and corporate sectors.

We have realized we are not all equal; there exist no human rights in a world that prioritizes the needs and interests of faceless corporations, the political whim of corrupt politicians, as well as the politically and financially powerful few. Some humans are commodities while others still are considered little more than collateral damage.

We have realized that while our brave men and women in uniform risk their lives in the name of a foreign democracy, they return home after that service to an environment that appears more and more similar to what they fought to eliminate. Our governments celebrate these heroes while they are gone while ignoring those who have returned undermining their service through social cuts.

While wars for freedom are waged by our governments, those at home attempting to speak of their material struggles and hold the powerful accountable, those who uphold democratic rights and civil liberties, are not only ignored, they are terrorized and brutalized by the same authorities who have vowed to serve and protect them.

We have come to understand that democracy and civil liberties are dangerous to those who attempt to silence our frustration and our indignation. We are human beings! The intolerable taste of blunt injustice is difficult to swallow while every day the authorities chase, abuse, and inflict torture on the very people who have built, attempt to maintain, and progress  the nations we call home.

In a world of growing corruption, secrecy, manipulation, and oppression, a world characterized by the interdependence of major institutions aimed at perpetuating a global status quo, who is the enemy? The so called democratically elected governments? The police force that serves and protects its civilians? The media who function as democracy’s watchdog? Are the laws the true enemy for having revealed to us that they have not been crafted to protect the people but rather have been carefully engineered to protect the government and corporate entities abuse of power? Who are we to hold accountable?

OCCUPY CANADA

So they arose: Occupy Toronto, Occupy Vancouver, Occupy Calgary, to be followed by many others, some larger than others, all equal in weight and contributions. There are still occupations all across Canada that are organizing, mobilizing and flourishing.

As we reclaim what we consider our rightful public sphere through discussions and open dialogue, our authorities are set on undermining our political and democratic rights with baseless accusations and irrelevant excuses to end the physical occupations. This is a systematic attempt to hinder the public effort to restore a democratic process which has been too long neglected.

Below are some of the general achievements of Canadian Occupations:

• fostering public discussion on local, regional, and national issues
• building and advocating social, economic, and political awareness
• provision of shelter, food and immediate material needs to those left most vulnerable to our current economic crisis
• exposure of rampant political hypocrisy
• exposure of the main stream media’s inability and/or refusal to report objectively
• engagement of the general public in direct democratic processes
• reclaiming the discourse for active public political participation and expression
• global challenge to the neo-liberal narrative
• creation of a social and political platform enabling collaboration between existing social justice organizations
• facilitation of discussion on controversial issues: homelessness, drug addiction, and political corruptionraising awareness and solidarity within the context of the globalmovement for social and economic justice

Some of the challenges faced at occupation sites:

• expanding physical encampment
• drug use
• safety and health
• logistics on maintaining sites
• negative public opinion
• weather conditions
• constant threat of eviction by city authorities
• internal conflicts – internal division
• lack of an effective general assembly model for procedures
• lack of focus on provincial and national issues
• mainstream media reductive approach to reporting on occupations
• weak national network of coordination and solidarity
• lack of binding code of conduct
• lack of well coordinated strategic planning

Now the time has come for us to reflect, not so much on the petty differences between us, between those whose lives and future are contingent on the realization that there has always been an underlying narrative: aglobal narrative of solidarity, but rather on finding the common grounds and the local, national, and global goals that this movement aims to achieve.

We have fought against them in isolation. Now it is time for us to take a moment, look deep within us, look into the struggles of our brothers and sisters to find our own sense of self, of humanity, of dignity. If ideology has separated us, let our daily struggles unite us now.

For this revolution to achieve meaningful change, we must decide what our most powerful weapons are. We now suggest these: words & solidarity.

A NEW GLOBAL NARRATIVE: OCCUPIER VS. INDIGNANT

Although theoretically, the concept of occupying addresses the very origin of capitalism (enclosure of collective/common property) by reclaiming the people‘s rightful public sphere, it also limits the discourse around the idea of taking rather than fulfilling, of speaking rather than listening, of occupying rather than liberating.

The Occupy movement has so far failed to create a unified strong counter narrative that unifies the left. In some instances, the wide array of narratives struggle in tense contradictions. One of the major barriers to Occupy has not been lack of information and education emerging from it, but rather the lack of framing strategies that challenge the dominant neoliberal narrative. Can we build a narrative that provides a strong foundation upon which different issues can be addressed?

Narrative and story telling have always been central to social movements, for any revolution, before anything, aims at challenging the status quo, the dominant ideology.

The present narrative as presented through Occupy is… messy to say the least. We believe that as occupiers, we have already limited the discourse: we have framed our narrative as though we are here to take from the wealthy, from those in power. But the goal is not limited to wealth distribution nor the re allocation of resources. We are not asking for government nor corporate handouts. Underlying the anger and frustration of millions around the world we find not economic frustration, what we find is a sense of indignation brought about by blatant oppression and injustice.

We propose to adopt the narrative of the ‘indignant’ as manifested by our Spanish brothers and sisters. ‘Occupier’ versus ‘Indignant’: the change in semantics reframes the essence of this movement. Instead of looking outwards to what we are fighting against, the narrative of the ‘indignant’ revolves first of all around the concept of human dignity. We aim to build and empower the disenfranchised majority: the forgotten, the silent, the oppressed, theeconomic slaves, the nameless, the faceless.

ON DIGNITY

The emphasis on dignity puts the unlimited at the centre of picture, not just the undefined but the anti-definitional. Dignity, understood as a category ofstruggle, is a tension which points beyond itself. The assertion of dignity implies the present negation of dignity. Dignity, then, is the struggle against the denial of dignity, the struggle for the realisation of dignity. Dignity is and is not: it is the struggle against its own negation. If dignity were simply the assertion of something that already is, then it would be an absolutely flabby concept, an empty complacency. To simply assert human dignity as a principle (as in ‘all humans have dignity’, or ‘all humans have a right to dignity’) would be either so general as to be meaningless or, worse, so general as to obscure the fact that existing society is based on the negation of dignity. Similarly, if dignity were simply the assertion of something that is not, then it would be an empty daydream or a religious wish. The concept of dignity only gains force if it is understood in its double dimension, as the struggle against its own denial. One is dignified, or true, only by struggling against present indignity, or untruth. Dignity implies a constant moving against the barriers of that which exists, a constant subversion and transcendence of definitions. Dignity, understood as a category of struggle, is a fundamentally anti-identitarian concept: not ‘my dignity as a Mexican…’, but ‘our dignity is our struggle against the negation of that dignity’.  ~ Subcomandante Marcos

If we focus on dignity as the driving force of this revolution, we intend to eliminate any distinction between the 99% and the 1% for the benefit of humanity as a whole.  We see ourselves as equals with the same rights and powers to become the best we each could be. Within the framework of dignity, we see ourselves as human beings, not merely surviving by making ends meet, but rather living our full lives as truly free, creative, and productive individuals. We do not only wish to survive; we wish to live. Thus, we are not focused on claiming wealth nor power; what we are striving for is individual sense of agency to live our lives to our full potential. We wish to create, build, give meaning and purpose to our lives.

Organizing and participating in occupations have allowed us to work with extremely passionate and skillful individuals. Some of them unemployed, others, working jobs that reflected nothing of their true developmental skills and creative potential. What we must be fighting for is not economicequality alone, but rather our ability to determine our own lives.

We, the indignant, have but one message: This is a people’s revolution, a human revolution.  

Relevant article, particular on the philosophical aspect of the Occupy Movement:

How the Occupy Movement Helped Americans Move Beyond Denial and Depression to Action

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