It started off in mid-September as a protest that lacked a cohesive message. The motley crowd camping in the maze of narrow streets that make up Lower Manhattan beckoned passersby, urging them to add their voice to a smorgasbord of diverse causes. At times the scene has resembled a carnival acted out to rhythmic drumbeats interspersed with battle cries about the “revolution” against Wall Street, a symbolic totem pole of the rich.
Weeks since they took their anger to the streets of New York, the protesters are drawing parallels with the Arab Spring. No one expects these protests to bring about a regime change in Washington, but the “Occupy Wall Street” protests have clearly ignited a firestorm of rage across the US. That anger is fuelled by a frustration over government bailouts for banks even as the Average Joe helplessly watches his job disappear. Protests have spread from New York to Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago. At the time of writing, plans were afoot for a demonstration in the shadow of the US Congress building in Washington DC.
The liberal group MoveOn.org sent e-mails raving, “an amazing wave of protest against Wall Street and the big banks has erupted across the country”. The protesters describe their effort as a “leaderless resistance movement with people of many colours, genders and political persuasions”. What they all have in common, they say, is that they are “the 99 per cent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the one per cent. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximise the safety of all participants.”
Even the initial media scepticism has waned, as the protesters show no sign of heading home. Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein wrote: “I figured the protests would fizzle. Instead, they’re gaining strength. Almost 1,000 protesters were arrested this weekend on the Brooklyn Bridge, and sympathy protests are spreading to cities all across the country. ‘Occupy Wall Street’ is leading papers and news shows. The whole world, or at least the whole country, actually is watching.”
It is, for now.
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