Occupy: a triumph for a belief in a cause
Tweet Written by Danny Whatmough
I walked past the Occupy camp at St Paul’s Cathedral last Monday for the first time. It’s probably just as well I did as the camp has been served eviction notices and soon will likely suffer the same terminal conclusion as its sister protest in New York.
But despite the bumbling right wing propaganda spouted by Boris Johnson last week, the abiding thing that struck me as I walked past the tents was respect for those that believe in a cause so much that they will resort to taking action. Because the fact remains that, despite your politics and whether you agree or disagree with the arguments, the protest has raised a global debate. The largely peaceful demonstrations have brought to the fore an argument that, since the global economic crisis started, has been largely ignored by our politicians and the mainstream media.
Boris’s rhetoric and Bloomberg’s violence has so far been able to quel the column inches this debate has generated. The challenge for the protesters now will be two-fold. Firstly, to continue the debate now that the camps have gone and, secondly, to try and bring about long-term change.
What Occupy challenges us to do is reassess the flavour of capitalism that we think is right and proper. I don’t see this as an anti-capitalist argument, but a question about how we should operate as a capitalist society. That means deciding whether we should take action to ensure fat bankers and immoral rulers are unable to get fatter and more immoral anytime soon.
And, talking of immoral rulers, it is not just capitalism that is under the spotlight but democracy itself, with technocrats talking over across Europe as Peter Beaumont highlights today.
2011 could be a defining year. The year when large swathes of public backlash took rulers and politicians by surprise both in the spring and the autumn.
For us in the western world, it is a time to celebrate our right to freedom of speech and our ability to start a debate that flies in the face of what those in power want us to think.