Occupy the World
A SERMON BY REV LINDA A HART
Over the summer, I offered a theme talk at the Unitarian Summer School, a week long residential programme that is focused on a particular theme with courses and activities held in the Peak District at the Unitarian retreat centre in Great Hucklow. The theme for the week was Walking our Talk, and asked participants to reflect upon how they lived their values day on day. My theme talk – the last of the week – was meant to sum up the remarks of the other speakers, and ask the question ‘so what?’ Reflecting on my some of the social justice activism of my childhood and youth, I remembered marching on Washington, DC in protest against the Vietnam War. ‘We marched,’ I said, ‘and the war ended. All this time, I believed that we did it.’ After the talk, a friend and fellow American came over to me on a mission.
‘We did, you know,’ she started ‘we did stop the war.’ And she is right. President Nixon did in fact respond to the millions who were protesting against the war, and because of the massive protest movement the US involvement in Vietnam came to a close. My child-like naivete that our actions were powerful wasn’t actually as foolish as I might have thought.
It’s true that for most of my adult life, I’ve watched for the same energy and commitment in a social protest movement that might do the same thing. And it appears to me that a movement has begun that may have the capacity to make major changes in the world, just as we saw in the 1960s and 1970s.
The news about the movement began as a trickle and has increased to a river. The participation began as a handful, and now it has spread from Wall Street in New York to cities and towns all over the United States and to major cities around the world including London. Thousands are camping out and sleeping rough and attending events that occupy financial centres and city centres. The Occupy movement continues to grow in numbers and influence. As Buffalo Springfield sang in 1967, ‘There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear.’
What is clear to anyone who has been following the news about the economic crisis is that these recent years of turmoil have benefited the wealthiest in the world and have created financial difficulties for the rest of us. Rising prices, rising inflation, stagnant income, and slashes to benefits and social supports in the name of debt reduction – all this has had little effect on the elite, but is causing chaos in the lives of those least able to afford these measures.
Whilst this kind of rhetoric has been dismissed as the whinging of a group of unemployed, feckless, unaware ne’er-do-well individuals who simply are seeking attention, when the conservative media begin to speak sympathetically about the cause and the issue, it is more than obvious that something extraordinary is afoot.
On 14 October, Sally Kohn published an opinion piece on the Fox News website. In it she states very simply, ‘The question is not how Occupy Wall Street protesters can find that gross discrepancy immoral. The question is why every one of us isn’t protesting with them.’ Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch is well known in the US for its conservative slant to the news, and for its distortion of facts to suit their biases. For an opinion piece to not only acknowledge that the Occupy Wall Street protesters might be on to something, but that it is worth the support of the wider public is nothing short of astonishing.
Equally, Polly Toynbee cites an article in the anything-but-liberal Financial Times in her Guardian commentary on 17 October. She quotes and amplifies their comments:
"Today only the foolhardy would dismiss a movement reflecting the anger and frustration of ordinary citizens from all walks of life around the world … the fundamental call for a fairer distribution of wealth cannot be ignored." The American dream "has been shattered by a crisis brought about by financial excess and political cynicism. The consequence has been growing inequality, rising poverty and sacrifice by those least able to bear it – all of which are failing to deliver economic growth." It ends thus: "The cry for change is one that must be heeded." The Guardian says it often, but here's the FT saying rising inequality is not just socially but economically disastrous. The majority now know it, with no rise in living standards for years as growth is gobbled up by the greedy 1%.
There is something happening here. And in case you don’t understand what these occupiers are trying to get across yet, be assured that they are crafting a statement of what this is all about. Here’s what was posted on the Occupy London website on 16 October:
1 The current system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust. We need alternatives; this is where we work towards them.
2 We are of all ethnicities, backgrounds, genders, generations, sexualities dis/abilities and faiths. We stand together with occupations all over the world.
3 We refuse to pay for the banks’ crisis.
4 We do not accept the cuts as either necessary or inevitable. We demand an end to global tax injustice and our democracy representing corporations instead of the people.
5 We want regulators to be genuinely independent of the industries they regulate.
6 We support the strike on the 30th November and the student action on the 9th November, and actions to defend our health services, welfare, education and employment, and to stop wars and arms dealing.
7 We want structural change towards authentic global equality. The world’s resources must go towards caring for people and the planet, not the military, corporate profits or the rich.
8 We stand in solidarity with the global oppressed and we call for an end to the actions of our government and others in causing this oppression.
9 This is what democracy looks like. Come and join us!
My husband Peter and I had a rare day free of other obligations and child care concerns, so we went to see for ourselves and to be a small part of the event on Monday. Unable to occupy the stock exchange, the London protesters are encamped outside St Paul’s where the Canon Giles Fraser expressed support for the right to protest and asked the police to move aside on the first Sunday. It was a busy scene populated by tourists going to see St Paul’s, onlookers like us, residents (only identifiable when next to their tents), and cameras and reporters everywhere.
A woman with a loudspeaker announced that the general meeting would be taking place around the corner shortly and invited anyone who wanted to attend to come along. The area was festooned by signs of every sort: hand written in thin biro, carefully lettered with paints, a massive cloth banner, crumpled cardboard scrawled with black markers; some signs supported the idea, some attacked the protesters, some were humorous, some terrifying. Bunting outlined the tent city where the full time residents were living, giving it a strangely festive feel.
We wandered around, listening in to conversations, watching the police watching the moving mass of people and observing the small city that is being built. There is a communal kitchen area, an information zone (with volunteers to talk to you if you wish), medical tents, and a gazebo identified as the media contact.
As the time for the meeting approached, a few men took to the low steps of the cathedral, and made announcements in the manner used by the Wall Street Occupiers who are not permitted to use amplification. One man spoke in short phrases that were then echoed by the two men nearby, a collaborative process to make themselves heard. We might call it ‘Chinese shouts’, a new way to play that game where the point is that everyone helps each other to hear. Their description of this process is to say that ‘we amplify each other’. Again, all were invited to attend, and so we went.
It took a few minutes to sort out just what was happening. The woman who had been making announcements through the loudspeaker was leading the meeting and still using that amplification to be heard. It became clear that this was a time to gather people who were working on different matters. Reports were offered and responses were welcomed, new ideas aired, and the gathered company sought consensus in that sometimes grinding conversation that is the real heart of democracy. Hands were raised and waved to note agreement as they all listened carefully to one another and the moderator sought to move everything along.
It was an inspiring visit and I plan to go back and to find ways to support it, even if it is just giving a tenner to support them through the website. I encourage you to find your way to make your voice heard, too, and to support the effort as you can.
What must be said, however – and what we will likely forget once our condition here in the first world improves – is that even as most of us are among the 99% in the United Kingdom or the USA or Europe who have borne the burden of the financial crises of the recent past, we are still among the 1% of the world with privileges luxuries utterly unknown elsewhere in the world. We will not have achieved what is needed until the change is felt all the way through, to the very least of our sisters and brothers around the globe.
Something extraordinary has begun, not only here, but around the globe. There is much to be done, but with our hands and hearts to do it how could we fail?
