Don't belittle the Occupation

As Occupy London waits on the Court of Appeal’s decision on whether the City corporation can proceed with its eviction of the camp outside St Paul’s, the obituaries are already being written.

In the Guardian, which for a time assumed the role of newspaper of the Occupation, columnist John Harris bemoans the camp for failing to come up with an “exit strategy”, for over emphasising consensus decision-making and, as a result, failing to offer clear alternatives.

The occupation “had such profound problems articulating what it wants” and now, according to Harris, “the story is now seemingly one of decline, exhaustion and imminent defeat”. He is disappointed that the Occupation has no plans to out with a bang.

Readers are informed: “We all know the drill: clear demands have been spurned, any idea of leadership remains anathema, communing with mainstream politics is largely off the menu, and the running of everything is almost painfully collective.”

This painfully liberal whine begs a number of questions: What would “victory” look like in the eyes of Harris and the Guardian? The overthrow of the system? Hardly a cause that the Guardian that backed the Lib Dems in 2010 and New Labour for a decade, argues for.

As to the Occupation’s failure to “articulate demands”, it is not alone. Even the Financial Times has spent weeks and hundreds of column inches debating the crisis of capitalism in the search for “solutions”.

In Britain, the ruling political class has failed to come up with a single “demand” or proposal that does anything other than lay the burden of the economic and financial crisis on the backs of ordinary people. Such is the state of present-day democracy.

The occupation movement that began last October and spread to 1,000 locations at its peak, was a response to this social and political impasse, which was remarkably similar in content if not in form wherever the tents were pitched.

In truth, there are no simple “demands” that can form a coherent response to an historic crisis that embraces democracy, economics, finance, ecology, international relations and other features of globalised capitalism. No wonder Occupy London has had problems “articulating what it wants”.

Some at St Paul’s have favoured revolutionary alternatives while others, like those in the economics working group, have concentrated on plans for reform and re-regulation. Yet others have been content to see the practice of the occupation itself as a statement and wanted to go no further.

Occupy, to its merit, has provided an open space for debate and dialogue on these issues, even if this diversity has often been lost in the search for consensus and an over-emphasis on process. And if Occupy London attracted people with mental health and addiction problems, that is evidence of a crumbling welfare state more than anything else.

Harris tell us that the state organises in a “top down” or vertical fashion, citing the events in Athens, and implying that Occupy’s disavowal of formal leadership/organisation puts it at a disadvantage. But surely the challenge is not to replicate or mimic in actions, an alienating, hierarchical state that functions to maintain the status quo?

Following that path must lead inevitably to incorporation into the very same system of capitalist state rule. That has been the experience of the Labour Party and, to a great extent, the trade unions whose bureaucracy would make Byzantium jealous. In any case, the power Harris refers to is not subject to reform and is itself dominated and weakened by the interplay of market forces.

There is a unassailable case for a revolutionary transformation in society, one that breaks the state’s intimate relationship with capitalism and creates the conditions for new forms of democratic, horizontal rule in every sphere. Whatever happens next, Occupy London will come to be seen as part of this process.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

St Paul's Occupation makes its mark

As the tent city Occupation outside St Paul’s, supported by sister occupations at Finsbury Square and the Bank of Ideas, approaches its 100th day, it’s time to celebrate its achievements.

The Occupation has defied countless predictions of its demise, enabling thousands of people to manifest a collective will and powerful determination to challenge the existing order of things at many levels.

The state with its many arms has acted against those who, inspired by Occupy Wall Street in New York and other global occupations – in particular in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and Madrid’s Sol Square - headed to the City of London’s Paternoster Square on October 15, 2011.

When the original intention to occupy Paternoster Square, where the London stock exchange is located, was thwarted by the laws of private property, the Occupation was forced on to the space outside St Paul’s Cathedral. The then canon, Rev Giles Fraser told the police to leave and gave the occupation permission to remain on the church’s property. Under pressure from the St Paul’s hierarchy, Fraser resigned his post.

Undaunted, St Paul’s activists have confronted the City of London police; the legal system which defends private property; misleading reportage by the London Evening Standard and Daily Mail in particular; hostility from sections of the Church of England hierarchy; and last but not least the antithesis of democracy in the shape of the City of London Corporation, which won its court action against the Occupation last week.

The Occupation has had to deal with the welfare problems that are rampant in society at large: ill health, substance abuse, mental instability, and homelessness. Many at St Paul’s courageously decided to try to help those suffering from these problems as best they could, a heavy task which at times threatened to overwhelm the action.

The greatest achievement of the Occupy movement is its struggle to liberate and colonise physical space – a highly political question in a London where public property has virtually vanished under the impact of corporate assimilation of the commons. Countless thousands who have walked past Tent City or had contact through other means have seen their preconceptions melt away when they have spoken directly to the occupiers or sat in on discussions. Inspired by the Occupation and the daily general assemblies and offshoot working groups and talks and discussions at Tent City University, the movement has built up a massive “virtual” presence. The Occupy website, its many Facebook and Twitter platforms are only the tip of an internet iceberg.

The publication of a hard copy and online newspaper, The Occupation Times, has formed a record of what has happened. The current edition includes a crucial discussion under the heading of “Revolution or Reform”. The working group offshoots have involved people from the Occupation itself as well as countless others who have take part in debates. These continue to function to develop concepts to take the movement forward.

Inspired by the US and Spanish occupations, the form of organisation has put into practice concepts of consensus democracy and “leaderlessness”. There have been many problems and criticisms associated with organising in this way. But these remain secondary to the undoubted need to find a really 21st century way of unleashing the democratic energies of those who have been hitherto excluded from decision-making processes.

The Occupation is a physical and mental learning process for all those who seek to change society. It has embodied and embraced a huge range of ideological tendencies. A World to Win has participated, with others, in raising the crucial questions of the need to transcend the cruelly limited and restrictive nature of capitalist democracy and the profit-driven economy which is in such turmoil and crisis. Facilitating these kinds of debates is one of the Occupation’s key achievements.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary