To have any meaningful discussion of political movements in 2011, one must account for the Arab Spring. The mass protests which choked the regimes of Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Bahrain, and Syria have highlighted a new and effective mode of dissent. That a movement of this kind could launch a long overdue war against Muammar Gaddafi is a sign that these mass demonstrations have true political power. Protests in Greece and Spain show that the mass occupation tactics used in the Arab Spring have been noticed throughout the world, that they are being used to put pressure on any government which is not working for its people.
Yesterday, the Arab Spring came home to New York City. The Occupy Wall Street movement chose September 17 as the day when the people would reclaim American wealth as their own with a demonstration of power and mass support. They are putting forward a “call for revolution,” demanding election reform, an equalizing of wealth, limitations of corporate power, and democratic collectivizing of workplaces. It’s a movement that combines the pacifism of the 1960s with the socialist ideals of turn of the century protests. The Occupy Wall Street movement has taken the Arab Spring and used it to harkened back to, ironically, the most violent of American uprisings against robber baron capitalism.
But the movement is doomed. No era of American history was as filled with progress for the mass public as the late 1800s and early 1900s: the forty hour work week was institutionalized, child labor laws came to be, minimum wage laws were passed, work safety standards first protected the most endangered employees. But none of these victories were made easily. These reforms were created by groups forming and organizing in completely new ways. The creation of unions, mass unions bringing together wide arrays of people under a common cause, the reorganization of the bonds which tied people together—those were the precursors to any legal victories. Before factory management could be made to listen about workplace issues, before any social strife could be eased, the people had to invent new ways of relating to each other, new places for discourse and new spaces for political self-determination.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is not doing that. The use of social media in the movement—just as in the Arab Spring—places the movement itself into the hands of Facebook, Twitter, Google, and other massive corporations. Depending upon the very few internet providers for access to the rest of the movement gives those companies complete control over the entirety of what the movement can accomplish. In order for a political uprising to be successful, it must control its own terms. Until it does so, it will always be severely limited. If it goes too far, the lines of communication are cut and all progressive potential is gone.
The fact internet access is controlled by a few corporations is very problematic, but there can be no argument about the fact that it did not hinder the Arab Spring. In fact, it certainly aided the protesters. I do not mean to belittle the Arab Spring or the gains they have made. However, society is organized along the lines through which we communicate to one another. Social bonds are determined by the ways in which we relate. A political movement which does not reorganize the methods of (political) discourse with never succeed in changing the social organization. Within America, this means we must wrestle the means of communication from out of moneyed interests before any movement with true revolutionary potential can begin.
The Occupy Wall Street movement, moreover, faces an even worse fate—not only does it not make an attempt to build new social ties, it reinforces old ones. On the front page of the movement’s website is a picture of kids in Guy Fawkes masks holding signs made from internet memes. This movement cannot even go far enough to be limited by corporations. Before they even reach that point, they begin to label themselves and protest through a set of meaningless jokes. These memes are not the sort of thing you can start a revolution with, they are shibboleths of social groups which exist within the capitalist system, not in spite of it. They do not challenge a system; they show a distinction between two parts of it. Before the movement even begins, the members are implicitly saying that the current social order, the order that houses these memes, is their end goal. “We call for a revolution of the mind as well as the body politic,” the website claims, but no revolution can be had while maintaining the social status quo. At best power can only shift from one side of the system to the other.
And though the Arab Spring is a far more important movement, a movement which needs to be analyzed and considered, the basic problem is still the same. The terms of social communication are not changed and therefore no true and lasting revolutionary potential can exist, only the shifting of power between two groups within the capitalist system.
No comments:
Post a Comment