The international grassroots Occupy movement commenced when protesters against inequality camped out in New York’s financial district of Wall Street and similar protests quickly spread around the world.
The Occupy movement is many shared and linked ideas. Sometimes it is a protest, a public assembly, a march or a flash mob with creative flair.
The critics who repeatedly state that the Occupy movement is predominantly a disjointed mob of students and law-breaking down-and-outers without a clear message, who should be evicted from public spaces, have seriously missed the point.
The point is, the Occupy movement shouldn’t be about one issue or have one clear message because life isn’t like that and inequity comes in many forms, at different stages in life and brings various layers of bleakness.
When $10million can be seen as standard wages for Australian executives and bonuses are regularly paid in multiples of millions while rank-and-file workers have been called upon to work for half pay to keep their employers and work places afloat in hard economic times, you can only conclude that the finance system is crook. This is surely worthy of occupying a space for a public and pointed discussion.
It isn’t only corporate greed and political waste that can motivate diverse groups of people to take it to the streets. It is the systemic neglect and indifference to the daily battles that compel people to pack their lunch and occupy.
High rental costs and few long-term affordable housing options can get folk onto the streets. They could be joined by the almost two million Australians who needed to go to the dentist in the past two years and could not afford even basic dental care. Those who are concerned that kids in schools in socially and financially disadvantaged communities are around three to five years behind their peers at schools in wealthy suburbs, would perhaps like to occupy a well-resourced school and feel the difference.
While critics focus on the size of the public gatherings of the Occupy movement and demand a tidy corporate style message, the strength of the Occupy project is that it is portable and not dependent on a large or even small group.
For instance, we are occupying when we seek improvements to the public health system, better transport and environmental action.
Many are occupying for equity on any given day to eliminate public swimming pool fees, see police and emergency workers protected in cases of work injury and seek real reforms that stop corrupt or unethical political arrangements from tainting our democratic processes.
The large public occupations so crucial to democracy, are regularly worn down by the business of relentless organising, official harassment, eviction and state-sanctioned violence. Most paradoxically, the international Occupy participants attempt to take responsibility for those who have joined them on the streets who are struggling with serious housing or mental health needs that are sadly not always met by official institutions in some of the richest countries in the world.
You have to wonder why the critics of the occupiers find it so disturbing to have millions of people worldwide in public discussion about the widening gap between the rich and the poor.
The powers-that-be should welcome the occupiers and assist this very public international awareness campaign. The movement is built around an idea, and you can’t evict an idea.
Sharon Callaghan is a Wollongong activist
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