Anniversary of Occupy

It inspired people from Manchester to Moscow, led to thousands of arrests, and continues to generate debate. The Occupy protest movement, founded to oppose corporate greed and inequality, is this week celebrating its first anniversary. For many of those involved it has been an emotional and life-changing journey.

Occupy began in earnest on 17 September last year, when a group of protesters descended on New York’s Wall Street financial district. Angry over the banking industry’s role in the global financial crisis, the protesters wanted to come together to address what they called the “corrosive power of major banks and multinational corporations over the democratic process.”

Inspired by the Arab Spring and a massive Spanish protest movement that had bloomed earlier in 2011, the Occupiers formed a make-shift tent-city a stone’s throw from Wall Street, where public assemblies and discussions were held. As the size of the camp quickly grew, international media attention soon followed. Before long, Occupy became a contagious phenomenon, spreading across America and across borders to more than 80 countries on almost every continent.

Ed Needham, 45, remembers the birth of Occupy well. The 45-year-old communications strategist was attending a conference for organisations working for progressive causes in Washington DC. He was approached by an activist who told him about a new protest called Occupy Wall Street in New York, which had begun a few days earlier. He decided to visit, was immediately impressed by what he saw, and joined in with the protest.

“For me Occupy represented a reaction to where we were as a society,” Needham says, recalling his first impressions. “I just thought that this was an extremely historical moment and that instead of some fly by night political party initiative or something, that this was the beginning of a social movement. And everything that has happened since has affirmed that.

“Rather than people coming together under the many different organisations or political entities, people were coming together under a much larger banner. It happened in a way that I think really captured the imagination of where we were – and still are – as a nation in terms of what has happened to us over the last 30 years.”

A crucial aspect of the Occupy movement was its cross-generational appeal. In the first few days it was characterised mainly as a youth movement, but as it grew that changed. Organised labour groups eventually got involved, as did senior citizens, war veterans, high-profile academics, musicians – even people who had worked within the financial sector. “At that point it just took off because people could no longer characterise the people down at the square as a bunch of hippie kids,” Needham says.

To date, there have been more than an estimated 7000 arrests of activists participating in Occupy protests across the US. The main camp in New York was evicted in November, but today the movement continues. The activists are currently collaborating on international actions to mark the one-year anniversary, and they still meet regularly and organise protests outside banks and run “teach-in” educational groups about economic issues.

Though some activists are pessimistic about the level of change they have managed to achieve, most believe that at the very least they have managed to shape mainstream political discussion by putting more focus on problems related to inequality. New splinter groups have also taken shape due to Occupy, with activists using different protest tactics to voice their discontent about the current status quo.

Los Angeles-based artist Alex Schaefer garnered media attention last year for expressing his indignation at the greed of the banking sector in a creative manner – by painting pictures of banks on fire. Schaefer is hugely frustrated at how little has been done in America to hold the financial sector to account for bringing the country’s economy to its knees, and he recently started a new trend that is beginning to catch on in various cities. He calls it “chalking” – a form of civil disobedience that involves drawing information about bank wrongdoing in chalk on pavements outside bank buildings.

“It needs to be a constant reminder,” Schaefer says. “It’s a different protest than a march. This is a way to just casually do it consistently. I wish every bank would wake up to this on this sidewalk every morning.”

So far Schaefer has been arrested once for vandalism, but the charges were eventually dropped. He says the tactic was in part borne out of a deep dissatisfaction that nothing was being done to address the issues raised by the Occupy movement.

“Nothing has changed, it’s ridiculous,” he says. “Occupy is an uphill battle. The problem is that Occupy was only a fraction of the population. There are so many more people out there that need to get upset before a change is going to happen.”

In England, activists speak of the same frustration. Occupy spread to London in October last year, with a large encampment established outside St Paul’s Cathedral near the city’s stock exchange. Small campsites eventually formed in a number of cities across Britain – from Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland to Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield in England. But most of the camps were either evicted or slowly disbanded as the cold bite of winter set in – and some protesters feel that they failed to agree on a coherent message across the different sites.

“Even from London to the regions there was a huge difference in scope and aims,” says Daniel, 34, an activist from Liverpool who spent time at Occupy protests in England and America. “I felt aspects I was experiencing at occupations abroad, particularly in the US, did not translate locally. What we saw regionally was more a kind of nebulous protest, and the camps ended up quite detached from the global movement.”

Daniel says that he found Occupy in London to be “quite brilliant” and well organised. An empty office block that was squatted by the activists in London’s financial district and turned into a giant makeshift community centre called the Bank of Ideas also impressed him. However, in Liverpool he says groups including the Socialist Workers’ Party “appeared intent on co-opting, while not overtly supporting the movement, which was predictable and divisive.” And at some Occupy camps he visited, the initial energy which had catalysed the movement became diluted.

Other protesters had similarly negative experiences of camps outside London. In Birmingham, activist Tom Holness said the camp had included people who believed in “Jewish banking conspiracies” and a member of the far-right English Defence League, which dissuaded new people from joining. “The Facebook pages were a mess of arguments and conspiracy theories and that put a lot of people off,” he says.

Yet despite its flaws, Occupy as a movement is likely to persist in some form at least for the foreseeable future. The issues driving it, such as rising unemployment and a growing disparity between rich and poor, have not been addressed. And many activists, though they are tired and frustrated, are still intent on pushing for change.

In Spain, the movement that preceded Occupy may offer a glimpse of what is to come. Thousands took to the streets across the country last summer to protest against austerity measures, corporate power and political corruption, camping out in public squares and holding lengthy debates in a bid to find solutions to economic problems. Calling themselves the Indignados (the indignant) they continue to organise demonstrations and political actions, weary but energised by groups in other parts of the world.

“It’s been absolutely inspiring to see how some other movements have been out in the States and in London and everywhere,” says Beatriz Pérez, a 31-year-old activist who has been involved with the Indignados movement since it began in May last year. “We share the sense of frustration and rage with a lot of other people.”

As a result of the Indignados movement, locally organised public assemblies are now held regularly in cities including Madrid and Barcelona for anyone to come and address grievances. Though unemployment is soaring in Spain and the protesting has not managed to achieve substantive political changes, it has brought people together in a way that has in itself had a positive and lasting impact.

“Life in Spain, in Madrid, has changed a little bit for everyone that has been in the movement,” says Pérez. “I feel like in my city there is a lot more love out there – it’s a romantic thing to say but that’s how I feel. It’s less individualistic here than it was. And I think that has got to be a very good thing for our lives.”

Bank of Ideas

On the fringe of London’s wealthy financial district, a four-storey building owned by one of the world’s largest companies has found an unlikely new purpose. 5-29 Sun Street, an office block owned by Swiss financial services giant UBS, was ‘repossessed’ last month by protesters part of the anti-corporate greed Occupy movement. Offering the opportunity to “trade in creativity rather than cash,” it is now bustling with art workshops and discussion groups focusing on everything from squatters’ rights to economic trade policy.

The protesters did not pick their target at random. UBS has in recent years attracted heavy criticism for a range of risky financial practices. In 2008 the firm was made to pay a £500m fine to the US government over allegations it had helped wealthy Americans evade taxes through offshore accounts. The same year it reported losses larger than any company in Swiss history and, despite this, went on to pay some of its executives salaries of over £8m – slashing 11,000 jobs and accepting a £40bn bailout from the Swiss government along the way.

Renamed by protesters the Bank of Ideas, UBS’s multi-million pound London property has become an important hub for Occupy activists. As the winter weather begins to bite, their divisive outdoor campsite at St Paul’s Cathedral has seen a drop in numbers and is planning to scale down. The repossessed building, though run down, provides shelter out of the wind and rain, with toilet facilities, electricity and a kitchen serving up free hot food. Eviction proceedings have been launched against them, but the latest hearing was last week postponed until January. In the meantime, the Bank of Ideas is staying open for business.

Inside the massive, 400-room building, people from all walks of life mingle. An open door policy is essentially in operation; all visitors must sign in, but anyone can come and go provided they are not disruptive. Among die-hard protesters who have been involved with the Occupy London protests since they began in October, there are homeless people, families, teenagers with nowhere else to go, and even a few inquisitive pensioners. Crammed with meeting rooms, a makeshift internet cafe, a library, a kitchen and even a 500 seat lecture theatre, it is in effect the largest community centre in England – albeit unofficially.

On the first floor, down a quiet corridor, a large, bright room has been transformed into an art workshop. The walls are decorated with paintings and graffiti, and in the middle two young rappers, Sonny Green, 17, and Tom Coffey, 21, perform an impromptu song. Green, from Southend in Essex, explains that he stayed for two weeks the St Paul’s campsite, and has been visiting the Bank of Ideas since it opened on 19 November.

“Coming here is just amazing for the soul,” he says. “London at the moment, especially if you are my sort of age, is really gritty. There’s not much to do, and you can easily get led down the wrong path all the time through violence and things like that.”

A number of youth centres across London have been forced to close in the wake of recent government budget cuts, which has had a tangible impact on the lives of many young people in the city. The Bank of Ideas, though under-resourced and run by a ramshackle team of volunteers, is to this end performing an important function.

“When you’re out on the streets, it’s almost like the police are just trying to intimidate you all the time,” Green says. “Places like this bring it all back to reality: we can love each other, we can be peaceful, and we can create stuff, we can do what we want, we can have our say.”

Today, Green, who plans to release an album called When Words Fail Music Speaks early next year, has brought his friend and fellow musician Coffey to the Bank of Ideas for the first time. A rising star on London’s hip-hop circuit under the name “Agrow”, Coffey is impressed by what he has seen.

“I’m glad I came because I’ve met some magnificent people,” he says. “I came here just to see what’s going on. I wanted to appreciate the vibes of people trying to make a positive change for the world rather than a negative change to pull us all down.”

Outside the art workshop, the rest of the office block is lively with activity. A large group gathers near the kitchen for a discussion on squatting, while up a flight of stairs in a calm room designated for meditation, a green-haired woman in her early 60s, Corina Flamma, shares an extraordinary story.

Born in Liberia, she came to England in the 1950s as a child with her father, who was then the West African nation’s consul general to the UK. Aged 20, she sang in an all-girl pop group, the Flamma-Sherman Sisters, who secured a publishing deal with the Beatles’ Apple Records in the late 1960s. Earlier this year, Flamma was made homeless after her North London flat was repossessed. She now lives at the Bank of Ideas along with her daughter, Zo, on a mattress in a disused meeting room.

“Occupy is an alternative socio-economic provider complimenting the government,” she says. “It’s providing housing, it’s providing food … I see it as a vehicle to recycle wasted buildings, wasted resources, wasted people and wasted skills. It’s a very important principle that doesn’t end with the loss of this building.”

Before she came to the Bank of Ideas, Flamma, a qualified architect, was sleeping on a friend’s sofa. “I was not joyful,” she says. “But the blinkers are now off my eyes. I see England in a totally new way. I had given up with this country until I came to Occupy.”

There are many in the building, like Flamma, who face difficult circumstances. Yet despite this, a sense of optimism prevails. With an average of around eight workshops every day on a wide array of topics, there are opportunities to learn, discuss, share and build. This process has led the participants to feel they are part of a something positive and important – a global protest community that has flourished in 2011 and continues to grow.

“The fact is a tiny proportion [of the population] has this disproportionate control,” says Janos Abel, a 74-year-old retired engineer who frequently visits the Bank of Ideas to participate in discussion groups. “The 99 per cent has to wake up as to how they are so powerless. And that’s what I hope will grow out of this occupation.”

Once active in historic student protests in France during the 1960s, Abel is convinced the Occupy movement is of greater significance because of the internet’s role in spreading its message global. A tall, thin man of Hungarian descent, he recounts how he has been politically engaged since he was a youngster. But today, at the Bank of Ideas, he is more content than ever. “I’m doing something I wanted to do all my life,” he says, smiling. “I’m trying to change the world.”