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.”

Spies and their Masters

They slept with women under false pretences, used fake passports, and each cost the taxpayer an estimated £250,000 a year. In the last twelve months, police spies used to infiltrate and monitor protest groups have come under intense scrutiny after a series of exposés. Now, a new government review has recommended that undercover officers should be subject to greater independent oversight. Serious concerns remain, however, that the proposed changes do not go far enough.

The controversial spy tactics used by the police began to unfold in late 2010, when Mark Kennedy, a covert Metropolitan officer, was unmasked. Kennedy, who was known to activists as Mark ‘Flash’ Stone, had operated for years alongside protesters as a secret police intelligence gatherer. Tattooed and with long hair, he presented himself as a “freelance climber” and quickly became a key figure in the environmental movement with his easy access to money and transport.

Kennedy’s cover was eventually blown when the girlfriend he was seeing in his guise as an eco-warrior found his real passport. Shocked, she told her friends. Kennedy confessed, and it soon emerged he had infiltrated major environmental protests dating back to 2003, travelling to eleven countries across Europe meeting and befriending activists. Unbeknown to them, he had a tracking device fitted inside his mobile phone – and was constantly feeding information back to his police superiors in London.

Following the revelations about Kennedy, government police watchdog Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) reviewed the use of undercover officers by the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU), the specialist “domestic extremism” outfit he worked for.

Authored by HMIC chief Sir Denis O'Connor, the review, published earlier this month, criticised the lack of oversight of Kennedy’s activities, noting that “the full extent of his activity remains unknown.” O’Connor recommended that future long-term deployments of undercover police officers should be "pre-authorised" by independent body the Office of Surveillance Commissioners, which oversees MI5 and other state agencies that use clandestine surveillance techniques.

But according to campaign group The Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol), the HMIC review has failed to address fundamental issues.

“On the basis of this report, undercover police officers can continue to target a range of political and protest groups,” says Val Swain, spokesperson for Netpol. “The report is not even able to deliver an agreed definition of the term ‘domestic extremism’, meaning there are still no real limits on how the targets of undercover policing are decided upon.”

Swain points to the case of an 87-year-old artist, John Catt, who launched a legal challenge against police in 2011 after he was branded a domestic extremist and put under surveillance during a number of anti-arms trade demonstrations.

“Mr Catt had no criminal record, and spent his time at protests sketching, but the police have been adamant in asserting their right to hold details of his vehicle, his family, his appearance and his movements... There is no justification for the invasive surveillance of this kind of political activity, either through undercover officers or other means.

“The domestic extremism unit lacks any real accountability or transparency, and ultimately lacks any credibility. It is a shadowy unit that has been allowed to set its own rules for spying on legitimate political activity and dissent, and has no place within British society, or British policing.”

In recent months, a further eight undercover officers, whose secretive operations date back to the 1980s, have been exposed. Of these, six are believed to have had sexual relationships with women they were spying on – despite this being considered "grossly unprofessional" under existing police rules. On two occasions, the covert officers even secretly fathered children with activists before vanishing from their lives.

A catalogue of serious misconduct allegations involving the officers – including claims that they gave false testimony in a court case – is now being investigated by twelve separate inquires, set up by police chiefs and prosecutors. But all are being held behind closed doors, prompting calls for a full and open public inquiry.

“The reason you need public scrutiny is that more and more we see examples of the police unjustifiably criminalising peaceful protest,” says Katherine Craig, a solicitor at law firm Christian Khan. “When the state has been left to regulate itself it has failed. Absolutely the presumption should be for maximum transparency and accountability.”

Craig expresses concern that there has been a “cultural shift” in the way protests are policed, with authorities increasingly targeting activist groups. The revelations around the conduct of undercover officers, she believes, show the failures of a system that has for decades been allowed to function behind a veil of intense official secrecy.

“You can’t simply rely on individual officers or even on police forces as a whole to act responsibility and that’s really been borne out in these cases that have come to light,” Craig says. “The fact that there isn’t a proper system [of regulation] is obscene.”

Though the HMIC review recommended that a new structure of independent regulation is put in place for undercover officers, critics say this is insufficient. Human rights group Liberty has called for judicial oversight to be introduced, which would mean a judge would have to authorise the use of covert police officers.

“If a judge has to sign off a warrant to search your premises, why on earth should the police be able to self-authorise the far greater intrusion of putting a mole amongst your colleagues and friends?” says Rachel Robinson, policy officer for Liberty. “The report says that judicial sign off would compromise independence without any proper reasoning for this assertion. Only legislation will prevent more Kennedys playing James Bond and abusing our trust."

The Association of Chief Police Officers, a private company which leads the development of policing in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, has backed the idea of introducing judicial oversight of undercover operations. However, in the short term this looks an unlikely proposition. The home secretary, Theresa May, has remained non committal, saying only that the government would “consider carefully the recommendations [made by HMIC] to ensure enhanced control of these undercover police officers in the future.”

Meanwhile, after a year of disclosures about undercover police infiltrating protest groups, concern has heightened in activist communities. Protesters at the Occupy London encampment at St Paul’s Cathedral have spoken openly about how they believe police officers are living among them, and at an Occupy demonstration in December a number of men were accused of being agent provocateurs.

The protesters’ fears are well founded. In an interview with the Daily Mail last year, Kennedy claimed he knew of at least 15 other officers who had infiltrated activist groups – four of whom remained undercover.

“The world of undercover policing is grey and murky – there is some bad stuff going on,” he said. “I wasn't the only undercover police officer doing this kind of work and I'm quite sure that there may be operations still running.”

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.”

The Occupy Movement and The Indignados

On the sweltering Madrid streets back in May, there was a strong feeling that something very significant was happening. Tens of thousands were crammed into a makeshift encampment in the city's Puerta del Sol square, unified by an acute sense of disillusionment with the political establishment. High unemployment, unaffordable housing and a feeling that politicians were not representing the people had resulted in the near spontaneous birth of a movement that would become known as the Indignados (the outraged), or 15-M (after 15 May, the date the protest began).

Everyone who was there and who witnessed it could sense that this was not any ordinary demonstration. Despite the bleak social and economic conditions that had sparked the protest, the place was buzzing with indescribable energy and an optimism for what could be achieved. It was a forum for all ages to come and debate how to create a better society; inspired by protests in other parts of the world – particularly across the Middle East – the aim was, in essence, to take control of history and swerve it in a different direction. "I am here because I think we can change something," said 20-year-old student Alejandro Jalón.

In the main, they were reformist as opposed to revolutionary, calling for electoral and media reform and an end to corruption and money in politics. Rejecting representative, parliamentary style democracy, they favoured direct, participatory democracy, with decisions made by consensus at public "general assembly" meetings.

Like the uprisings that had exploded onto the streets of places like Tunisia and Egypt, the Spaniards hoped their actions would spark similar protests across Europe. One 66-year-old man stood awestruck amid the crowds at Puerto del Sol and recalled the student and worker protests that swept parts of the world in 1968. What was happening in Madrid was of greater significance, he believed, because of its relationship to the uprisings in the Arab nations. "I think I am living a new world order," he said, without a quiver of doubt or hesitation in his voice. "I am sure it will spread."

His prediction was not far off. By late May protests had sprung up in over 60 Spanish towns and cities, and similar groups were formed in Italy, France, Greece and England. In London, activists organised a protest outside the Spanish embassy and called a public meeting on 29 May at Trafalgar Square. About 300 were in attendance, but they were predominantly of Spanish or Greek nationality.

"We are hoping that the British will join us too, because you have a lot to complain about," said 29-year-old Virginia Lopez Calvo. "We are sure that more people will join us if we continue to convene."

The 15-M, however, seemed to lose steam after the Madrid camp, which had become the beating heart of the movement, voted to disband in early June. Marches and demonstrations continued – some of which were suppressed by authorities – but lacked the same scale. The systemic change which at one point seemed to be within the clutch of the Indignados' grasp suddenly began to look like a faded dream. There was a moment when the movement itself appeared destined to fizzle out, as had the protests of 1968, absorbed into history before making any substantial political impact.

That was, of course, until a new wave of protesters exploded onto Wall Street, New York, in September, which injected a powerful double dose of energy and inspiration into not only the Spanish movement, but to similar protest groups across Europe and beyond.

Calling themselves "the 99 per cent" – a reference to the gap in income and wealth between the one per cent super-rich and the rest of society – the Wall Street protesters had themselves been moved into action after watching events unfold in Spain, Greece and the Middle East. Their anger, like that of their European counterparts, was borne on a basic level from the same sense of disillusion – even despair – at the political establishment and the lack of equality and opportunity within their society.

Dubbed the "Occupy" movement, the American protest, which is ongoing, erupted like a volcano into something far more politically radical than anything proposed by the Indignado reformists. Though it adopts the same participatory methods of direct democracy used in Madrid, the New York group completely rejects politicians and the traditional system of government – instead calling explicitly for a "revolution of the mind as well as the body politic".

By mid October Occupy-inspired groups – many forming their own general assemblies and tent-based occupations – had sprung up in over 80 countries and 900 towns and cities, including across the UK. "It's about finding a new way for people to actually have control over their own lives," said 32-year-old Tom Holness, a protester involved with an Occupy group in Birmingham. "At the moment our access to democracy is limited to going to a ballot box every five years and voting for people who are going to lie about what they're going to do."

Each of the groups' methods, goals and motivations are not necessarily the same, but they are united in their adoption of participatory democracy and their broad rejection of 'leaders' and hierarchical forms of organisation. Some are reformist, others revolutionary – all are vehemently opposed to the current political and economic status quo.

In cities across the world, there is now that same sense of indescribable energy and optimism that could be felt in Madrid's Puerta del Sol in May. It is contagious and continues to spread. There are some who believe it could be the birth of a new paradigm – the embryonic beginning of an alternative future unburdened by the cobwebbed shackles of party politics. Many continue to disregard it as a flash in the pan that can be ignored, though there is an increasing recognition that the Occupy movement and others like it cannot be dismissed out of hand for much longer. Mark Field, Conservative MP for the cities of London and Westminster, acknowledged last week that such protests posed a "huge challenge for the entire political class".

In the five months since the demonstrations in Madrid shook Spain, citizens on almost every continent appear to have simultaneously awoken from their slumber in unprecedented numbers, giving rise to all manner of possibilities that would have been unthinkable one year ago. No matter what the political differences between the movements in America, Britain, Spain, or elsewhere, there is a binding feature that is in itself incredibly powerful. It is a relentless, restless desire to fight for what is perceived to be a better, more egalitarian society – or "in defence of our dreams," as one of the slogans popular among the Indignados eloquently put it.

"Once in a while in history something will happen that will capture people's imagination," said Edward Needham, 43, a volunteer at Occupy Wall Street. "We're all at the start of this. Together there's not going to be anything that we can't achieve."

This article originally appeared at: http://www.newstatesman.com/the-staggers/2011/10/occupy-movement-madrid