From Occupy Wall Street to St Paul’s

Recently returned to London after a week in New York, Stefan Simanowitz explores the similarities between the London occupation and Occupy Wall Street.

“I’ve had enough” says Tim Saunders. “Enough of this grotesque greed and fraud on a massive scale. Enough of spiralling education costs and watching my mother scrapping by on a meagre pension. Enough of the claim that the banks are too big to fail.” Forty-five year-old chartered accountant Saunders joined to the occupation outside St Paul’s Cathedral in his lunch-break and his discussion with other protesters drew a small crowd. As a middle-class father of two his eloquent anger struck a chord and people cheered him enthusiastically as he finally headed back to the office. “I only came down for a sandwich” he shrugged. “But I’ll be back tomorrow.” Saunders was back the next day, and the next, and the next. He may not fit the template of the typical protester but that is because the occupation does not fit the template of a typical protest. Instead it is part of a wider global movement which is articulating the anger and frustrations of the so-called “99 per cent” who do not belong to the world’s wealth elites.

Having recently returned from a week with the Occupy Wall Street I can report that in a short amount of time the London occupation compares favourably to their sister occupation in New York. Both have successfully occupied a central site which provides a crucial practical and symbolic focal point for the movement. Both are using outreach to spread their message and are expanding to more sites across the city. Both have established working groups to support specific initiatives ranging from food, medical, and legal committees to media and technical support. TheOccupy Wall Street’s working group on Alternative Banking includes bankers, a professor of financial law who had experience working with a California online betting company, the heads of various credit unions, and a quant trader.

Both the OLSX and OWS are run by General Assemby, a horizontal, autonomous, leaderless, consensus-based system at which anyone present at the assembly can propose an idea or express an opinion and decisions are reached by a show of hands. Both are committed to non-violence and both are attracting a wide range of people of all ages and from all backgrounds.

In London a grandmother has been camping in front of St Paul’s Cathedral since day one. In Zuccotti Park I met 80 year-old Joan Davis who was there because she remembers the Great Depression. “My sister and I would often go to bed hungry and I still remember the look on my dad’s face the day he was forced to sell our farm” she told me.

So far, the movement has not set solutions or concrete list of demands. While these may emerge, there is no sense of urgency to focus on anything other than growing the movement. Addressing the general assembly in New York on Sunday October 9, the political philosopher Slavoj Zizek acknowledged that: “There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want. But what do we want?” But for Zizek, the central message is a clear one: “We are allowed to think about alternatives.”

Stefan Simanowitz is a journalist, writer and human rights campaigner. Visit www.stefansimanowitz.com. Follow at @StefSimanowitz