Occupy Wall Street: Let Freedom Spring

Seven months after the beginning of the occupation of Zuccotti Park, the birthplace of the Occupy movement is welcoming the spring season with a new round of gatherings and direct actions. Since mid-March, organisers in New York have been carrying the Occupy spirit into the streets of Manhattan and online in anticipation of May Day and the Global Spring of protests. The message: We’re here to change the world. And we’re committed to staying.

To mark the six-month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, protesters re-occupied Zuccotti Park on March 17th. Over 70 people were arrested as New York police cleared out the park, and at least one protester was seriously injured after having his head slammed into a glass door by a police officer. Occupy responded by marching to the police headquarters a few days later, staging a series of “Let Freedom Spring” events to highlight the police brutality that protesters from New York to Oakland have experienced over the past six months. In early April a group of activists established occupy.com, aiming to provide a central platform for the aggregation and dissemination of articles, images, videos, and art from and about the Occupy movement. On April 11th, protesters made use of their court-granted right to protest on the sidewalk by occupying the public space around the New York Stock Exchange (in 2000, a US court had affirmed the right to “public sleeping as a means of symbolic expression”).

As one occupier said, “We’re still sick of Wall Street. We can handle it in small doses, but now we’re back on Wall Street. This time we’re not committing any form of civil disobedience, we’re in full compliance with the law, we’re not disorderly in any way, we’re just providing silent messages. And it’s a really interesting phenomenon. We’ll eventually spread out to all of Wall Street. I kind of think of it like we’re a tumor and we’re going to keep growing and growing, in a cancerous sense… Of course, capitalism’s the real cancer.”

Within days, their ranks had swelled to 70 overnight-campers before police forcibly removed the demonstrators so that, according to New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, the sidewalk could be cleaned.

Since the eviction of the camp from Zuccotti Park, activists have experimented with new tactics and spawned campaigns that have addressed issues as far-ranging as corporate malpractice, tax injustice, evictions of poor and marginalised families from their homes, and the upcoming US presidential election. Instead of maintaining the centralised structure of the camp, the movement has decentralised and diversified, often resembling temporary autonomous zones from which individual actions and campaigns can develop.

As the occupiers have stated, “The corporate media claims that Occupy’s strength is waning, but they are merely in denial. During the coldest months of this year, the United States has already seen more revolutionary momentum than it has in decades.”

Organisers hope that the momentum that has been sustained over the cold winter months can blossom again as the world celebrates May Day, the International Workers’ Day and a remembrance of the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago – where police fired live bullets on workers who went on strike for the eight-hour workday.

Since March 16th, protesters have held weekly marches originating at Zuccotti Park and heading through Manhattan. On April 14th hundreds descended on Central Park for the peaceful celebration of the Occupy spirit under the banner of “Spring Awakening 2012” and to exchange ideas and skills in anticipation of May Day.

In the words of one attendee, “Spring is a time of renewal and re-growth, which is what the Spring Awakening is hoping to bring to the movement. […] We also can’t forget the Arab Spring that has changed the landscape of the Middle East, and which helped inspire OWS in its early days.”

On April 25th Occupy teamed up with ACT UP to celebrate the group’s 25th anniversary of AIDS activism and direct action. And for May 1st, Occupy Wall Street is ringing in the American variant of the “Global Spring” by calling for a general strike in support of economic justice and true democracy: “No Work, No School, No Housework, No Shopping, No Banking – and most importantly, TAKE THE STREETS!” The day of protest will feature rallies, concerts and workshops. Similar strikes are planned in 115 American cities and are supported by a broad coalition of activists, student groups and unions. The “Global Spring” demonstrations on May 12th will be the culmination of public dissent, as protesters around the world take to the streets once more.

By Martin Eiermann