The Philippine Online Chronicles

‘We are the 99%’ is a slogan that works not just in the United States but in the Philippines as well. From exorbitant cost of living, unemployment, and even landlessness, the Filipinos have been there, done that, bought the T-shirt. Last September 17, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement rose to international fame. Will the Occupy protests last, and will it work in the Philippines?

The OWS is not new. The closest roots of the Occupy protests is the indignados in Spain which also occupied a landmark in the country, the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, and which is still going on up to today. But while the indignados have generally rounded up their list of demands, up to now the Occupy movement does not have any clear cut goals or agendas. For some people, this means that the movement is acknowledging its incipiency and is taking its own sweet time to formulate exactly what it wants. In fact, for some people the fact that the movement still does not have a single set of demands means that it is more open and hence more encompassing and all embracing.

Generally speaking, however, the basic demands being forwarded by the OWS are calls for employment and economic reforms to close the gap between the rich and poor, as encapsulated in the ‘We are the 99 %’ slogan. According to the 99% mantra, the 99% of the population pick up the scraps of the greedy, profit-hungry 1% who comprise the big businesses, which for the OWS people usually refers to the banking industry steeped in dole out packages from the government, which in turn were picked from the pockets of tax payers. In New York, the protesters started out with mostly young people who were easily reached by social networking sites that helped promote and publicize the affairs. Now, though, a number of other groups have joined the party, ranging from students, the unemployed, older people, racial groups, environmentalists, and people from different political persuasions.

Within the 40 odd days that the OWS have risen to fame in newspapers, TV reports, and the internet, a flurry of similarly themed ‘Occupy’ movements have erupted across the globe. In the United States alone, dozens of cities in various states have staged their own version of the Occupy Wall Street Protests. This format has also reached Europe, Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even the Philippines. Just a couple of days ago, an Occupy-format protest was held in Makati, followed by two nights in Mendiola.

But while the continuing protests right in Wall Street is a rather heart-warming sign in itself, there is still a large difference between a couple of days, weeks, or even months in Wall Street , and getting the message not just across but also acted upon. Whether or not the divide between the 99% and the 1% actually gets addressed and finds resolution is the crucible determining the success of the Occupy protests. And here is where the protest is likely to fail.

While there may seem to be some advantages to an unstructured protest, such as its greater inclusivity and scope, this very lack of structure is ultimately the death blow for the protest. Movements and social action do not happen by themselves. People do not wake up one fine Sunday morning thinking of going to the capital or to the stock exchange to camp and start painting placards.

As with all protests, there are a variety of influences and factors that act on the people and which eventually compel them to act. These influences and factors are ultimately the key to determining the demands that need to be fought for, the best form of protest to carry out, and the underlying and overarching framework for the entire social action. It isn’t that Wall Street’s invaders have no idea of what pushed them to camping out on the streets of the business district, but rather, that they have fallen into the same trap that the World Social Forum advocates have fallen into – being so enthralled in the idea of openness that final resolutions are never actually reached. The World Social Forum stands as one of the antitheses to the World Economic Forum, but up to now this association of some of the most popular thinkers and academics have brought limited achievements because of the very same plurality in thought that they espouse. Clearly, discourse is essential in any collective analyses, and analysis must necessarily be collective when dealing with social, hence plural, issues. At some point, however, the collective must draw a line and find out exactly what it is that it wants. This is a point lacking in the Occupy Wall Street protests.

And precisely because of this attempt to be so immensely encompassing and all-embracing, the Wall Street invaders have ended up with the most unoffensive form of protest – peaceful protests that involve little other than camping on the Streets and marching. Some of the protestors are so peaceful, in fact, that they have resorted to the human mic in order to work within the ordinance that prohibits the use of microphones and amplifiers in the crowds. Unoffensive in this case, however, means just that – that it does not quite do much or provide much in terms of any political leverage or clout to even remotely affect the big businesses that it attempts to fight.

Continuation in  Part 2.

Photo: “Occupy Wall Street” by Aaron Bauer, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved

Photo: “Occupy Wall Street” by Aaron Bauer, c/o Flickr. Some Rights Reserved