The Occupy London camp outside St Paul’s Cathedral was evicted by bailiffs and police on February 28 after surviving a chilly winter, hostile press coverage, attempted attacks on the camp and 137 days pitched in the world’s most powerful financial centre. In the end it was the courts that halted Occupy: first the Royal Courts of Justice, then the appeal judge both agreed with the City that the encampment was blocking the public highway and that the use of a tented encampment on the City’s (and Church’s) land could not be defended on the basis of freedom of speech or right to protest.
During, and in the days following, the eviction the journalists, TV and radio presenters and pundits were, through a collective process of meme-building, telling the general public that Occupy had achieved nothing, had no public support and was merely an odd mix of homeless people, mentally ill, champagne socialists and middle class students “having a jolly”. These ideas largely flew around as statements of agreed fact. The only question that was continually asked was, what next for Occupy? Except it was often phrased in a more leading way: is this the end for Occupy? The response from those inside the movement has been resounding, “This is only the beginning”. And in the days following the eviction, Occupy London has already held several vibrant General Assemblies, my fellow editors and I have published the 11th edition of our Occupied Times newspaper and various plans are in place to keep the movement on the front foot.
The first issue has been to find immediate accommodation for those occupiers at St Paul’s who had no other home. An imperfect solution has been found, in the short term, by merging those most in need from St Paul’s into the sister Occupy camp at Finsbury Square in Moorgate. This has been a strain on space and resources. Those already settled at Finsbury Square are anxious to keep to their agreement with Islington Council about transforming the camp into an “eco village” and the worry is that a more crowded and rowdy camp will prompt the local authority to changed their mind about the occupation. Others, like me, don’t reside at the camp but instead help to organise and work towards the common cause of highlighting social and economic injustice and trying to change the status quo. The more medium-term solution to the current predicament is thought by many to be the taking of more public space or abandoned buildings to house some of those currently squeezed into the over-filled site.
Others within the movement have seen the growing problems caused by the fact that the occupations have tended to attract a number of people with profound social problems. The tension between wanting to provide shelter and sustenance for those in need yet also encountering disruptive behaviour from a section of those who had settled has been an increasingly difficult one. This is a problem that is incredibly delicate to address in a movement based on inclusivity, but it is one that will have to be confronted, and confronted soon, if Occupy is to continue to flourish.
The pulse and democratic legitimacy within Occupy London will be maintained through the continuation of General Assemblies. A roving assembly on Friday evenings will be held at a different location each week, hoping to attract members of the public in the vicinity to listen, watch and take part. There will also continue to be an assembly on the steps of St. Paul’s every Saturday afternoon at two to maintain the link with the space that has become intrinsic to our movement.
Much in the way of outreach and growth of the movement now takes place online. Occupy’s Tech Team, some of the most important (and least seen in sunlight) occupiers, work tirelessly to build new online platforms, more efficient systems and improve communications- all essential to modern activism. There is also a Livestream team who cover all major events for a dedicated band of online followers, many of whom are unable to take part physically but hugely support the cause.
Other exciting post-eviction developments are the visits to schools, universities and local communities. This is where the future of Occupy will surely lie, connecting with “the 99%”(a phrase coined by Occupy which refers to the vast wealth and power inequality and near oligarchic rule that is inherent in neoliberal systems like the US and the UK), the vast majority of whom would have never visited the camp at St. Paul’s. Teams have visited a number of secondary schools and Universities (including Cambridge and Roehampton) to talk about inequality, citizenship and to pass on the hand-waving form of democracy that has become synonymous with the Occupy movement globally- there are seven or eight different hand gestures that people are taught to use during a general assembly to enable them to participate without everyone shouting over each other. Plans are also afoot, starting on May 1, to spend a number of weeks walking through every borough of the capital listening to local residents, staging short-term occupations, talking politics to find common cause and building networks of solidarity. “Occupy Near You” is one of the most exciting initiatives still in its planning stages.
Other Working Groups that have been in existence for months are continuing their work in their various fields. The EEE (Energy, Equity and Environment) and Economics working groups research, debate and organise around the common goal of advocating a sustainable political economy that respects people and planet above profit. The Corporations and Direct Action working groups have many exciting plans in the pipeline but if I told you what they were then I’d get into trouble. Even an affiliated record label, Occupation Records, has been set up and artists like Kate Nash and Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly have teamed up with children and occupiers to record a track.
We in the Occupied Times team see ourselves as having an important role to play in reflecting the ideas and work from within Occupy out to a wider audience in a way we don’t feel will ever be fairly achieved by current corporate media structures. We’ve been lucky enough to give talks and hold discussions at the Royal College of Art and the London College of Communications about our newspaper and its radical design and content. We continue to attract a great mix of well-known contributors like Joseph Stiglitz and Nicholas Shaxson as well as giving opportunities to young or first-time writers to be published and go through the editorial process. We are strengthening links with Occupy publications in the US and have already drawn up extensive plans for at least our next three editions.
There is often a tendency for a social movement to get trapped in self-mythologising and grow complacent. “You can’t evict an idea whose time has come,” has become a prominent slogan in the post-eviction phase of the global Occupy phenomenon but it won’t be made true merely through repetition. There is hard work ahead.
I see the passion and talents of the organisers of this cause – from the kitchen chef to the tech-genius, the helpful all-rounder to the skilled debate facilitators. These people don’t only give me confidence that Occupy London will continue to flourish, they give me a hope that wasn’t present immediately after the 2008 crash that there are people in this country who sense what important times we are living in and are ready to do whatever they can to remodel and transform our broken political economy.
Michael Richmond is an editor of the Occupied Times and released his debut novel, Sisyphusa, last year.
Image courtesy of P Barbé
