Friday, February 10, 2012

Participation at Occupy: a message to insiders & peripherally involved people alike

Inside vs Outside

Yep, just heard it again from someone very involved in Occupy Oakland: the pejorative term "Indoor Activist." It was used to invalidate someone's online argument, the conclusion of which differed from that of many Occupy Oakland organizers. By calling the person (an occasional but steady participant in Occupy Oakland) an "Indoor Activist," the writer effectively stated, "Because you are not one of us occupiers out in the plaza every day, your opinion does not matter." I found it to be an interesting development within a movement designed to be radically inclusive.

I write this from the perspective of someone who believes that radical inclusiveness has been the greatest strength of Occupy and is something we cannot take for granted. Instead we need to fight for it at all times. In the below post I attempt to differentiate Occupy from traditional left-wing activism in the United States based upon this feature, and I do so in light of the clear divisions between insiders who participate on a regular basis and those who do so on an intermittent basis.


Occupy rather than protest

The Occupy movement's modus operandi, to take and hold a public space for the purpose of expressing dissent about elite control of the economy/state/culture (and then building authentic community based upon egalitarian principles in that space), allows many people to connect to fellow dissenters and a greater movement while also constructing barriers that may unintentionally prevent inclusion of all community members as participants of equal value.

Exclusion of some community members is likely inevitable in any social or political movement (no size fits all). The good thing is that many people who have felt excluded from traditional political participation appear energized by Occupy and have taken part in a social movement for the first time in their lives.

An amazing number of people have shared the feeling that such participation felt completely impossible prior to Occupy's advent in the fall of 2011. A generalized sense that a world of possibilities has opened up is one of the most refreshing and shared sensations among Occupy participants worldwide. The range and diversity of participants, particularly in Oakland, has been remarkable, with members of a wide array of ethnic groups, ages, sexual orientations and classes taking part. Even more remarkable, it has also been inclusive of people who have generally refrained from public activism, including members of the lumpen proletariat, newly graduated students, unemployed workers, victims of police brutality, & families facing imminent foreclosure.

Veterans of previous political movements have remarked upon the fact that acceptance of all voices through the General Assembly/consensus process has helped them feel a deeper sense of participation in Occupy than they had in other movements. This is in complete contrast to  traditional left-wing activism which has often been directed by professional activists from within labor, nonprofit , antiwar or environmental groups working on a hierarchical model. Their goal is to get people to their events, to write letters, or to sign petitions so that they can show the larger political elite that their ALREADY DETERMINED  ideas have popular support.  They do not explicitly seek the opinions of  participants.  Their events occur in very prescribed, predictable manners.

People who have been marginalized by current political and economic conditions have resoundingly rejected traditional left-wing activism BECAUSE groups utilize them as pawns for goals which are unclear or which only serve the purposes of strengthening the ability for an organization to continue its ongoing, predetermined work. These organizations are ruled, as a result, by their ability to gather financial contributions, a fact which disables their ability to completely reject current social and economic relationships.  The Occupy movement is, to some degree, a rejection of the institutionalized left's elitist and exploitative approach to activism.

So why don't even more people fucking participate in occupy on a daily basis?

As time goes on, it has become obvious that many sympathetic community members (& polls show a high degree of continued support) have decided not to directly participate in Occupy events, or only do so irregularly. As someone who has participated in many GAs, marches & direct actions, (plus attended some planning meetings and done research used by organizers), but who has never been a member of a committee, nor developed close personal relationships with participants whom I did not already know, I feel I can describe why many who feel closely allied with the Occupy movement do not participate to a greater extent. I believe that most of these are related to two key emotions the state tries to induce in all of us: trauma and fear. They also relate to the challenges of everyday life.

I would also like to examine why I think it matters that those who do participate daily treat occasional participants as equals when discussing strategy and tactics. I believe that this matters because all of us will burn out at some point and may find ourselves going from inside to outside to back inside again.


Trauma

As we all know, violence is endemic in the East Bay, and in our society in general. The Oakland Police Department's use of overwhelming force succeeds in so far as it dissuades  people from participating who cannot endure the thought of such immediate violence. The illegal jailing of hundreds of marchers on January 28th, and their subsequent incarceration under inhumane conditions, was an intentional attempt to scare others from getting involved.

OPD has been clearly attempting (not particularly successfully) to provoke counter-violence from participants by way of targeted arrests, strategic use of chemical weapons, and mass attacks upon entire groups of protesters. Although self-defense against such attacks has been rare, the few exceptions have been exploited by the media to marginalize the movement, thus scaring away some potential participants. What the political elite wants is a generalized association of violence with Occupy (rather than the spectacular violence inflicted upon Scott Olson) because many people find everyday violence scary. I think denying the efficacy of OPD's violent response on January 28th would be unwise.

Furthermore, there are generations of Bay Area activists who have participated in militancy and have experienced the state's  response and many of these people experience post-traumatic stress when they endure police attacks and therefore refrain from participation in events that could trigger police response. I, for one, have experienced some trauma related to police brutality (broken bones, a terminally bad back) & find it difficult to be around police.

Others simply have long endured the street violence provoked by poverty, the state's drug-war and the reproduction of violence and trauma induced by incarceration of a huge percentage of the populace. For many of Oakland's poorest community members, interacting with the police at any level is something to avoid at all costs. Occupy Oakland may not always be perceived as a place where that can occur.

Work

Whereas many community members endure ongoing poverty due to unemployment or low wages, others who are employed face the related issue of pressure to produce at a greater and greater rate. Increases in worker-productivity are related to both computerization of work and managerial systems designed to exploit labor at a faster and faster rate.  Many employed people, and especially, of late, those who work in the public sector, now do work that was once performed by two or more staff members. Others in the private economy are compelled to complete after-hour tasks sans compensation.  Workers are more burned out than ever, and the weakness of unions only supports the ability of capitalists and the state to exploit employees. It might even be valuable to say that such workers face the trauma of everyday life as wage slaves, enduring bosses and clients alike, all for the sake of survival.

Clearly those who work long hours, and also must commute for many hours each week, cannot attend mid-day committees or even regularly attend General Assemblies. Furthermore, their ability to endure long meetings may be compromised if they are office workers compelled to attend these at work each day.

Additionally, we should not be unaware that some people fear that their employers would discover their involvement with the occupy movement and such information could be detrimental to participants' careers. McCarthyist approaches to activism are real experiences for working people. Arrests records could hurt the possibility of some workers' ability to gain employment.

Responsibilities & social conditions

There may be many reasons someone may not be able to regularly participate or imagine participation.  These include care-taking of others, fear of deportation, mental disabilities that prevent them from many kinds of social interactions, fear of homophobia, fear of agism, fear of speaking in public, fear of arrest and so on. Members of Occupy Oakland have done some remarkable work attempting to create inclusive spaces for families, the queer community and women. Whether or not these attempts have been completely successful remains unclear to many. Although not universally the case, elders nationwide have participated to a much lesser extent in Occupy than they have in other activist causes.


How do we relate to each other?

The amount of trauma most people, including even those from privileged backgrounds, face cannot be mitigated in a few months of organizing or creating safe spaces, and, clearly, it is in the best interests of the state to prevent such mitigation by forces of dissent.  The question remains, then, how can Occupy Oakland insiders best relate to those who intellectually support Occupy (and sometimes attend larger events) but have not been involved in ongoing organizing.

I think many organizers resent criticism from those who do not participate regularly. It is certainly easy to be an armchair critic, so it is important that insiders anticipate criticism and provide as much transparency about tactical decisions as possible to the general public.  A great example of this was the work put into a statement by the January 28 Tactical Team, regarding the events of January 28, with descriptions of some the group's plans, decisions made on the fly, and self-criticism of decisions made over the course of the day. After I read this, rather than the resentment I felt at having been put in harm's way for a building we were unlikely to be able to hold, I felt much more compassion for the difficulties of organizing a mass action of this sort.

The truth is that Occupy, like traditional left-wing organizations, remains largely dependent upon irregular participants for numerous things: moral support, financial support, and to act as foot soldiers for events such as the port shutdowns. In my opinion, the success of these can be measured less by the organizer-stated goals than by the degree of participatory inclusion felt by attendees. Obviously this is hard to measure, as there is a lot of subjectivity involved.

It might be best to compare some events that required the inclusion of people who are not insiders. Below are just my opinions on the relative inclusiveness and generalized perception of the events.  Others will certainly differ.
  • November 2 General Strike: Decided by over 1,500 people; included numerous planning groups and autonomous acts, including industrial actions, cultural events, militant marches, music, family march, many labor unions supported evening march, and so on. High level of inclusion, although some conflict arose regarding the wisdom of ending the day with an attempted building takeover due to the secrecy involved in that act. Most participants came away with positive feelings about their own involvement but had some lingering questions regarding activities/approaches of others
  • December 12 Port Shutdown: voted on in GA by a small quorum. Focused specifically upon port, actions predetermined by leadership, evening GA prematurely ended without participant input into whether or not shutdown should continue, many left early feeling that their participation was not vital
  • January 28 Move-in-day: Long planned after failed November building take-over and all understood that it required secrecy for success, but difficult to know who was in charge, much creative participation, including protective barriers and signs intended to protect, high degree of unity of action among participants. Although a failure in regards to stated goals, a high degree of solidarity was built due to the shared experience of tremendous repression by OPD. Some questioning of tactical wisdom remained, ameliorated by statement referred to above
Conclusion (just mine, I know)

We are all responsible for attempting to understand the motives and conditions of others and for sharing our own experiences (in person, on Facebook/twitter/livestream, etc...) Organizers are responsible for as much transparency as is tactically possible and should attempt to utilize and promote tools which provide as much participation as possible. The role of outsider and insider are not static; as people burn out, others will take their place. the slogan, "We are all leaders" means, in affect, we all hold some responsibility for each other. If true, this is serious shit work we have only begun.

2 comments:

  1. "Elders nationwide," you write, "have participated to a much lesser extent in Occupy than they have in other activist causes." If there has been polling on this point, I would appreciate a link.

    I can only speak for myself. I am 67 and was initially drawn to OccupySF in early October 2011, when I attended a small GA at 101 Market and participated in a march to the Civic Center and back downtown. In the weeks thereafter, I engaged OccupySF online via their fledgling website forum and on Facebook, where there were two competing pages devoted to OSF. In all cases, I was rebuffed—obviously not because of Ageism but rather due to the fierce insularity that had already developed around Occupy's meme of encampment. Time and again I was reminded that camping is a litmus test. Those who camp are certified Occupiers of commitment. Non-campers are ipso facto outsiders and thus presumptive enemies.

    My age and health precluded camping on the sidewalk at 101 or later Justin Herman Plaza. So I recoiled from OSF and instead became intrigued—as an online observer and never a participant—with Occupy Oakland, which I have followed closely since Oct. 25.

    Although I encountered OO after its camps were cleared, I found a similar resistance online. Now, instead of camping, the ticket to admission was participation in GA. Since getting to and from Oakland during evening or weekend hours is expensive and impractical for me, I have remained an outsider.

    I share all this in order to make a larger point. "The Occupy movement's modus operandi," you observe, is "to take and hold a public space for the purpose of expressing dissent ... and then building authentic community based upon egalitarian principles in that space."

    Occupy has gained notoriety in taking (or, as on #J28, failing to take) physical public spaces. Yet Occupy blundered fatally by underestimating the extent to which social media have become our new public commons. While nobody was looking, the Internet moved courthouse square to cyberspace.

    In the tech-savvy Bay Area, both OSF and OO bungled a splendid opportunity to use the Internet to build the authentic community of which you write. In particular, the community congregated around the Twitter hashtags #OccupyOakland and #OO (and in lesser numbers at hellaoccupyoakland.org) is rabidly territorial, as welcoming to newcomers as a pit bull that missed lunch. Anyone who dares to question Occupy Oakland is contemptuously dismissed as a "troll" and exiled to the Land of the Blocked.

    Too bad. I'm sure you've heard the cliché that "generals always prepare to fight the last war rather than the next one." It applies to Occupy, which came to the revolution prepared to fight the last war (à la street-based social movements) rather than the war for people's minds that Occupy might actually have won.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Alan, for your comments. I actually think I may have been wrong about participants' age; at the last GA I went to (on Saturday, Feb 11) the number of people older than me was about equal to the number younger than me and I am in my 40s. So it seems that I fell into the trap of assuming that action participation is the same as general participation & certainly it isn't.

      Regarding your point about online participation, i actually feel like I have been quite welcomed into such conversations by many folks who put many more hours into Occupy than I am able to do at this time in my life. I am not sure what your experience has been online or with whom, so i can't really comment on it as a generalization. Facebook, Twitter and other venues provide quite lively interactions.

      I would encourage you to continue putting your two cents into things as much as possible. I think the smarter insiders are sensitive to input from those who also recognize how hard their work is.

      Solidarity!

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