The ‘Occupy Wall Street Movement’ begins on September 17, 2011 in New York. The protest movement managed to mobilize several thousand people in a short time. What are the protesters concerned about? The actions are mainly aimed at the influence that the business community has on politics and leaves the majority of the population out in the cold. The movement has no leader and brings together people from many different political directions, religions and ethnic groups.
Contents
- Who participates in Occupy Wall Street
- What does the Occupy Wall Street movement want?
- An American autumn in New York
- Call for protest
- Media attention
Who participates in Occupy Wall Street
Most demonstrators believe that they belong to the large group, 99% of the population, who have to bear the heavy blows of the financial crisis. Hence the slogan: We are the 99% . This 99% of the population believes that the super-rich 1% should contribute more. This 99% feels that they are not heard enough and are not helped enough by the business community and politicians. This feeling brings together a diverse group of demonstrators. Demonstrators come from all kinds of different political backgrounds, including liberal, socialist and conservative backgrounds, and have different social, ethnic and religious backgrounds. After the first small demonstration, the unions joined in and supported the actions.
What does the Occupy Wall Street movement want?
It is no coincidence that the movement begins in the financial center of New York. The demonstrators are mainly opposed to the influence of financial institutions, among others, on politics. One of the demands is that President Obama must initiate an investigation into corruption in the government apparatus and the excessive influence of multinationals on the country. In addition, in the days after September 17, the ‘official’ first day of the Occupy Wall Street movement , several other topics were mentioned, including: extra taxes for the very rich and large companies, social inequality, solving the enormous unemployment, the collapsing housing market, improvements in health care, support for unions and less money to the military.
An American autumn in New York
The demonstrators draw inspiration from the protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square and the ‘Arab Spring’. New York’s Zuccotti Park was taken over by the movement after the first demonstrations and most supporters plan to stay. They expect a long winter at Zuccotti Park, already renamed Liberty Plaza. The unrest was soon not limited to New York; in the weeks after the first demonstrations in New York, similar actions followed in Washington, Boston, Las Vegas and San Francisco.
Call for protest
The first call for protest came from Adbusters, which has been campaigning against the crazy consumer culture for years. The call was soon supported by Anonymous. Both wanted a non-violent occupation of Wall Street to make it clear that big corporations had gained too much influence over the government and that this influence was a danger to democracy.
Although Adbusters and Anonymous called for the demonstrations, the movement has no clear leader. As the website says: Occupy Wall Street is a leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. There are groups that, in varying compositions, are concerned with organization, planning and, importantly, the media.
Media attention
Media attention was moderate in the early days of the movement. On September 17, Adbusters and Anonymous managed to mobilize a group of 2,000 demonstrators, a number that slowly decreased in the days after September 17. By American standards, the demonstration that occupied Zuccotti Park was quite small. The www was used intensively from the start, videos (of arrests) appeared on YouTube, tweets, live streams and websites. A beautiful photo collection of the 99% came up on Tumblr titled wearethe99percent.tumblr.com . The blog contains photos of people who are in danger of succumbing to the economic malaise.
It turned out to be a matter of patience and many arrests before the mainstream media also started covering the movement. After the first difficult week, the number of demonstrators grew. After more than 700 arrests were made during a demonstration in New York on Saturday, October 2, 2011, the media could no longer ignore the demonstrations.