Occupy Movement and Its Role as an International Social Movement for Social and Economic Justice - Admission/Application Essay Example

?Outline 0. Introduction 2.0. Discussion 2 Background of the Movement 2.2. The 99% Slogan 2.3. Occupy Wall Street 2.4. The political reaction 2.5. The movement into colleges and campuses 2.6. News media coverage 2.7. The trans-nationality of the movement 2.8. Impact of the Movement 2.9. Challenges 3.0. Conclusion 4.0. Recommendations 1.0. Introduction. This paper seeks to study the activities of the occupy movement and its role as an international social movement for social and economic justice. It shall study the origin of the movement, its earliest agenda and how it has evolved over the years to meet emerging challenges in the socio-economic setting, the perception of the movement in the countries that have experienced it and those that have not, and the successful initiatives undertaken by the movement and failures or challenges it continues to face. Wilkinson states that social inequality leads to social injustice, creating a different set f different questions as to why these transnational movement are developed. Moghadam observes that theories of social movements for a long time focused of such movements on the national level. With the replacement of the nation-state as the absolute unit of analysis by global and or international organizations such as the World Bank and IMF, transnational movements were borne as an important aspect of evaluation. She defines a transnational social movement as a lobby group comprising persons of three or more countries who interact with the political elite, Multinational corporations, and international organizations in a sustained effort aimed at enacting social change. These movements take place the world system that already divided into the core, semi-periphery ad the periphery. Those at the core are endowed with more resources than those at the periphery. This means that a movement at the core will be more powerful with greater impact than one at the periphery. These movements are largely driven by emotions emanating from unfairness and inequality in treatment of those in the lower classes arousing anger, frustration, and humiliation. They attempt to achieve this by making the economic and power relations fair in specific countries so that resulting inequalities can be eliminated or minimized. They claim that financial institutions and the political class work to benefit a minority few who have access to power while discriminating against the majority who are the common citizens without substantial access to power. This way, the system undermines democracy making economic situation of many countries unstable. The global civil society, therefore, is as a response to a democratic deficit that has led to the lack of public participation and transparency in governance. The occupy movement, though usually associated with the Occupy Wall Street Movement that began in 2011, is an international movement whose effects have been felt in countries such as Chile, Egypt, Tunisia, Rome, Greece, and London. The movement seeks to bring and restore equality of persons in a country and urge the government and financial institutions to be accountable for their actions and align their actions with protecting the general public from economic fluctuations. 2.0. Discussion. 2.1. Background of the Movement. The occupy movement emerged as a response to the adoption of neo-liberalist policies in the place of classical Keynesianism. The neoliberal policies are blamed for inequalities and great disparities between the rich and poor and the failure of secularism and nationalism within governments. The agenda for the occupy movement, therefore, is to minimize these inequalities between social classes, gender, and religion. In achieving these goals, the movement operates in a transnational advocacy network that connects members from countries involved in order to synchronize and channel their efforts toward achieving their goals. The networks have to find avenues in the political space where they can air their grievances and advocate for their goals. This space is gained through forums such as the World Social Forum among others. The Occupy Movement’s agenda is to and the kind of corruption created by money and its effect on politics. Such a reduction of corruption would be achieved by a tightening of relations in the banking industry, a ban on high frequency trade, a control of fraud in the financial sector, and a political commitment ton investigation and prosecution of corrupt persons in the public sector. The protesters major call is for an increase in employment and better terms of labor, a fair and equitable distribution and redistribution of income, and a reduced effect of financial corporations on the political space. The Spanish Indignados Movement was the first occupy movement that began in May 2011 in Madrid and other major cities in Spain. The movement accelerated so fast that toward the end of that month, there were hundreds of similar camps in Spain and across countries of the world all with a similar agenda. The movement was inspired by the events of the earlier Arab spring, urging the leader of the Spanish movement to call for a worldwide movement in October of the same year. The movement, in conjunction with Adbusters Media Foundation, a Canadian company popular with advertising anti-consumerist magazines for free, came up with an idea for a peaceful occupation of the wall street in order to protest and show their disapproval for on-going corporate influence on democracy in countries all over the world, call for a review of the growing and widening gap between the rich and poor, and address lack of legal and political responsibility and accountability for the recently experienced global financial crisis. The set protest received support from all countries in the world and additional attention from the democracy village that had been set up outside the British parliament in 2010 by creating a discrepancy of agenda between the two. At the same time, an international hacker group called Anonymous, called on its followers to take up lower Manhattan, set up kitchens and occupy the wall street. 2.2. The 99% Slogan. This is a political slogan used by the movement to represent its political agenda besides the socio-economic one. The slogan is meant to show that all wealth in the world and respective countries is concentrated among the top 1% persons, while the rest 99% continue to perish in poverty. The movement based their argument on a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that showed that the 1% top earners had increased their income by a triple high. According to the CBO report, income for the top 400 earners in the united states increased by 392% between 1992 and 2007. the average income for the top1% earners ranged between $343,400 and $960,00. Of this 1% of all Americans, the top 20% owned 85% of all wealth in the country. The 99% includes banks, insurance companies, Mortgage, and a few of the political class. 2.3. Occupy Wall Street. Although the occupy movement began in Spain in 2011, the movement’s major impact was felt in the Occupy Wall Street movement that followed shortly. The protest was started by a few activists who camped in a private park in New York Financial District. the movement was in an effort to bring to the county’s attention the greed in the corporate world, social inequality and disparities between the rich and poor, the negative effects of the power wielded by major banks and their role in causing the financial depression experienced that year in the county and all over the world, and the similar adverse effects of multinational companies and their detrimental effects on the process of democracy. The idea of the protest was to imitate the events of the then recently experienced Arab Spring earlier that year in Tunisia and Egypt. A few days into the protest, other states in the country followed suit and held similar protests. In Los Angeles, a group of protesters took to the street and assembled at city hall outside the Federal Reserve Bank lobbying against the lack of responsibility on the part of financial corporations that was to be blamed for the economic problems in the country. The movement, according to social movement analysts and scholars, brought together people who were and have been against the idea of globalization, anarchists, and the youth who were frustrated by unemployment and high costs of living to fight for a common course. The movement was basically based on the activists and protesters’ discontentment of the economic situation in the country and the possible cause of the situation by unfair deals by the financial institutions and the failure by the political class to curb the situation through appropriate policies and guidelines. New rallies and encampment in more urban towns have continued to emerge. towns further from New York are listed for new protests including Memphis, Tennessee, Hilo, Hawaii, Minneapolis, Baltimore, and McAllen. Similar protests are also lined up for Europe and some parts of Japan who share similar grievances. The movement set foot in the county’s capital and administration head quarters Washington DC with plans to camp near the White House. The members form working groups that meet at Occupy sites in the evenings. They negotiate and agree on things by democratic channels using hand signals. Persons with marginalized status are often given first priority in voicing their opinions to increase democracy. 2.4. Political Reaction. The two major parties in the United States have offered different reactions to the increasingly influential movement. The democrats cautiously supported the movement indirectly while the republicans were adamant and critical on the legitimacy and soundness of the movement. The two parties, however, both agree that the movement was quite influential and was likely to have lasting effect on the public political debate. The country’s political divide adopted the ‘occupy’ slogan and the term began to be used in parliamentary debates. The democrats, for instance, sought reference from the 99% slogan in a bid to press for the passing of legislation on employment famous as the Obama’s Job Act. these and other acts such as safety of miners’ act, voter identification act, and rules concerning the use of internet are all geared toward improving the livelihood of the 99% population, therefore, in line with the intent of the occupy movement. Republicans, on the other hand, view the movement as a class movement for between the poor and the rich, or the haves and have not, or the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Given the history of republicans in the US, it would be expected that they would not support such a movement, and so they did in refuting passage of the acts as suggested by the democrats. Newt Gingrich, a former presidential aspirant termed the movement as divisive and un-American in its approach. 2.5. The Movement into Colleges and Campuses. In attaining its national outlook, the movement began transforming itself into a student movement protesting against hiking of tuition fees and other learning expenses. Students from the university of California took part in a protest of similar outlook as the occupy movement protesting against increase in tuition fees that had almost doubled over the years. The protest was quelled by pepper sprays by the police, igniting desire from other campuses to follow suit in support of the University of California. Subsequently, students from the universities of los angels, Berkeley, and riverside campuses joined in the protests. In New York, students from the University of New York organized a protest rally and failed to heed the police’s request to keep of a building where the university’s board was sitting. Consequently, there were confrontations with the police that led to the arrest of 15 students. 2.6.News Media Coverage. News media coverage of the Occupy Movement gained momentum as the movement increased its activities and protests all over the US. Activities of the movement were printed on front pages of newspapers and news on the top of television newscasts. Its national recognition was aided by an interview on president Obama on the movement in the second month of its start in New York. In October 2011, statistics show that the event covered 7% of all news coverage in the country and a significant share of coverage all around the world on international news sites such as CNN. Cable news and radio increased their coverage and airing of the movement and its events often followed with radical comments with positive or negative imperatives. Negative comments were mainly on the movement’s lack of proper organization and leadership strategies. With these comments, the protesters often urged the reports to cease offering judgments on what the protests and the movement as a whole was all about as they seemed not to have understood. There was an eminent generational and age gap in the viewership of the events of the movement. The nature and course of the protests were followed closely by 11% of viewers between the ages 18 and 29. Only 3% of the older viewers paid great attention to protests. Events such as mass arrests of protesters and deterrence measures used by the police were some of the events that gained much viewership of the movement that otherwise is not a popular news event for the youth. The movement used social media such as Facebook and Twitter, to urge support for its course and inform others what it was all about. The sites were used to inform users of planned events in particular locations and a number of the users were wooed into taking part in the protests through such media. In Florida, for instance, thousands of the public signed up for planned events by the movement in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Orlando, and other place space providers MayFirst/ People Link provided free space for members from Iran and Germany to launch websites and emails for the course. Media footage of police harassment of the protester is one of the greatest reasons that have elicited sentiment on the part of sympathizers who opted to join in the movement. Events such as forceful repression by the police, use of unnecessary violence on non-violent crowds, the raid on the Oakland encampment, and use of pepper spray on students’ protests are responsible for increased activity and enrollment of members into the movement. Increased coverage of the events of the group has had positive effects for the movement as it has brought to the limelight the entrenched inequalities in the economic system in the country, helped the movement to gain sympathy from all over the country and world for its cause, and opened up the irresponsibility of the Wall Street and other major financial institutions and the lack of control by the political system of such responsibilities for national debate, thus unearthing underlying issues. 2.6. The Trans-Nationality of the Movement. There have been a number of protests by the occupy movement in countries around the world since 2011. In Armenia, for instance, environmental and civic activists occupied a park opposing building of kiosks by the city authorities. Despite counter attacks from the police, it remains to be one of the most successful movements in the country. In Australia, occupy movements took place in major and small cities such as Melbourne and Sydney. Similar protests were held in Brussels Belgium, Canada in Vancouver to protests against social injustice, student protests in Colombia, Cyprus, and in Denmark. In France, about 300 hundred protesters of the occupy movement in cities like Marseilles and Nantes took place in 2011 with some of the police joining in and other suppressing the movement. In Germany, the occupiers occupied Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Berlin among other major cities in front of the European Central Bank. Similar protests took place in Hong Kong, Israel, Malaysia, and other countries in Europe. Unfortunately, the occupy movement has often been depicted as a national movement confined to particular cities and states in the United States such as New York, Oakland, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and others. events such as the 15th of October ‘Big Story Days’ that depict events of protest in Rome, Greece, and London, that are actually art of the larger Occupy Movement are not shown to indicate so. The presentation of such events does not show any kind of connection between the two as part of the occupy movement, but rather as separate, loosely connected events sharing only similar sentiments but not organizational strategy. As a result of the disconnect shown between such protest events and those by the movement in the US, the Occupy Movement has been depicted as a small, disorganized and disarranged movement, contrary to what it really is. The movement is actually a transnational organization whose agenda is directed toward multi-national and not national corporations and their effect on the global and not national economy of all countries in the globe. The current occupy movement is, however, portrayed as to being concerned with domestic financial woes and the role of domestic politics in the problems (Shenker & Gabbatt). By failing to view the Occupy Movement as a transnational movement with shared connections with the events in Egypt and Tunisia, the indignados movements in Spain, protesters in Greece and Rome against austerity, the student riots in Chile, and many other similar movement all around the world, the shared antagonism for the failure of governments to curb activities of financial institutions in creating economic problems is lost. It then follows that the movement takes a different shape and look that is alienated from its authentic course. the result of such a disconnect is that the true course of the movement emerges in different forms in different countries and states and seems to be applying to specific issues that may not be shared by all countries at that time. The inherent call by the movement is for countries and more importantly the people to realize that it is the neo-liberal policies as adopted by many economic strategies and the role of multi-national corporations that are to blame for the economic woos experienced in the world in the form of economic depressions. 2.7. Impact of the Movement. In the US, the movement has helped shape the political and economic debates to issues touching on ordinary citizens such as unemployment, high learning costs in colleges, and homelessness. Labor inions have become vigilant on the ways they employ workers to ensure equity and transparency in the process. While some argue that the movement has played a big role in shaping political landscape of many countries in the world, others have said that the movement has been a waste of time. The Spanish movement managed to make its government pass effective legislations such as those that determine the amounts banks can demand from defaulting borrowers (Shenker & Gabbatt). 2.8. Challenges. The protest was loosely organized relying on the passionate dissatisfaction of the protesters on the imperfections in the financial market. They did not properly articulate their grievances and lay down a clear strategy and course of action on how they would go about the protest. It was more of a spontaneous reaction and imitation of the Arab movements that had occurred shortly earlier. Because of this, it remains unclear whether the movement as it is of now has the ability to last and have a substantial effect on the political and financial institutions in effecting the changes as wished in the movement. For the group to have the lasting effect it desires in order to be achieve its goals, it needs to have leaders and demands that are clearly written down and channeled to a particular corporate society. According to supporters and critics of the movement, the movement is likely to lose its course to the political discourse. Another major obstacle that the group has encountered since the inception of the movement in the US and in other countries as named above is numerous arrests and hostility from the police. Encampments near Wall Street have in the past been dislodged by the police, forcing the protesters to leave the park and make sleeping spots instead. The group’s occupation of Charlotte’s camp was dispersed by an anti-camping decree issued by the police and numerous arrests. Although the group is shows signs or re-emergence, the activities are slow and not as conspicuous as previously due to fear of arrest. With the arrests and other forms of hostilities from the police, the group has lost its visibility and influence in the recent days. The group now lacks bases of operations with many of their camps closed or prohibited entry so that they have to sleep and protest on the streets. Because of the arrests, many of the group’s members and would-be leaders have been left to defend themselves in courts or serving sentences imposed on them so that they can no longer take part in the protests. One major confrontation between the protesters and the police was the occupy Oakland group where about 400 protesters were arrested and three police officers injured in the confrontations. The movement’s inherent lack of clear leadership and protest strategy became pronounced in the group in Charlotte camp leading to fighting from within the group over leadership and poor public relations. The group split with the phenomenological Flag burning event in December 2011, leading to its loss of support from the charlotte neighborhood. Because of such in-fighting and disorganization from among the group, ordinances were given by the police to quell the protests. As a result of a lack of strong organization, the movement has failed to conventionally engage its members in political organization and in seeking the support of state and congress members. Another challenge that the movement faces is that each state has its own distinct grievances that may not be in line with another state’s. Despite sharing a similar national agenda and goals, issues that affected the members closer to their homes bear greater significance than those in the national outlook. These are issues such as education and environment as well as the state of security in their states or counties. In protesting, these particularities in needs and issues affecting particular states emerged and took center stage in each protest, making the movement lose its national appeal to seem as a localized movement. With decreasing visibility and influence by the movement, the media has also cut its coverage of the group’s activities, thus reducing the amount of attention accorded to the group in the national platform. 3.0. Conclusion. The occupy movement began on a high note with the aim of liberating people from the infringing jaws of financial giants whose recklessness has seen a number of countries on the economic peril. The movement began as a response and supporting movement to the Arab spring targeting other countries sharing the same problem all over the world. Despite the prior attention that the movement gained in the initial times, the effectiveness of the movement continues to be questioned given that it lacks clear political-economic-socio agenda and clear leadership. Besides, the movement has drawn mixed reactions and sentiments from the political divides in the US and other countries especially those in the European. Political parties have used the movement to antagonize each rather than meet the demands as outlined in the movement’s agenda. One of the biggest problems facing the movement is that it has failed to gain an international outlook. The occupy movement, to many, is synonymous to the Occupy Wall Street movement without knowing that it is the same movement that drew the anti-austerity protests in Rome and Greece and even London. The organizers and founders of the movement, therefore, have a great task of painting the movement an international image that will draw membership from all countries in the world. Therefore, to the extent that the movement is transnational socio-economic movement, the Occupy Movement has failed or is yet to gain that title. Recommendations. The Occupy movement should institute a clear leadership framework with a leadership hierarchy that followers can clearly identify with. This will help avoid leadership wrangles and misunderstanding from among followers. The movement also needs to have clear demands and stand on various issues outlined for their members so that the movement can herald a uniform agenda and uniform calls for change. There have been cases where the movement has had mixed opinions for its reform agenda that have hampered the effectiveness of the movement. Lastly, the Work Cited. Krugman Paul. “The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008.” Redistributing Global Inequality. New York times, November December 2009. Print Moghadam Valentine.Globalisation and Social Movements: Islamism, Feminism, and then Global Movement. Rowman & Littlefield. 2009. Print. Shenker Jack & Gabbatt Adam. Tahrir Square Protesters Send Message of Solidarity to Occupy Wall Street. London: The Guardian. (25 October 2011). Print. Smith Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, edited by R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner. NY: Clarendon Press. 1976. Print Wilkinson, Paul. Contemporary research on terrorism. Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 1987. Print Wilkinson, Paul. Terorism and the liberal State. London: Macmilan, 1986. Print Read More