Propaganda from the Yo No Pago Facebook page.

Last month, Spanish activists associated with the May 15 movement began a new campaign, Yo No Pago (I Don’t Pay), inviting fellow citizens to practice civil disobedience by not paying for public transport. Contending that the current political regime is not giving people a say in how their taxes are being spent, they feel there is no choice but to withdraw payment.

The campaign, modeled on the Greek Den Plirono effort, emerged after a 50 percent increase in the cost of public transport in January. A government advertising campaign compared the prices of the subways in Madrid, New York, London, Berlin and Paris, concluding that Madrid was getting “More for less.” But criticism of the increased fares soon appeared in social networks and with posters and graffiti on the government’s ads, which included additional information comparing the minimum wage in Spain with that of other countries.

Read the rest of this article »

Volunteers for InterOccupy.org meet at the Occupied Office in New York City. Photo by the author.

As Occupy camps spread around Southern California in early October, a small group of occupiers located at City Hall in Los Angeles reflected on our experiences setting up a camp and our first assemblies. “It’d be awesome to see what they do in San Diego,” I remember saying, sitting in the comfort of Occupy LA’s People’s Library. “Do you think the cops will even let them put down tents?”

The librarian replied, “We should help them. We should be there so that their first GA isn’t as bad as ours was.” But, as we would soon learn, both the challenges and the potential of coordinating Occupy assemblies would be far greater than that.

Read the rest of this article »

Image borrowed from Triple Canopy.

The enigmatic Internet-driven collective Anonymous, thank goodness, has an anthropologist in its midst. For a few years now, Gabriella Coleman has been arduously participant-observing in IRC chat rooms, watching Anonymous turn from a prankster moniker to a herd of vigilantes for global justice. In an extraordinary new essay at Triple Canopy, “Our Weirdness Is Free,” she summarizes what Anonymous is all about this way:

Beyond a foundational commitment to anonymity and the free flow of information, Anonymous has no consistent philosophy or political program. Though Anonymous has increasingly devoted its energies to (and become known for) digital dissent and direct action around various “ops,” it has no definite trajectory. Sometimes coy and playful, sometimes macabre and sinister, often all at once, Anonymous is still animated by a collective will toward mischief—toward “lulz,” a plural bastardization of the portmanteau LOL (laugh out loud). Lulz represent an ethos as much as an objective.

The more I learn about Anonymous, especially in light of the offline, on-the-ground praxis of the Occupy movement, the more I’ve been wondering whether we’re seeing a glimpse of the future for all of us.

Read the rest of this article »

A picture of smiling people from the Fiddleheads Food Co-op website.

I am the loose tea buyer at my local food coop. Oh, stop—it’s not as glamorous as it sounds.

All I do is maintain an inventory of about 30 kinds of teas—black, green, herbal and medicinal. I am learning as I go, since coffee (black, hot and copious) is my beverage of choice. The teas come in pound bags and I transfer them into attractive jars, refilling the stock as needed and keeping the area tidy. The whole job takes 10 to 15 hours a month, and I earn a 15 percent discount on my groceries. When I took over teas, I also absorbed most of the “medicinal herbs” that were sprinkled throughout the nearby loose spices area. So now my bailiwick includes everything that you mix with hot water before consuming (except the already-lamented coffee). Every time I walk into the store, I take a few minutes to tidy up my area and make sure the teas are still in alphabetical order.

Read the rest of this article »

As the Spanish May 15 movement was getting started in February of last year, it did so with almost no money. What it had, instead, was a lot of participation. Little money, but many hours of voluntary work, made possible the country’s most important social movement in recent memory.

The demonstrations that followed May 15 in more than 50 Spanish cities were a surprise for many people, but they were partly the result of months of preparation among the different nodos (local teams) of the organization Democracia Real Ya (DRY). Thousands of posters, paintings and stickers flooded the streets of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and other cities calling citizens to the demonstrations. Each nodo had to find ways to pay for this as best as it could.

Read the rest of this article »

At an Occupy Wall Street meeting in midtown Manhattan on December 20th, a debate broke out about the general assemblies (hereafter, GAs)—the core decision-making forums of the movement and its most visible embodiment of direct democracy. The meeting was the second of its kind devoted to exploring the idea of a city-wide general assembly. About 80 people attended, including members of several OWS working groups and GAs across the city, of which there are now about a dozen. While some people seemed dissatisfied with the GAs, and perhaps even ready to dispense with them, others appeared intent on popularizing them even more. The discussion reminded me that this movement is growing and deepening its ties with local neighborhoods—yet as it does, it is encountering the challenge of how to accommodate new communities and support existing organizations that share its goals. While this challenge is still fairly new for OWS, it is one that has been faced and overcome by other movements before.

Read the rest of this article »

Egypt began its first round of balloting in November, one of the outcomes of the January uprising that ousted the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak. This followed the military’s attempt to hold onto power by using draconian measures against renewed protests in Tahrir Square, where military and police killed 40 and injured 2,000. With two more rounds of voting remaining, it is small wonder that many Egyptians are afraid of what is to come. Early indications are that the Muslim Brotherhood will show well in free parliamentary elections, and the more doctrinaire Salafists will claim seats. Debates over the prospects for the Arab Awakening now rage as a result.

After a spellbindingly rapid series of events in the Middle East in the early months of this year, progress seems to have slowed. The liberal spirit that characterized those nonviolent revolutions appears to be dissipating in favor of old rivalries—as well as the specter that new forms of repression will simply replace their predecessors.

What’s happening now in Egypt and Tunisia—to say nothing of Bahrain and Syria—is also bringing back to the fore worn-out arguments claiming that nonviolent struggle works slowly, while violence is quick. Efficient, even.

Read the rest of this article »

Vincent Harding is a professional historian who also made history himself. In 1960 he and his wife Rosemarie Freeney Harding immersed themselves in the Southern Freedom Movement (a phrase Harding prefers to the Civil Rights Movement), working throughout the South in the anti-segregation campaigns of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). Since then he has tirelessly chronicled the movement in a series of books—including Hope and History and Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero—and was the senior academic advisor to Eyes on the Prize, public television’s definitive documentary history of the movement.

Dr. Harding’s drive to tell the story of this movement was never a simple matter of buttressing its place in American history—though, in itself, this was a vital undertaking in a nation that tends to erase the experience and achievements of people of color.

Read the rest of this article »

A tree trunk in Athens' Syntagma Square graced by the Occupy movement's motto.

From a glance at a recent front page of The New York Times, you might guess that a political meeting in Athens this week would be full of talk about the resigning prime minister, bailout deals, and the Euro. The land that gave birth to European civilization now seems on the brink of sinking the whole continent’s economy. But, among those gathered on Monday in a basement in the neighborhood of Exarcheia—a kind of Haight-Ashbury for Greek anarchists—the agenda was completely different. They talked instead about parks, public kitchens, and barter bazaars. They even seemed pretty hopeful.

The lack of concern for political figureheads, in retrospect, was to be expected. Greek anarchists see no more reason to care about whether George Papandreou goes or stays than those at Occupy Wall Street are agonizing over Herman Cain’s sexual foibles. They have another kind of politics in mind.

Read the rest of this article »

A fascinating yet rarely discussed feature of the DC-based Occupations in Washington, DC is the food tent. Over several evenings last week I talked with the incredibly motivated and dedicated managers/servers at Freedom Plaza.

“They say that the kitchen is the heart of the home, and that’s how it is here,” explained the food tent coordinators. “This is where everyone comes, and everyone is welcome.” They are right. On Wednesday night, there were activists, homeless people, bloggers, and passers-by who congregated at the tent at various times over a two hour period. It was fascinating.

The coordinators explained, “We get donations from everyone, in many different ways. Everyday we are surprised by who comes along with pizzas, fruit, money, or individuals who just rolls up their sleeves and gets behind the tables to serve.”

To the skeptic, this may appear a regular soup kitchen. But what I saw was a growing self-sufficiency coupled with an increasing base of supporters and contributors. During another visit to Freedom Plaza on Friday night, Popeye’s chicken and Au Bon Pain were available. Earlier that day, the farmers market across the street donated apples and other produce.

Read the rest of this article »