“There are also problems in terms of maintaining organisation structures when it is very inclusive and it is so open… But it’s an important trade-off I think. The main value of Occupy is in the name: it’s in the occupation of space (which is so central to it). When there’s no space to occupy, things fragment and unravel a bit unfortunately… because there’s no nucleus. I often describe it as kind of like a speck of dust: the site is like a speck of dust around which the raindrop gathers, and then if you have enough raindrops, of course, you have a downfall.”
Occupy London Activist (2013:11)
It had stopped raining, but the paving slabs of Trafalgar Square held the water and created a mirror image of the marquee and the sign outside: ‘Socialist Worker Party. NO CUTS. FIGHT FOR EVERY JOB. Strike to win. www.swp.org.uk’. It was May 2013 and there were no protest camps left in London, yet the march against
austerity had nevertheless been organised using Occupy’s network (albeit not under the name of ‘Occupy’ itself). Taking a step back and looking at the protest from Nelson’s Column, the diversity of the flags, banners and iconography was
clear. Anonymous were gathered in the centre with their hoods up and V for
Vendetta Guy Fawkes masks on, waving their green flag with a figure in a suit and a question mark for a face. Another activist in a Guy Fawkes mask stood away from them waving a multi-coloured peace flag, whilst others held up homemade placards: ‘YOU CAN’T TAKE THE PANTS OFF A BARE BACKSIDE!’; ‘IT’S TIME FOR CHANGE. ENLIGHTENED HUMANITY DESIRES PEACE, FREEDOM, EQUALITY & SUSTAINABILITY’; Wake up UK. Our NHS is being sold off piece by piece’; STOP THE NEW WORLD ORDER’; GOVERNMENTS LIE, CHEAT, STEAL & KILL FOR PROFIT TO
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MAINTAIN WEALTH & POWER FOR THEIR CORPORATE MASTERS’. Two signs in particular appeared somewhat contradictory: a group at the back (who appeared to be Black Bloc) held up a black sign with white text that simply read: ‘ABOLISH THE STATE’ while, to the right of them, a Socialist Worker Party banner read: ‘TORIES OUT. VOTE FOR US’. All the while the drummers were trying to create some energy. Some people danced, a few held up camera phones, others just stood talking under their umbrellas waiting for the march to Downing Street to begin.
In this chapter, I will be addressing a number of complex themes around identity and, in particular, issues of collectivity, universality and prefiguration. Whilst arguing for the political potential of ‘we are the 99%’ as an intended statement of both collectivity (an identity shared by those within the movement) and universality (an identity which goes beyond the movement itself, or “a process or condition irreducible to any of its determinate modes of appearance” (Butler, Laclau & Žižek 2000:2); this chapter will nevertheless begin to outline what I perceived to be the foreclosures of the movement. Through their presupposition of certain
distributions of the sensible – that grievances should be individualised; that collectivities should always be treated with suspicion as oppressive; and that
openness and outside-ness should be fetishised as democratic ends in themselves – it is my contention that Occupy (in) London was unable to realise the full potential of ‘we are the 99%’. In particular, I suggest that this is due to those presuppositions (of individualism, libertarianism and prefiguration) creating division,
disorganisation, symbolic inefficiency and inconsistency, and a qualitative limitation to the movement’s politics (all of which, I argue, could have been potentially
Page | 132 I will begin by outlining what I see as the political potential and possibility of
Occupy’s central slogan. In terms of collectivity, I argue alongside others that establishing and referring to a movement in terms of ‘we’ is crucial for at least three reasons: (1) as a pragmatic measure towards collective organisation; (2) as a facilitator of an efficient and consistent symbolic appearance; and (3) as a step towards a qualitative extension beyond the movement itself. However, insofar as this extension beyond the movement is expressed as a universal grievance (encapsulated by ‘the 99%’ and its implied universal assertion of democratic equality in the face of neoliberal injustice), it is also pointed out that this might risk relying on a certain level of preclusion as to what might be included within that identity.
As such, I will argue that whilst a movement’s identity must entail exclusion (and avoid fetishizing openness); this exclusion must be made on an inclusive basis, where the movement’s identity itself allows for a negotiation of its boundaries. In order to achieve this, however, what is required is a good deal of reflexivity on the unequal distribution of people within society (and Occupy’s necessary complicity with that distribution) in order to prevent a foreclosure of the movement’s identity (and possibilities) in advance. I will therefore conclude by arguing that activists need to jettison preoccupations with individualism, libertarianism and
prefiguration, in favour of a more assertive and reflexive recognition of collectivity, universality and (negotiated) exclusion.
Because it is my contention that the Occupy movement in London was not able to capitalise upon the promise of ‘we are the 99%’, the chapter may appear quite
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damning of the movement at times. But as I outlined in the introduction, my intention remains for this critique to act as a useful (genealogical) reflection upon the limitations and foreclosures of Occupy’s politics; rather than a dismissal of the movement altogether. Indeed, as will become clear, many of the arguments I make are also arguments made by many of those involved in the movement itself, who (thanks to the critical distance allowed by interviews up to three years after the event) were willing to be critical and reflect upon these sensitive issues.