このような点は、１０月９日の時点で、プリンストン大学のノーベル賞受賞エコノミスト兼NY Timesの人気コラムニストであるPaul Krugmanが、Panic of the Plutocratsという記事で既に指摘している。（ちなみに、‘Plutocrats’とは、Citi Groupが外部には内密に超大口の顧客に敬意を払ってを命名したもので、世界中の富を自在に操る1%の人間のこと。）Plutocratsのオーバーリアクションを指して彼は次のように言っている。
“So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.”
しかし、目的がはっきりしないのではなく、目的をはっきりさせていないのだと僕は思っている。目的をはっきりさせてしまえば、それは運動を狭めることになる。しかし、99% vs. 1%という枠組みだけを打ち出すことが、多様な人々をも巻き込むことに繋がっているのだ。そしてこのルースな枠組みこそが、広がるばかりの格差を同じように肌で感じている多くの国々の人々に響いたのだ。
２０１０年、米国連邦最高裁は、Citizens United v. Federal Election Commissionという裁判で、企業は個人であり、お金はスピーチと同じと見なされるという判決を出し、以降アメリカでは企業は際限なく政治家に献金できることになってしまった。（より詳しくはこちらの記事を参照。）同時に、現在「自由の国」アメリカでは、貧しい人にとっては投票することさえ難しくなっている。２００８年の大統領選でオバマが以前は選挙日に投票さえしていなかった貧困層、マイノリティー、そして学生たちから指示を得たことが最大の勝因と分析されたことを受け、共和党が複数の州で「不正投票防止」の目的で、投票手続きをより複雑でお金のかかるものにしているのだ。中には、申請にお金や時間がかかる州独自の新たな身分証明書の提示を投票所で求めたり、仕事のため時間的に制限があり投票が困難な人々のために設けられていた簡易投票所を廃止したりと、あの手この手で投票するためのハードルが上げられている。（詳しくはこちらのビデオで。）
こんな状況の中、Occupy Wall Street 運動は、多くの人にとって自分の主張や不満を表現できる唯一の場所であり、彼らにとっての民主主義の形そのものなのだ。
Foley Squareに集まった群衆は次第にその数を増し、時の経過と共に四方八方からデモ隊が合流してきた。学生も多い。５時半頃になって、授業をボイコットしたCity University of New York (CUNY)の学生２０００人が加わった。高騰する授業料と膨らむ一方の学生ローンは学生にとっても深刻な問題だ。
この運動に賛同を表明してきた神父などの宗教指導者達。仏教僧もいた。
６時の時点では1万人に膨れ上がっていた。
歴史は受け入れるものではなく、自らが創るもの。
「世界」は自らが名付けるもの （“To name to the world”） というパウロ・フレイレの言葉が 今ほど心に響く時はない。
Hawaiian musician and guitarist Makana performed a song inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, "We are the Many"at the APEC world’s leaders’ dinner, where he was invited to play the background instrumental music. Afterwards, Makana said,
“I found it odd that I was afraid to do it at first.
I found that disturbing, and that’s kind of why I did it.
I didn’t like the idea of being afraid to sing the song I created…
If that’s what we’ve come to in the world, where we are afraid
to say certain things in the company of certain people,
I think that’s a dangerous place to be,
and so, for me to move out of that space,
I had to sing the song. And that’s what I did.”
APECの世界首脳晩餐会に招待されたハワイの人気ミュージシャンのMakanaは、予定されていたBGMの代わりに、Occupy Wall St運動に触発されて創った“We are the Many”という曲を歌ったというニュース。その後のインタビューで彼はこう言っている。
(This is a reflection piece on OWS that I am sharing with other members of the Maxine Greene Salon. I hope to write a Japanese version soon.)
Liberty Plaza ‘commune’ Yesterday, I went to Zuccotti Park, which came to be known as 'Liberty Plaza,' with other members of Maxine Greene Salon. Let me share with you my reflection on it. First of all, I was amazed to see and feel how the “occupation” has developed in terms of its size and energy despite the recent snow in NYC. There were a lot of people, over 500 I would say—a much larger crowd than the last time I was there 3 weeks ago.
There were definitely more tents, vendors, tour buses, and cops.
Zuccotti Park is now a hot spot for tour buses
And, to our surprise, at the center of it all was Crosby (Stills) and Nash singing and showing solidarity with Occupy Wall Street (OWS). Watch this video clip.
The entire system was much more developed as well. It has indeed grown into a “commune” to quote one member of the Salon. There was an information desk, “people’s kitchen,” “people’s library,” community affairs, compost electricity generation spot, and even a “think tank.”
People's Kitchen and the weekly kitchen schedule
It was clearly becoming more and more organized and sophisticated. There was a daily schedule board that listed detailed activities by the hour as well as a weekly schedule board which showed how different people were contributing different talents. In addition to the daily General Assembly, there was a media strategizing group, internet group, arts and culture group, outreach committee, public safety, kitchen crew, “know your rights” legal training workshop, and even daily meditations.
Community in the making
In contrast to OWS’s lack of focus due to its loose organization often criticized by mass media, what stood out for me was rather an incredibly inclusive community made possible by the very looseness. The diversity of participants, or residents, was enormous.
Besides the ‘normal’ participants calling for economic equity for the ‘99%,’ there were various special interest groups: “Decolonize Wall Street” group by Native Americans, veterans against war calling for a withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan, more child-focused “Support Public Education” and “Occupy for Innocence,”
“Chefs against GMO’s” criticizing the danger and greed of the food industry producing genetically modified organisms,
as well as plain hippies and homeless people who have found a place for themselves. Amy Goodman, the main host of an independent news broadcast Democracy Now, thinks that this loose organization is the strength of OWS as “it’s uniting many different movements” because “there is a place for everyone.” (Video) I agree. Despite the coexistence of groups that are not only different but even in conflict with each other, communal decisions have been made on a daily basis through a consensus-building at the General Assembly. These are the people who are willing to live this extremely difficult and time-consuming process.
Countering the ‘faceless enemy’
Mass media’s another common criticism toward OWS is its lack of leaders, but Amy Goodman thinks the opposite here as well. Rather than its weakness, she thinks it is the very uniqueness and strength of this movement: “[the people] are empowered to feel that they are their own leaders.” Apparently, there have been undercover cops in Zuccotti Park, but the problem is that they cannot find one leader who is responsible for the deed. This reminded me of Mary McCarthy’s critique of bureaucracy: "Bureaucracy, the rule of no one, has become the modern form of despotism." Only this time, ‘the people’ are countering the ‘faceless enemy’ with the very strategy that has long tortured them.
People in dialogues
Another thing that stood out for me was how people were engaged in dialogues almost everywhere in the park.
It reminded me of something my mentor once told me. When I was a junior high school teacher in Japan, one of my routines was to observe the practice of my mentor’s kendo team (kendo is a Japanese martial art that uses bamboo swords). “Notice how many conversations are beginning to take place,” he pointed out to me one day. As I watched more carefully how the students were engaging in one-on-one duals, I began to see a number of pairs converging for questions and advice after each move. Watching them with a smile, he said, “These students are finally starting to think, and change.”What I saw in Zuccotti Park was exactly that—people engaging in serious dialogues to think what they can do to improve, to change.
Messiness of the “world”
Of course, when people with conflicting perspectives coexist, there are many disagreements and moments of discomfort and it’s not all that pretty. But it doesn’t have to be, for such messiness is an undeniable part of the unfinished world we live in. Hannah Arendt was well aware of this when she conceptualized the world to be inherited by children as something messy, containing not only the good and the beautiful but also the bad and the ugly, hardly perfected in harmony but still moving in all kinds of directions. Still, visiting Zuccotti Park, I could not deny the sensation that disparate forces were beginning to converge to shift the society in a major way.
Creation of a space
It would be a mistake, though, to assume that everyone in the Liberty Square was a ‘wide-awake participant.’ There were many ‘visitors’ wandering around, just like me, to see if there was a space for them as well. With eyes so curious and agitated, many seemed to be looking for a ‘participant’ with whom they could hold a conversation. Perhaps, any slight gesture from the other would spark a conversation. These were people on the verge of taking risks. Mass media have criticized OWS’s lack of concrete political agendas, but I think they are missing the point. I think that a true meaning of Occupy Wall Street movements lies in the creation of space for air and reflection in the vacuum created by the Corporate Sate. Asked where he thinks this is going, David Crosby said “This movement is so much larger than the Park. The Park is just a spark.” I agree that the space the participants have created go well beyond the limits of the Park. They now exist in various large cities, other countries, vast virtual space on the internet, and numerous individuals’ consciousnesses. And these are public spaces for dialogue and change.
Feeling pleasantly agitated, I returned to the Liberty Square next day, but this time as a teacher, to show my two-year-old daughter what our ‘world’ looks like.
