Back in December a humble fruit vendor in Tunis, scorned and humiliated by those in power, set himself ablaze. With his deed he ignited an Arab revolution. Ten months later and 5,000 miles away, might something comparable just possibly be happening? In other words, could some small, at first apparently inconsequential rallies be the spark that lights the fuse beneath the frustration, anger and confusion of an America beset by economic and financial crisis?
Let it be clear at once, the US is not on the brink of anarchy. Since the "Occupy Wall Street" movement held its first gathering in a lower Manhattan park on 17 September, demonstrations have taken place in at least 16 other big cities across the country. Put every one of them together, and the participants would number only in the tens of thousands at most.
They have no leader, no single specific goal, and no manifesto. In New York, police have used pepper spray, and last weekend arrested hundreds of protesters whom they accused of trying to block the Brooklyn Bridge. But, mostly, the atmosphere has been peaceful and good-natured, with some of the engaging dottiness of fringe meetings at British Liberal Party conferences of yesteryear. A couple of Wall Streeters have even managed to stage a counter-protest, telling demonstrators: "Instead of holding a sign, go to business school."
No one is throwing bricks through the windows of Citibank or Morgan Stanley. There has been none of the violence of the recent riots in London or the Paris banlieues, nothing to resemble the anti-globalisation street warfare during the 1999 World Trade Conference in Seattle, or the angry street marches that turned IMF meetings here into besieged encampments.
Nor do the rallies have the feel of the mass movements of the 1960s, for civil rights and an end to the Vietnam war, when you palpably felt a nation's conscience on the march. Nor, despite some claims, is New York's Zuccotti Park, where the demonstrations began, the American equivalent of Tahrir Square in Cairo. At least, not yet. Continue reading and comment » | Rupert Cornwell | Sunday, October 09, 2011
