REUTERS.COM: Tahrir Square in Cairo, Green Square in Tripoli, Syntagma Square in Athens and now Zuccotti Park in New York -- popular anger against entrenching power elites is spreading around the world.
Many have been intrigued by the Occupy Wall Street movement against financial inequality that started in a New York park and expanded across America from Tampa, Florida, to Portland, Oregon, and from Los Angeles to Chicago.
Hundreds of activists gathered a month ago in the Manhattan park two blocks from Wall Street to vent their anger at what they see as the excesses of New York financiers, whom they blame for the economic crisis that has struck countless ordinary Americans and reverberated across the global economy.
In the U.S. movement, Arab nations see echoes of this year's Arab Spring uprisings. Spaniards and Italians see parallels with Indignados (indignant) activists, while voices in Tehran and Beijing with their own anti-American agendas have even said this could portend the meltdown of the United States.
Inspired by the momentum of the U.S. movement, which started small but is now part of U.S. political debate, activists in London will gather to protest outside the London Stock Exchange on October 15 on the same day that Spanish groups will mass on Madrid's Puerta del Sol square in solidarity.
"American people are more and more following the path chosen by people in the Arab world," Iran's student news agency ISNA quoted senior Revolutionary Guards officer Masoud Jazayeri as saying. "America's domineering government will face uprisings similar to those in Tunisia and Egypt."
Chinese newspapers splashed news about Occupy Wall Street with editorials blaming the U.S. political system and denouncing the Western media for playing down the protests.
"The future of America stands at a crossroads. Presuming that effective measures to relieve the social mood and reconstruct justice cannot be found, it is not impossible that the Occupy Wall Street movement might be the final straw under which America collapses," said a commentary in the Global Times.
"This movement has uncovered a scar on American society, an iceberg of accumulated social conflicts has risen to the surface," said the commentary in the tabloid, which is owned by the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily. » | Peter Millership | LONDON | Tuesday October 11, 2011
REUTERS.COM: Analysis: Wall St. action part of global "Arab Spring?" – After the "Arab Spring" and unrest in Europe, New York's "Occupy Wall Street" movement may be the latest sign of a global, popular backlash against elites with increasingly shared rhetoric and tactics. » | Peter Apps, Political Risk Correspondent | LONDON | Tuesday, October 11, 2011
