Revolutions are interesting things. When dissent reaches the point where the population is capable of displacing power, a series of events start to unfold that would be beautiful were they not so shattering to so many lives. It’s a subtle and complicated force, different every time. And yet people seem to think it’s clean. Talk about rebellion and people picture Star Wars – two armies engaging in combat, with clearly defined bases, territories and resources. But the clue is in the name – Star Wars is about war. Rebellion is too messy, too layered, too intertwined into the fabric of society to be anything so elegant.
The French Revolution is one of the great examples of the massive shift that can occur during turbulent times. If the buildup to it, tyranny and incompetence were paralysing the nation while talk of liberty brewed. There were battles, certainly, but to call it a war misses the point. The population itself fought, and a mass of people are very different from a standing army.
Not everyone who rebelled against the king was a political theorist. A lot of these people would have been simple merchants and ignorant farmers. Philosophers and studiers of politics would have shaped the dissent and given words to the inarticulable sense of dissatisfaction that gripped the populous. But the average person storming the Bastille wouldn’t have had a clue about the broader ramifications of the act, or how to deal with the aftermath. Nor is it fair to expect them to. They were just normal people, living their lives until doing so became intolerable.
The rebels didn’t have clear, precise goals. They wanted liberty. They wanted to be done away with the absolute monarchy which had oppressed them for so long. This is what made them take up arms against the state. They weren’t necessarily fighting to form a republic – no doubt many of those fighting had a different vision for the nation. But they were all united in their opposition to the current regime, in their desire for change. That was the revolution’s driving force.
Not all the rebels fought with honourable intentions. Some would have taken up arms out of a love of violence. Some out of a desire for anarchy. Some would have done it in the hope of finding chances to loot and pillage. Some would have done it solely to be seen, for people to think that they were as patriotic and brave as their neighbours. A lot were probably just swept up in the atmosphere, joining in without understanding what is going on or why. A revolution can survive this. Heck, it probably needs this. But what kept the revolution going for more than a day is the fact its members weren’t solely psychopaths and posers. Social movements only continue if enough of their members genuinely buy into the message, the goal, the purpose.
The revolution did bad things. Businesses were ruined. Innocent people were killed. Peaceful situations were needlessly escalated into violence. When a crowd bristling with dissent, sometimes without a leader, form in the heart of your nation then things will go wrong. This is not to justify it. Whether rebels or loyalists, all need to be accountable for their actions. But no one rebel’s actions can taint the entire revolution any more than one government employee’s can taint the government.
This time last year the Occupy Wall Street movement was underway. It was a rebellion of sorts, a revolution with people taking to the streets. And while there are many obvious differences between this and the French revolution, the similarities are strong.
To this day there are still people who lay the above bolded criticisms on OWS. Most of the protestors didn’t know the first thing about economics or politics, we are told. It doesn’t take a degree in anything, though, to be rightfully mad that the economic system let them down. Knowing the system is broken and knowing how to fix it are two different things.
The goal or the message was too vague, they add. Now, I’ve seen vague protestors before. Watching hippies protest against the government and corporations being “too evil” is disturbing, sad and a little bit hilarious. Occupy wasn’t like this. The message is simple – We Are The 99%. Banking plutocrats ran the economy into the ground, but it was everyone else who suffered. This, OWS protestors say, isn’t good enough.
It mustn’t escape our attention that some of the protestors were purely anti-capitalist, we are reminded. Some were anarchists. Some were pissed off at their lives and were taking in out on society. Some, of course, were just there to be in on the fun. But OWS lasted three months. Even if you assume the posers that got bored and wandered off were replaced by new ones, do you really think the movement would have lasted even three days without a core group of true believers? Would it have spread across the western world had it solely been made of violent dissenters? No. People resonated with the message. Those calling for destruction, backwards steps or nothing at all were the exception, not the rule.
The protesters occasionally sparked violence and ruined businesses. Again, these were the exceptions and again, those responsible for criminal acts need to be held accountable. But the whole movement can’t be judged based on the lunatic fringe.
Any of the above objections can be applied to any revolution, every riot, every social movement in history. All of the main objections to OWS apply equally well to the French and American Revolutions. Accept it already. If you are sympathetic to the basic ideas of OWS but disagree with the execution, well, the weight of history is against you.
There is one criticism that applies to the Occupy movements that doesn’t apply to the above mentioned revolutions, and that is that OWS failed to achieve its goals. The plutocracy still exists. All that protesting was apparently for nothing.
Well, the French Revolution, using violence, took years to overthrow the king. Such overt changes were not going to happen from a few months of largely peaceful protests. But OWS didn’t achieve nothing. For one thing it proved everyone wrong. All those people making armchair criticisms of the movement? Two years ago a lot of them would have remarked that people these days have too much apathy for politics. Allow this generation to keep their Xboxes and internet, they all remarked, and you could install dictators all over the so-called free world without anyone caring.
Well guess what, fuckers – as it turns out, other people aren’t as shit as you. People were pissed off and then they did something about it, and before you complain that living in a tent in the park doesn’t count as “doing anything”, well, it certainly got a lot more media attention than you striving for change by bitching about your boss on Facebook. The fact that OWS happened at all, and that it lasted for three months before the authorities (not the protestors, the authorities) shut it down, shows that people can still be motivated by a cause and stick to it.
It also got people talking. Globally. Not about a pop star or a captioned cat, but about economic inequality. Massive win for the movement right there. Talk may be cheap but it’s hard to buy, and it’s always the starting point.
The movement also had the effect of revealing where people stand on the issue. I know people who consider themselves fond of history, hateful towards the US banking system and yet who were opposed to OWS. When confronted they spouted some vague stuff about not liking their methods. If you, dear reader, aren’t one of these people then I’m sure you encountered plenty last year just as I did.
OWS probably didn’t frighten the plutocrats. But I like to hope it curtailed any thoughts from them that this generation will roll over and take whatever crap they feed us. Who knows, maybe this generation is the least likely to take up arms against a tyrannical state. But while there might be a lot of lazy, stupid people with short attention spans out there, the same internet that killed creativity in some inspires action in others. And if we really are the 99%, then you can’t like the odds that we are all so easily screwed over.
The Occupy movement seems to have had a lot of things worthy of criticism. But if you compare it to any disorganised social movement, to any self-propelled human system, you realise that these drawbacks aren’t unique. And they certainly aren’t enough to draw opposition or outright hostility. If you are happy that France has turned its back on the Sun King, then you have to accept the way they did it.
Viva la Humanity.
beersandtears 