“Trying to fathom all of the intersecting oppressions and interests within the occupy movement makes my head swim. It’s necessary work, though, to avoid more firmly entrenching those oppressions within the movement itself, and privileging some interests while subjugating others.”-Johanna Dennie
My friend Johanna alerted me to Harsha Walia’s Racialicious article about Occupy, and I found the following paragraph a clear answer to a question that arose as I was walking between the tents, past the donation center and the food station at OccupyMontreal, ‘is anything actually changing here?’ Walia writes,
“The creation of encampments is in itself an act of liberation. Decentralized gatherings with democratic decision-making processes and autonomous space for people to gather and dialogue based on their interests – such as through reading circles or art zones or guerrilla gardening – create a sense of purpose, connectedness, and emancipation in a society that otherwise breeds apathy, disenchantment, and isolation. This type of pre-figurative politics – a living symbol of refusal – is a ways to come together to create and live the alternatives to this system.”
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