Blog
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
In hindsight, I can gladly admit that my original reaction to the first day of Occupy Melbourne was wrong. As a left-wing cynic, weary from years fighting alongside the fragments of an old and obsolete reactionary left, I noted the usual suspects and assumed too quickly that these dogmatic, semi-cultish organisations would try to succeed in taking over the movement. I wrongly doubted the new faces would survive the first assembly and assumed most passers-by would leave when confronted by an outdated lecture on Marx or Lenin. While the left’s key thinkers are still relevant, their use as a quasi bible by self-righteous crusaders and vanguards sits somewhat uneasily in the struggle against the contemporary form of capitalism. Yet the idealist in me was still alive and I went back the next day to see how the movement had evolved. While the square was much less populated on that Sunday afternoon, there seemed to remain a spirit of freedom and independence which made me optimistic, if not for the future of the movement, for its relevance in the ongoing emancipatory struggle. ... read more
Written by Aurelien Mondon on 5-01-2012, 48 user comments
City Hall as Trojan Horse: lessons from Occupy LA
While protesters in Oakland, Portland, Boston, New York and cities throughout the US faced riot police with tear gas canisters, their comrades in Los Angeles enjoyed a much cosier relationship with the city and its police. From the very beginning, organisers of Occupy LA made a decision to work closely with the city government and the police, through liaisons, in an effort to avoid the kinds of confrontations seen in other cities. As media team organiser Lisa Clapier put it in characteristically New-Agey prose, ‘[We] chose collectively to remain in our integrity and NOT break the law, unless doing so WAS in integrity.’
Though initially gathering in Pershing Square, a large public space near many financial institutions, organisers quickly opted to set up camp in the grassy park surrounding City Hall, just a stone’s throw from LAPD headquarters. The LAPD set up a command post inside City Hall, allowing for easy surveillance of the park and assigned twelve full-time officers to the protest. The activists, for their part, toed the line, dutifully moving their tents to the surrounding sidewalk each night at 10:30, in keeping with park rules. It was, as one sceptic noted, an ‘occupation by permission’. ... read more
Written by Matt Cornell on 16-12-2011, 1 user comment
Occupy Melbourne: the return
If it achieves nothing else, by locking out all its staff, Qantas has shown why the Occupy movement matters.
Naturally, the usual performing seals will bark and clap their fins in the Murdoch press about how Alan Joyce had no option. He had to crush the union, you see – it’s that old Vietnam logic about destroying the village to save it.
But, if you pardon the obvious pun, that’s not gonna fly with most Australians.
Joyce has, after all, just awarded himself a pay rise of 71 per cent, bringing his remuneration up from $2.9 million to – cough! – more than $5 million a year.
No, it’s not a coincidence, nor just a matter of poor timing. You get the big bucks as a CEO precisely because you’re prepared to push through this kind of bastardy.
That’s how the system works, in Australia as in the US. It’s a feature and not a bug, and it’s why the occupy slogan resonates. ... read more
Written by Jeff Sparrow on 29-10-2011, 12 user comments
Occupy Australia: a debate
Occupy Australia: where to from here?
Mike Stuchbery versus Rjurik Davidson
Mike Stuchbery
Following forceful evictions from both City Square and Martin Place, the Occupy movement in Australia is at a crossroads. With vision of heavy-handed police tactics across news media and Facebook, many are flocking to the General Assemblies and rallies held in both cities. The original occupiers are now joined by a motley crew of community activists, public servants, trade unionists travellers, punk kids and city workers appalled by the use of capsicum spray, fists and police horses to evict the occupants. In Melbourne, at least, the main forum for discussion is social media: the Occupy Melbourne facebook and Twitter streams scroll by past so fast, it’s hard to keep up. ... read more
Written by Editorial team on 25-10-2011, 50 user comments
Occupy Melbourne: eviction
As one of the judges for the Lord Mayor’s Creative Writing Awards for this year, I’ve been surprised in the past 24 hours to hear myself referred to as a ‘professional protester’ by the Lord Mayor – an ‘arrogant liar’ who had had their ‘little self-indulgent moment in the sunshine’ and ‘caused at least $15,000 damage’ to City Square. Because I have been active in Occupy Melbourne. I was part of the occupation yesterday that was forcibly evicted and I joined the post-eviction protest. I wonder, how I can be capable of deciding the best writing in Melbourne, while simultaneously fitting the above descriptors?
After notice of the eviction of Occupy Melbourne hit, the speculation was that arrests were imminent if protesters didn’t vacate the Square. I hadn’t been sleeping in the Square, in fact, I hadn’t even been there every day; still I was committed to the Occupy protest. Something was evolving in that space – in all the Occupy spaces – and it had a right to continue to evolve out in the open. ... read more
Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 22-10-2011, 69 user comments
Occupy Sydney so far
I got to Occupy Sydney at about 8pm on Monday night and stayed for about an hour and a half. I jotted down some things on a pad of post-its, and took a few photos. I went feeling sceptical about it, and didn’t leave feeling particularly reassured.
When I was there, there were about five cops. Evidently, they don’t expect much trouble from the protesters. There were lots of cops there when they first took the tents and stuff occupiers wanted to sleep in, but apparently they maintained a low presence Sunday night too. Refreshingly, casual interactions between protesters and cops that I saw were generally pretty friendly and positive. The cops, however, did seem to be on a mission to restrict and harass the protests as possible. When it was raining, they prevented protesters from going under shelter. Presumably, the hope was this would discourage protesters, who would go home or give up. But that failed. When I was there, there were about 50 occupiers. I was told there were as many as 2000 on Sunday, but there seems to a hardcore of about 50 who sleep there and stick it out. ... read more
Written by Michael Brull on 20-10-2011, 13 user comments
Not an ending, a beginning: notes on Occupy Wall Street
In the past few weeks friends and family from around the country have asked me, with a deep urgency in their tone: ‘What is it like to be there? What does it feel like? How would you describe it?’ These questions throw me because, like any project of describing life as it happens around you, when you are very much in it, it feels impossible sometimes. And so instead of describing what Occupy Wall Street feels like I say: ‘It is all happening so fast, it changes everyday, it is overwhelming, I am tired but I am also excited again, I’ve made new friends, new lovers and new enemies, I couldn’t have imagined my life would be like this a month ago.’ ... read more
Written by Manissa McCleave Maharawal on 17-10-2011, 1 user comment
Occupy Darwin
Another sunny Darwin day, no clouds, but the humidity is way up there. We got to parliament house just after 3pm, covered in a thin film of sweat. A scattering of people sat around on the lush green grass house, bathing in the shade provided by the Ceauşescu-like structure that is Parliament House (known by locals as The Wedding Cake).
Trance techno drifted out of a small sound system and a dog wandered around welcoming newcomers. This being Darwin, the gathering was populated by the usual people you see at most protests. So it wasn’t a racial or cultural representation of Darwin, but there were a few new faces, some who looked younger than everyone else, which was heartening. ... read more
Written by Rohan Wightman on 17-10-2011, 8 user comments
Occupy Sydney: protesters assemble at Martin Place
Around a thousand people converged on Martin Place in Sydney’s CBD for the Occupy Sydney protest on Saturday October 15.
Martin Place is home to the Reserve Bank of Australia, across the road from the state Parliament and nearby are many major banks and corporate headquarters.
Protesters spoke out against corporate greed and called for economic justice. Speakers from the crowd spoke about the plight of refugees, and Premier Barry O’Farrell’s industrial relations changes and their impact on public sector workers. ... read more
Written by Kate Ausburn on 16-10-2011, 7 user comments
Occupy Melbourne: some initial thoughts
The Melbourne City Square was once a public space before the various private bars and hotels and restaurants that now dominate the area claimed it for their own. In that respect, it provided a fitting venue for Occupy Melbourne to reclaim.
By my count, there were about a thousand people in the square today: a thousand people talking with each other about politics and social change.
This is unequivocally a good thing.
There’s been a lot of criticism of the Occupy Oz protests, most of it remarkably vapid.
Yes, everyone knows that, as every pundit tediously repeated last week, the situation here’s not the same as the US: the economy’s more stable and unemployment’s lower. But so what? ... read more
Written by Jeff Sparrow on 15-10-2011, 60 user comments
The BDS and Victoria Police
Republished with permission from Electronic Intifada and Kim Bullimore.
In the largest show of support for the Palestinian-initiated boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign so far in Australia, more than 350 persons marched on 29 July in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle – and in opposition to an attempt by Victorian Police to criminalise Palestine solidarity activism in Melbourne. ... read more
Written by Editorial team on 16-08-2011, 6 user comments
Malalai Joya in Australia
The presence of Australian troops is only beneficial for the bunch of warlords and criminals ruling Afghanistan. The Afghan people face dire conditions as the US and their allies have massacred innocent women, children and men – and are continuing so. Since 2001, tens of thousands civilians have been killed by the blind bombardments of the US and their allies, which includes Australia as well. […] Therefore, the Australian people need to demand that their government stop supporting such a treacherous regime and instead support the democratic forces of Afghanistan who are struggling under extreme conditions to bring peace, independence, democracy, freedom, and women’s rights. Furthermore, they should ask the Australian government to withdraw its troops because their presence is only making the situation worse.
Written by Editorial team on 15-08-2011, No comments
‘Oh the humanities!’ (or: A critique of crisis)
To most people who have studied the humanities, the benefits of such an education are self-evident. I could list all the joys of ethics, rhetoric, aesthetic analysis and critical thinking; the specific thinkers that introduce these concepts like Plato, Aristotle, Burke, Nietzsche, Wollstonecraft, Marx, Freud, Simone de Beauvoir, Russell or Arendt, among many others. I could extol the virtues of great literature or wonderful cinema, and probably (thanks to a few anthropology minors) try to explain why some cultures think different things to others. Or I could transmit to the reader how much I love history, and how that love was fostered by my education, and eventually turned into the major of my first degree. ... read more
Written by Matthew Sini on 22-02-2011, 6 user comments
Supporting Assange ≠ condoning rape.
Let me begin with my position: I have no opinion on the allegations regarding Julian Assange. I do believe rape is unconditionally wrong. But what we are talking about in the Assange case are allegations, with the associated presumption of innocence. This is further complicated, however, as rape allegations are so rarely taken seriously by the state.
It has been disconcerting of late, since the allegations against Julian Assange surfaced, to read the internet, listen to the radio, watch Democracy Now!. ... read more
Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 22-12-2010, 69 user comments
Learning from the (r)evolution of a political movement
‘Can you really teach rebellion?’ my friend asked after spotting the cover of the book on my table. ‘Yes, I think you can,’ was my reply.
When Eleuterio, Sara, Hugo, Carmelina and other compañeros provide their account of the popular Mexican uprising in Teaching Rebellion: Stories from the Grassroots Mobilization in Oaxaca, we can learn some valuable lessons for progressive dissent. ... read more
Written by Sharon Callaghan on 9-12-2010, 3 user comments
Subscribe
Overland depends on your subscription. If you like what you read, sign up for a year’s worth of politics and culture, delivered direct to your door.
Contribute
Overland accepts submissions across a range of genres. We can’t publish everything but we do read all material sent to us.
Recent posts
- ‘Love is a madness most discreet’: The Red and the Black, A Chronicle of 1830 by Stendhal: Jane Gleeson-White
- Infrared: Georgia Claire
- A literature that refuses to go missing: Jennifer Mills
- Dispatch from our intern: Roselina Press
- ‘Last Man in Tower’: Rhona Hammond
tags
Recent comments