Occupy Wall Street: The new “internationality”

An "oldie" one can say. I sent this article to the OWS journal right before they published the last issue.

As a Tunisian scholarship student in an international school in Italy (UWCad: united world college of the Adriatic), I get a “hands-on taste” of the general attitude and trends among intellectually engaged youth from around the globe towards the progressive revolutionary movements in the US and in the EU. I will thus attempt to shed some light on the global implications that the movement is most likely to have.

 It seems to me, that many of the intellectual and economic elite of our world still do not consider that the changes occurring in 2011 in the Arab world and now in America and Europe are “serious” ones. Many still consider it to be an immature gesture in the best case and pure vandalism in the worst. But I belong to an ever increasing number of optimistic citizens of this world that believe that the Occupy movement is peculiar and decisive regarding the very nature of global systems and types of governments.

Even though it has many resemblances with past reformist western movements, the Occupy WS is very peculiar. Almost for the first time since the enlightenment ages in Europe, a western movement seems very keen on importing models of action and struggle and seeking inspiration from the part of the world that was long considered “culturally inferior” and only worthy of pity and, namely Africa and especially the northern Arab part.

The Protesters, through their media, explicitly situate their struggle in a clear context of global events on the timeline starting form Tunisia (in my personal experience a country that is still unknown to most American) passing through Egypt and Libya. The usual claim of Godly superiority attributed for decades by various US politicians to the US seems to be irrelevant in the context of the O.W.S movement.

“Our” movement is a real “global citizens” movement:

One cannot deny that the movement is reaching magnificent momentum throughout the world. From Berlin to NYC passing by Rome, the slogans even though in different languages, have the same demands for a new order of social justice.

The Occupy movement also continues to enjoy increasing support and sympathy from the post-revolutionary countries of North Africa. The calls for the stop of police aggressions against those protesters in the US are louder and louder in my mother country Tunisia.

This might seem trivial to some but it is indeed revolutionary. I would have never thought that widespread popular and genuine sympathy to any western cause could ever be attained in an Arab predominantly Muslim (with strong Islamic political tendencies as the election results show about 40% voted for the Islamist party Nahdha) country. Since Iraq and Afghanistan, blind anti-American feelings, have never ceased to grow (I do not, in any case justify the wars led by the USA in the region) and it seemed to me inevitable that imminent conflict would arise. But the Occupy movement, even with poor Arabic content so far, has indeed occupied the Hearts of many in the Muslim world. This sympathy has expressed itself in the astonishing 20 000 comments on the Official Campaign Facebook page of Barak Obama by Tunisians condemning police brutality against the protesters of Occupy Wall street.

The French revolution is an example of nationalistic movements that bring about welfare and rights only to their racial and national affiliations. This is further proved if one was to consider that France, while enjoying democracy at home, still colonized many nations and reduced them to slavery and servitude, Tunisia is only an example of a victim of the cultural and imperialistic chauvinism of this occupying power. I bring this famous example as it is a famous and almost classical popular emancipation success story that has not led to any significant improvement in the consideration of France of its southern neighbors.

 Whether or not the OWS movement manages to keep alive and impose social justice reforms, these peculiarities bring me the ultimate conclusion that the protests revive the hope for a new world order and that the death of missionary claims will bring about the consideration for Human rights as a priority rather than nationalistic exclusive rights.