7/9/13

Standing With The 99%

Write T o Us : l etters@ su n d ay-g u ard ian .c om T UESDAY | JUL Y 09, 2013

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Standing With The 99%

David Graeber, a radical anthropologist teaching at Goldsmiths, University of London, is most famously credited as the intellectual force behind the Occupy Wall Street movement and the person who coined its famous slogan, We are the 99% He talks with Adil Hossain about why the Occupy Wall Street movement has changed the way we think about street protests for forever.

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ADIL HOSSAIN

6th Jul 2013

. How did you become an anthropologist? A. It came from my upbringing in a way. My parents were working class intellectuals and radicals themselves. My father fought in the Spanish civil war. So I was brought up in an environment which was all about imagining other possible ways of organising life and society. And I often thought that the existing social order is bad and something needs to be done about it. All this helped me to become an anthropologist. Q. People don't think of anarchism in positive sense. But you call yourself an anarchist anthropologist. So what made you into one? A. Most people don't think that anarchism is a bad idea, they think it's insane. Everybody thinks it's Utopian to have no police, no law and let society run on democratic cooperation. As I told you, my father fought in the Spanish civil war and he was posted in Barcelona as an ambulance driver. At that time, the city was run for a long time on anarchist principles with no government at all. So in spite of the international propaganda against anarchists, he knew that the system could actually work. And because of this family background, it was never a crazy idea to me and I naturally embraced it. Q. How did you become associated with the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement? A. I was earlier part of the anti-globalisation movement in around 2000. So for the last twelve years I have been involved in mobilisations of people inspired with new forms of direct democracy that were developing. You see, soon you get to the point when you feel that it's not going to last long. I talk to my friends in Egypt and we talk about the same sort of thing. You spend all these years organising your political life with the prospect that something's going to happen and at some point you believe it no longer will and then it happens! And you are like oh wow, I was right! So I always had this notion that it's going to explode. Democracy is infectious, you see! It changes the perception of people of what is politically possible. And for a moment we did.

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politically possible. And for a moment we did.

Standing With The 99%

Q. What's your opinion on the role of social media in organising protests like OWS movement? A. Social media is important but it's not the essence of what's going on. It is possible today to document police brutality and the like as never before. But to be honest the OWS movement was not well organised on social media at first. It was just that in the first phase of the movement, my personal Twitter became the main communication system because I happened to be there first and people later found about it. But the real power lies with people and the cause they are struggling for. Q. The critics say that the problem with OWS is that it doesn't recognise the state and the movement has no sense of direction. They also slam you for putting up no demands and thus confusing people at all the stages. How do you respond to such criticism? A. I believe it's the secret of our power that we don't recognise the state at all, which they (the state) always want. Lots and lots of people tried to show up and even at Zuccotti Park they came with their specific set of demands and when we did our thing in our way it worked. So it seems like strange criticism to me.

In China, the level of even simple unrest is extraordinary. There is a tradition of direct

action that nobody talks about: 37000 riots a year take place over there.

Q. So you think even with such forms of protest with no demands, no recognition of the state, you can manage to convince people to join your cause? A. Yes indeed. The thing is, internationally people know little about how Americans think about America. They think they like it there, that they really believe in stuff the leaders talk about, that they accept it as a global model of democracy and all that kind of stuff. It's not true at all! Most Americans are angry about the situation they are in. They have a different interpretation of the problems in their society, which sometimes switch back and forth radically from day to day. The political class is especially hated, which is a great paradox. Democracy doesn't mean to elect leaders to run the government because while almost all Americans love the concept of democracy, almost all hate politicians and most are sceptical about the very idea of government. Therefore, they clearly mean something else by democracy, some distant ideals that would still allow them to manage their own affairs politically. I think that's our biggest advantage, that generally people reject the system as fundamentally corrupt. We wanted to take that and see how far we can go with it. Q. In recent times, there has been a great rise in street protests in India. People are organising themselves at a new level and challenging the state for its failure to control rapes, corruption in high offices and things alike. How you see the role of Indians in the present global context of protest movements? A. Look in India, there are means of political mobilisation unlike in places like China. In
David Graeber

China, the level of even simple unrest is extraordinary. There is a tradition of direct action that nobody talks about: 37000 riots a year take place over there. But in India, you know the possibilities of actual direct organising is so much greater that it means that whatever policies are being enforced on the micro-level, the possibilities of creating alternatives, if successful, can become a model to the world at much larger level. There is so much space for experiment. www.sunday-guardian.com/artbeat/standing-with-the-99#.UdlQx_vyA2Y.facebook

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for experiment.

Standing With The 99%

Q. India in spite of sustained economic growth still suffers from massive malnutrition, poverty and hunger among its people. There's controversy about a Food Security Bill. How would you explain this? A. I look at poverty not as a simple national issue but as inequality of wealth between nations. We need drastic steps to change the scenario as the usual policies won't change all of that. I've suggested previously that a lot of these problems are simply created by the maintenance of borders. Today we talk about free market, free trade, capital moving freely from one nation to another nation. So why not people? If everybody in any country of the world could move to any place they wanted, so for example people in Uganda or India could move to Amsterdam or California if they wanted to, the first thing people in rich and powerful countries would do would be to figure out how to encourage people to stay where they are. And I think they would come up with something very quickly if they had that incentive (laugh). This is my idea of the solving the issue. Q. How will history treat the Occupy Wall Street movement? A. This movement has changed the way we think about street protests now. For the first time since the Great Depression, Americans are discussing class issues and that's a great achievement for us. If in 2008 the economic recession brought the world down, our movement proved to be a new hope for the people. It showed us a way forward towards a more just and equal world. And I believe history will treat it as this.

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