[HCCN] fw: OWS Vows to Reoccupy

Fri Dec 9 22:46:36 UTC 2011

Trinity Cathedral still refusing to permit use of vacant lot by OWS.

 Return <http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/12/09-8>

Published on Friday, December 9, 2011 by The Guardian/UK
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/08/wall-street-protesters-vow-reoc
cupy>       
Wall Street Protesters Vow to Reoccupy on Movement's Anniversary
Occupy Wall Street hopes call will re-energise movement after a series of
evictions from New York to Los Angeles
  by Karen McVeigh in New York

Activists at Occupy Wall Street
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/occupy-wall-street>  have issued a call to
thousands of protesters across the US to reoccupy outdoor public spaces to
mark the movement's three-month anniversary.

The Occupy movement <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/occupy-movement>  has
stalled in recent weeks after a wave of evictions swept away a raft of
encampments, including the largest in Los Angeles, Philadelphia and New
York. On Wednesday, it suffered a fresh blow as police in riot gear cleared
Occupy San Francisco camp on the orders of the mayor, who had been
sympathetic to protesters, while Occupy Boston lost legal protection against
eviction.

Organisers said they hoped the call to reoccupy on the 17 December would
galvanise and grow the movement.

Amin Husain, a press spokesman for OWS, said: "We know that occupation
empowers people and eliminates fear. It permits individuals to assert
themselves as political beings even although the system doesn't represent
them."

"The question is not to make a splash, the question is how are we going to
get the space to make that happen."

Sandy Nurse, one of the direct action committee responsible for the call,
said: "The need for physical space is one of the top five priorities for
direct action. My personal opinion is that people have gotten scared. They
have gotten arrest fatigue. They are not willing to put their bodies on the
line. But the call would re-galvanise the movement and remind it how
powerful it is."

Citing the conference call by mayors across the US to deal with various
encampments, Nurse said: "They have identified occupation as a threat to
them  that's how powerful it is."

Eleven mayors participated in a conference call in November about Occupy
protests in their cities, including those in New York, Denver and Portland,
Oregon, but they denied any co-ordination of raids to clear encampments.

The need for a physical space has been on OWS's agenda since police raided
Zuccotti Park in November. In a piece published this week in the first issue
of Tidal, a magazine published by the Occupy movement, Judith Butler,
academic and feminist theorist at the University of California, Berkeley,
spoke of its importance.

Butler said: "When bodies gather together as they do to express their
indignation and to enact their plural existence in public space, they are
also making broader demands. They are demanding to be recognised and to be
valued; they are exercising a right to appear and to exercise freedom; they
are calling for a liveable life.

"These values are presupposed by particular demands, but they also demand a
more fundamental restructuring of our socio-economic and political order."

At one point, the movement had more than 1,000 occupations, but now they
have less than 100  and that number is dwindling daily. With the onset of
winter's plummeting temperatures  which was already driving people from
Zuccotti Park before the eviction  and the hardening attitudes of city
authorities against encampments, notwithstanding the dearth of public spaces
in the US, seeking a place to camp is a massive challenge for activists.

Even within OWS, where the movement began, activists have a battle on their
hands. In Zuccotti Park, the space's owners have imposed strictly enforced
rules which no longer allow tents or sleeping bags, or allow people to lie
down, which would make it impossible to set up camp.

The place they want to occupy on December 17, is Juan Pablo Duarte Square, a
currently vacant lot on the corner of 6th and Canal Street in Soho, about 15
minutes walk' from Wall Street, named after the founder of the Dominican
Republic.

But it has already proved controversial.

It is owned by the real estate branch of Trinity Episcopalian church in Wall
Street, Trinity Real Estate, one of the largest real estate companies in New
York.

Activists at OWS, which had previously counted Trinity church among their
supporters, have repeatedly asked for the use of this space for a winter
camp. But Trinity church has refused, drawing criticism from other church
leaders and a handful of activists who went on hunger strike, pledging not
to eat until the church allowed protesters on the site.

In a statement on its website, Trinity said it offered its continued support
of the movement  including providing meeting space at church buildings 
but not the use of its enclosed vacant lot at the city-owned Duarte Square,
which it leases to the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council. The property,
Trinity said, is unsuitable "for large-scale assemblies or encampments."

For activists, the matter is simple: they need the space and the church
should hand it over.

Husain said: "They're part of the 1% and they are choosing profit over God."

The church is also facing pressure from the religious community.

Reverend John Metz, of the Episcopalian Church of the Ascension, in
Brooklyn, who describes himself as a "real mainstream church guy" said:
"Trinity church is in a challenging position. They are a church with an
enormous real estate holding. It's one thing to deliberate and review
grants. It's another thing for a church to respond in real time to one of
the largest movement for social change that this country has see for four
decades.

"This is an opportunity to engage in mutual actions to transform a space,
and make it a catalyst for the revitalisation of public squares that have
all been eliminated in the United States
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa> , to create a space where the cause
for social justice can be forwarded."

© 2011 Guardian Media

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