I have recently noticed in conversations I have had, with not only with Occupiers from Occupy London and Occupy Wall Street, but with academics and religious leaders, the need for a language of change, but also a change of language. I recall a conversation in which a Jewish Rabbi was discussing the difficulties and questions, that were raised when Ben-Yehuda wanted to revive the use of Hebrew as an everyday language, and how at that time he faced opposition to this, as it was considered a sacred language, and had not been used as an everyday language for nearly two thousand years.
We have been bound by the language of power, which deliberately oppresses critical language awareness, which facilitates critical development of consciousness, in the discourse of our society. This dominant language of power inhibits the conceptualisation of shaping critical consciousness, often by playing to the inherently artificial, glib political rhetoric, where passion replaces rationality; and those who question this rhetoric are either silenced, ridiculed or simply dismissed. This ideology is pervasively present in language, and is one of the primary mediums of social control and power. Occupy as a movement was influenced by the Arab Spring uprisings and the Spanish Indignados, but has also come about through a rising dissent people feel from the economic crisis. The movement, challenges the dominant discourse of the legacy of neo-liberalism and capitalism. A legacy in which maximisation of the profits and power of the 1%, depends on the maximisation of the exploitation and domination of the 99%. This domination is often put in place through legitimising the ideology of the repressive forces of those in power, by means of coercion and consent in the maintenance of social control.
Increased government and institutional control has come about through a number of means, not least bureaucracy and state intervention. Just consider the UK government, now planning to cast its intrusive eye over all online activity, phone calls and text messages, under the guise of an anti-terror law. A law, in which they will not only know which websites a person visits, they will even be able to access private social network messages. Accumulating the data of every keystroke, this personal data that will then be stored by landline and mobile phone companies and internet service providers, and always at the disposal of the security forces.
Occupy has raised questions on how do we transform society to move away from an individualistic and fragmented society, towards an emerging consensus of a civil society. A society that strives for the benefit of the greater good, but with an understandable knowledge that this can only be undertaken as a global transformation. Should we be seeking a renewed collectivism, to ensure decision-makers are accountable and through endowing ordinary people with effective power, encouraging a fuller concept of citizenship. Not a citizenship based on globalisation in its current form - an accountable global form of citizenship - and how would we undertake this?
In times of crisis in the last century we saw a rise in economic dislocation, racial and national assertiveness, and the growth of chiliastic ideology - which once again we are starting to see emerge in the current crisis, especially in the UK and Europe. There has been a notable rise in racial hate crimes, the increase of membership to fascist groups, such as the EDL, and an escalation in political support for the BNP in the UK, whilst in Europe, people like Geert Wilders in the Netherlands and Le Pen in France are but two examples. Yet, the struggle for unity in order to eliminate economic, social and environmental injustice as a global problem, and not an insular one, has to move away from ideas of polarisation and move towards democratic aspirations beyond nation-state concepts.
Occupy London and the wider global Occupy movement are not the first to emphasise the importance of direct democracy and direct action, as legitimate and effective forms of political practice. However, what is so different with Occupy as a global movement, is just that - the coming together of people who consider themselves to be part of a global “community” - for all the intense diversity of participants. There is an overriding sense that radical social, economic and systemic change is necessary, now all we need to do is find the language by which to empower this change.
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