DID OCCUPY REALLY CHANGE THE WORLD FOR THE 99%?
Ten years ago the world stood on the precipice of the age of austerity and a decade of disruption.
Kicking off on October 15 2011, Occupy London was not only a manifestation of the anger felt at the time, but it was also an iconic movement with words and imagery that are still felt to this day. Many of the issues protesters spoke about during the eight months of occupations are still with us too.
The Occupy movement never went away, its tendrils extending into environmental campaigners Extinction Rebellion and Insulate Britain. The battle against the mega-rich, the bankers and the corporations of the one per cent still rages on. But has Occupy made a difference?
‘IT CREATED THIS MOMENT WHERE PEOPLE FELT LIKE THEY WANTED TO CHANGE IT’
SAM BURGUM
Occupy London was inevitable. Almost as soon as the Occupy Wall Street protest began in New York’s Zuccotti Park in September 2011, eyes turned to London – the world’s next biggest financial centre.
Three years had passed since the 2008 financial crisis, the banker-driven crash that had brought the global economic system to its knees. Under Prime Minister Gordon Brown the UK government had paid out £500bn to bail out the banks, but austerity measures quickly followed as the recession bit the people at the bottom of the ladder.
That caused anger around the world that would spill into principles of direct democracy, moulded by the ideas of anarchist intellectual David Graeber.
Graeber is
