kekuasaan diatas
membawa celaka!
ya, sudah tahu itu
terus gimana kalau begitu?

kebolongan
bergema rhetorika
sunyi
kosong bunyi

Review by Prof James Peacock, University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill).

Dia tidak meninggalkan sebuah surat yang menjelaskan niatnya dia  tentang tindakan mengambil nyawanya sendiri dengan cara yang penuh penderitaan ini. Mungkin Sondang  mau menunjukkan rasa cemasnya yang dalam bahwa sebagian besar rakyat Indonesia masih menderita kemiskinan. Sondang aktif di organisasi mahasiswa Himpunan Advokasi-Study Marhaenis Muda untuk Rakyat dan Bangsa Indonesia (Hammurabi). Dia juga memimpin komunitas Sahabat Munir. Dia membakar diri di depan Istana Kepresidenan, mungkin ingin mengatakan presiden Yudhoyono sebagai kepala pemerintahan yang  “gagal mensejahterakan rakyat.”  Mungkin juga dia terinspirasi oleh kasus seorang pedagang kaki lima Tunisia (Marhaen Tunisia) yang melakukan hal yang sama yang kemudian memicu pemberontakan oposisi di negeri tersebut, sehingga Presidennya jatuh.

Bisa saja terjadi – dan memang sudah terjadi – debat atau diskusi tentang benar atau salahnya tindaknya Sondang ini. Tetapi mengingat rekor kegiatan Sondang, minimal kita harus menghormati dia dan mengenangnya sebagai orang yang sanggup mengorbankan nyawanya dan menderitakan kesakitan fisik yang luar biasa dalam harapan bahwa ini akan berguna buat rakyat Indonesia.

Karena itu aku salut pada saudara Sondang, mahasiswa Universitas Bung Karno  yang pernah gerak buat kaum marhaen dan korban pelanggaran HAM. Saya membaca juga bahwa dia pernah juga terlibat aktivitas solidaritas dengan rakyat Papua korban kekerasan. Sekali lagi salut!

Dinamika Menghadapi Kegagalan Mensejahteraan Rakyat

 Di Morocco kasus orang membakar diri memicu sebuah pemberontakan oposisi yang massif. Di Indonesia belum jelas sepenuhnya bagaimana nanti dampak daripada tindakan Sondang. Teman-teman mahasiswanya dari UBK sudah mengaraknya ramai-ramai ke kuburan. Ada versi bahwa lagu DARAH JUANG yang didedikasikan ke Sondang. Universitas mengangkatnya dengan pemberian gelar kehormatan. Mahasiswa-mahasiwa menyatakan tekad untuk meneruskan perjuangannya Sondang melawan pimpinan hedonis.  Simpati sangat meluas, meski juga ada yang mempertanyakan tindakannya sebagai perbuatan politik. Kita belum tahu sepenuhnya bagaimana warisan perbuatan dia ke depan.

Dalam perbandingan Indonesia dengan Tunisia (atau Mesir) bisa kita catat suatu hal yang berbeda yang akan mempengaruhi situasi. Di Morocco pada saat  Mohammed Bouazizi membakar diri, masyarakat Tunisia sedang di cengkeraman seorang diktator. Mahasiswa dan rakyat Indonesia sudah memaksa diktator Indonesia selama 33 tahun – Suharto – turun pada tahun 1998, 14 tahun yang lalu. Situasi kondisi politik bukan sebuah kondisi yang tegang menunggu sesuatu yang akan memicu kemarahan anti-kediktatoran meledak.  Solusi pada kedikatatoran gampang dirumuskan dengan tepat (meski belum tentu gampang menerapkan rumusannya). Kediktatoran bisa dihilangkan dengan turunkan diktator. Tunisia (dan Mesir) sudah lama menunggu pemicu penurunan diktator mereka. Di Indonesia, dari tahun 1989 sampai 1996 proses membangun gerakan anti-diktatoran tanpa pemicu dramatis, berkat jerih-payah aktivis-aktivis yang membangun organisasi, termasuk yang selalu di depan aktivis-aktivis Partai Rakyat Demokratik (PRD), periode 1994-1999.

Bom kemarahan kalau sudah meledak, asal diarahkan, bisa jatuhkan diktator. Tetapi seperti  yang sedang dialami di Tunisia dan Mesir, dan juga sudah dialami Indonesia selama 14 tahun, jatuhnya kediktatoran  membuka ruang  gerak yang lebih luas. Kita kemudian dihadapkan dengan masalah bagaimana mengisi ruang tersebut degan sebuah gerakan yang akan memperjuangkan perubahan yang lebih jauh lagi. Pemicu-pemicu yang ditunggu ialah pemicu yang membangun rakyat berorganisasi secara massal dan massif, memperjuangkan kemajuan negerinya, karena elit tak bisa diharapkan sama sekali. (Ini masalah yang dihadapi seluruh negeri di saat ini.) Dan yang bisa mensejahterakan rakyat bukan seorang Presiden tetapi gerakan rakyat sendiri.

Rakyat memang tidak mengharapkan elit, kemudian .. ?

Sering sekali saya lihat di berbagai aksi mahasiswa maupun serikat buruh serangan kritik bahwa pemerintah Presiden Yughoyono gagal mensejahterakan rakyat. Slogan “Megawati-Hamzah Haz gagal”, “Yudhoyono-Kalla gagal” dan sekarang “Yudhoyono-Beodiono gagal” muncul berulang-ulang sejak Megawati Soekarnoputri menjadi presiden. Di pinggir jalan dan di perbincangaan rakyat, pasti mayoritas sudah setuju kesimpulan tersebut. Rakyat sepakat. Tetapi bentuk pemikiran “Yudhoyono-Beodiono gagal”, meskipun sebagai kenyataan adalah benar, sekaligus juga tersesat. Perumusan masalah dalam bentuk si A dan si B gagal sebagai Presiden dengan sendiri mengandung anggapan bahwa ada juga sedang sembunyi di suatu tempat si  C dan si D yang akan berhasil. Secara tidak langsung pendekatan ini masih mengandung unsur “ratu adil”isme.

Presiden Yudhoyono memang sudah pasti gagal mensejahteraan rakyat sejak sebelumnya. Begitu juga semua orang-orang yang lagi dibicarakan sebagai calon presiden tahun 2014. Ada beberapa sebab. Pertama, Yudhoyono dan calon-calon lainnya, semua merupakan perwakilan dari kelas menengah atas Indonesia yang mengukur keberhasilan ekonomi dengan ukuran pertumbuhan kelas menengah dan kelas menegah atas. Itu saja yang harus dicapai. Kelas menengah makmur Indonesia mungkin kurang-lebih 10% dari penduduk Indonesia atau 20an jutaan orang. Yang 200 juta orang lain memang tidak dianggap, asal jangan rusuh atau melawan. Jadi memang tidak ada minat mensejahteraan rakyat, sejak awal. Kadang-kadang pemerintah kelihatan bengong menghadapi masalah-masalah sosial dan ekonomi rakyat: jangan-jangan tidak bengong hanya tidak tertarik saja.

Kedua, kemiskinan rakyat dan keterbelakangan ekonomi Indonesia tidak disebabkan oleh kebijakan-kebijakan pemerintah Indonesia, termasuk yang “neo-liberal”pun atau yang diresep-resepkan oleh lembaga-lembaga keuangan internasional. Kebijakan-kebijakan memang kebanyakan tidak pantas disetujui, tetapi bukan sebagai penyebab atau asal-usul masalah tetapi sebagai hal yang memperparah situasi. Kemiskinan dan keterbelakangan ekonomi Indonesia, dan keterbelakangannya infrastruktur sosio-budaya, berasal dari warisan kolonialisme Hindia Belanda yang meletakan Indonesia sebagai ekonomi neo-koloni yang tak berindustrialisasi. Kemudian ekonomi Indonesia selama Orde Baru ditumbuhkan lagi pakai pola yang sama, bukan sebagai hasil pemaksaan kubu imperialis tetapi atas undangan sukarela kekuasaan pemenang pertaruhan arah pembangunan Indonesia yang berlangsung 1945-65. Indonesia 2011 adalah hasil 33 tahun pola ini, sehingga elit politik-ekonominya tak mungkin akan berminat mensejahterakan rakyat.

Dua lapis “ketidak-ada-harapan”.

Sudah 46 tahun berlalu sejak Orde Baru berdiri. Elit kekuasaan Indonesia sudah terbentuk mapan. Apakah ada harapan elit tersebut akan melahirkan sebuah sayap yang dinamis, bergairah, cinta rakyat, cinta kebenaran, cinta ilmu? Periksa saja partai-partainya mereka dan mengambil kesimpulan sendiri. Kalau kerangka pikiran kita ialah Yudhoyono tak mampu, dengan fokus pada perorangannya dan kebutuhan akan seorang presiden yang lain lagi, sudah pasti akan muncul perasaan: tak ada harapan, harus ada tindakan yang sedrastis-drastisnya.

Ada juga sebuah “ketidak-ada-harapan” lain yang ikut mewarnai suasana. Pada tahun 40an, 50an, 60an, 70an bahkan 80an, baik di Indonesia maupun secara internasional, ada suatu kata, suatu diskursus, suatu visi yang memberi harapan pada semua orang: “Development”, “Pembangunan”. Pada dekade-dekade itu seluruh dunia yakin bahwa negeri negeri “sedang berkembang” akan berkembang, bahwa “development” akan terjadi, bahwa negeri-negeri itu akan mencapai “take-off”.  Yang pesimis dan sabar anggap mungkin ini proses lama melalui “trickle down effect” selama beberapa generasi. Yang optimis mengira “take-off”akan pesat dan heboh. Kaum sosialis yakin gerakan-gerakan pembebasan nasional akan berkembang menjadi revolusi sosialis sehingga akan ada pembangunan sosialis. Di Indonesia sendiri, selama periode Orde Baru, sampai 1997, “pembangunan” menjadi hampir sebuah agama, dan sebuah agama yang formal menjanjikan akselerasi pembangunan 25 tahun.

Pada abad 21 ini, di sebagian besar negeri sedang (tidak) berkembang di dunia, mimpi tentang pembangunan tinggal menjadi mimpinya kelas menengah atas saja. Hanya sedikit negeri, seperti Venezuela misalnya, yang masih memperjuangkan pembangunan buat rakyatnya – atau lebih tepat, rakyat Venezuela sendiri sedang memperjuangkannya. Di banyak negeri-negeri dengan mimpi development menghilang rasa tak ada harapan semakin kental terasa. Tindakan-tindakan drastis, semakin sering terjadi.

Di Indonesia rasa tak ada harapan yang melahirkan tindakan drastis juga yang mengakibatkan beberapa kali orang yang memimpikan dunia yang lain dan lebih baik  melakukan bunuh diri. Berbeda dengan Sondang, orang-orang ini sekaligus membunuh orang lain pula, dengan aksi bom bunuh diri. Tindakan drastis bom bunuh diri dan membunuh nyawa lain ini bukan hanya sakit irrasionil tetapi juga kriminil. Sondang tidak berniat ambil yang nyawa orang lain, tetapi mempertaruhkan nyawanya sendiri.

Membangun harapan

Membangun harapan butuh lebih daripada semacam pengambilan sikap bertekad berjuang. Membangun harapan mebutuhkan pengertian bahwa memang adalah mungkin untuk mencapai kemajuan-kemajuan. Selama gerakan fokus pada menyatakan kekecewaan dengan pimpinan negara yang ada dengan slogan si A dan si B gagal, dengan pesan di dalamnya bahwa si C atau si D, yang bisa selesaikan masalah, tidak akan terbangunkan harapan. Konsekwensi logis dari kesimpulan bahwa elit politik ekonomi negeri tak mampu memimpin atau melakukan pembangunan ialah bahwa hanya yang non-elit akan bisa melakukannya. Yang “non-elit” (marhaen, rakyat miskin, 99% dll) tidak bisa hanya sebagai penerima kesejahteraan tetapi pelaku merebutnya, merencanakannya dan melakukannya.

Dari kesadaran itulah akan datang permulaan dari analisa syarat-syarat yang dibutuhkan untuk yang non-elit bangkit berorganisasi. Dan dari sana akan datanglah harapan.

Contoh Sondang mengingatkan kita betapa dalam bisa seorang manusia merasa peduli tentang rakyatnya. Perasaan dalam tersebut harus digendongkan dengan pengertian dan perencanaan bangkit bersama-sama, supaya tidak perlu lagi dan tidak akan ada orang yang merasa perlu ambil tindakan drastis mengorbankan diri menderita kesakitan dan kehilangan nyawa  demi berusaha memicukan sesuatu yang dia tunggu-tunggu tapi tidak datang. Kekuasaan selalu siap makan korban dari kaum pejuang,  seharusnya tak perlu kita menambah dengan pejuang mengorbankan diri. Hanya bangkit dan berorganisasi bersama-sama -dengan membuang semua harapan pada elit siapapun- memperjuangkan keadilan dan pembangunan akan membangun harapan yang melahirkan tindakan-tindakan berdaya cipta.

Selamat jalan Sondang.

Narrow and dark and most of all hot. If I ended up at a back table, 3 or 4 metres inside, the sweat would pour from forehead and my hair would be wet enough to comb again in just 20 seconds. And the prickly heat itchiness would invade. Better to get a table at front, and visit only at night. So narrow, maybe 2 or 3 metres, and even narrower at the front – maybe one metre or 1.5 metres. It was narrower at the front because half the width was taken up with the kitchen. Sitting at the front one was almost being on the footpath. Sabang Street, in central Jakarta, in 1969 was a fun street. It was almost all restaurants, cafes and other eateries, with a row of Chinese owned general stores – also selling smuggled gin – and another row of photocopy shops, so needed for all the documents necessary for almost every activity in Indonesia.

In 69, there were still few cars. Becak trishaws dominated. No traffic, and the uneven sidewalk was enjoyable to walk along. At the right time of the year, small mountains of glowing red and hairy rambutan fruit added both visual and taste colour. The Padang restaurants still sold juicy, chilli spicy, beef rendang coated in its rich, thick, deep black coconut sauces. In the back lane that run along behind the shops, in the midst of jammed in, crammed in, packed in semi-slum houses, the kitchens cooking the rendang let out a steam engine sound as the huge stoves applied their massive heat to the giant drums of stewing beef, and coconut and chilli and a hundred other spices. And the aroma …..

The Chinese restaurants were more then than now. One on the corner with Wahid Hasyim Street had a nice courtyard and specialised in selling its own ice-cream. Outside, the footpath was populated by men selling chicken sate with home-made peanut sauce. Directly across the road was another cramped stall, with tables and benches outside selling goat sate, served with sweet soy sauce and chopped chilli. That stall is still there today and still selling its tough but tasty goat meet sate. Only one of the original Chinese restaurants is there today.The thick, black sauce rendang cooking padang restaurants have gone to be replaced by pallid replacements. And now cars smother the street.

But back to the narrow, dark, sauna of an eatery, only 2 or 3 metres wide. My visits to that place are one of those experiences whose memory seems to remain vivid no matter how much time passes. i can almost feel the prickly heat and sweat attacking my scalp at this very moment, as I sit here in a mildly air-conditioned room.

Narrow and dark and there was the roaring sound like a steam train engine blasting out of the tiny kitchen that was located at the front of the cafe. The massive kerosene stove inside was scolding the heavy metal, giant wok as either noodles or rice was tossed and turned, and scooped and stirred and mixed with spices and sauces and oils in an era before mono-sodium glutamate had completed its invasion of Indonesia from Japan. The roaring sound never stopped, a raucous muzak to accompany a gleaming plate of taste heaven.

Fried rice. Gleaming with what was no doubt the forbidden pork lard, mixed with other oils as well. Plain, with tiny flecks of vegies, and maybe chicken, or if you ordered it, crab meat. Try – but you can’t any more, of course – the fried rice with chopped pete beans with their methane gas like smell, when you eat it and when you pass it out later, with their delicious vinegar, pungent addition to the savory plate of gleaming, steaming hot fried rice.

But I often wondered if it was indeed the lard or the chinese spices or the massive heat on the heavy wok where the rice was tossed and turned with amazing speed that made this food the heaven to eat that it was.

I occasionally caught a glimpse of the hectic activity inside the kitchen, when the tiny window in the thin wall between the front table and where the stove and wok stood was opened to pass out a plate of food.. I could see the chef. He was old and thin but clearly strong to almost be able to wave that huge wok around, throwing the rice into the air again and again to turn it. Thin iron muscles in the arms – aching, exhausted arms too, no doubt. You could see the ridges of his rib cage through his thin singlet. Stark collarbones shaped his shoulders. He wore shorts. He was Chinese but with white hair. A middle aged woman helped him ready the food on the plate.

Was that the secret of his food, rice or noodles? (That was all he sold). His unity with the surrounds. Rice, wok, heat, hands on wok, arms with body, body with floor, skin with heat – his sweat poured off him, drenching his singlet. The kitchen must have been as hot as hell, and as red with flames and as noisy as well. Maybe it was not the lard, or salt, or sugar or spices, but drops of precious sweat from human labour that spiced the food with deliciousness.

And I paid for it far less than it was worth, and nowhere near enough for the pleasure it gave.

A creative “we”
Declaring is beginning
A “we” on the offensive demanding to exist
Constituting itself in activity
Straining to embrace the whole in its journey
“We are the 99%!” searches for its maps.

The numbers of people directly involved in these actions have remained small, in comparison to the US population, 300 million. But while the level of mobilisations has been, in this sense, low, all the polls report 60-80% sympathy for the “occupiers” and their protests. The slogan that has captured this sentiment with great genius is: “The 1% versus 99%”. It is worth reminding ourselves of the draft earliest manifesto. It included demands to:

• Halt foreclosures on the unemployed, sick and elderly
• Increase funding to public services by taxing the richest 1%
• Forgive all student loan debts
• Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act [regulating banks] to control speculation
• Work with the other G20 nations to implement a 1% “Robin Hood” tax on all financial transactions and currency trades
• Ban high-frequency “flash” trading and bring sanity to the markets
• Break up the “too big to fail” banks that threaten our future
• Arrest the financial fraudsters responsible for the 2008 meltdown and bring them to justice
• Ordain a presidential commission tasked with ending the influence corporate money has on elected representatives in Washington

This sentiment combines demands for redistribution of wealth away from the 1% to the 99% with a recognition that this can happen only if political power also shifts from the 1% to the 99%. There are many potentials in the awareness of this interconnection.

Uniqueness of the US situation
There have been actions either replicating or in solidarity with the US occupations in other countries, including Australia. But it is in the US that the occupations have the greatest reality, support and momentum. In Greece and Spain, mobilisations are taking a different form, great mass mobilisations against drastic austerity measures being implemented by banker-backed, or even banker-installed, regimes. In the US, in some ways, the ruling class is in even deeper trouble than the capitalist elites of Europe.

There is a deep economic crisis in the global capitalist system, now a permanent crisis. The world’s capitalist classes will be in permanent crisis management mode for the foreseeable future, perhaps until they are overthrown. In some countries, there is another, interconnected, crisis, a budgetary crisis, primarily as a result of massive reductions in taxes on rich individuals and corporations over the last 30 years. This has been made worse in the US by massive military expenditures and corporate bailouts.

However, while the economic and budgetary crises underpin the tremendous changes brewing in the US, they are not the primary location of the danger faced by US rulers. Yes, the increased unemployment (14 million people, at least), homelessness (3.5 million), home foreclosures (2.8 million in 2009), increasing numbers under even the official poverty line (46 million) and people without health insurance (49 million) underpin the deepening unrest. But these processes have been accumulating steadily since the Reagan years.

While this worsening mal-distribution of wealth has become clearer to more people, it has been becoming even clearer that it is happening in the richest country in the world.

Liberal economist Joseph Stieglitz got front-page coverage in 2008 for his analysis that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars had cost US$5 trillion. Since 2009, the US people have been treated to daily newspaper and TV reports of bailouts of private corporations measured in the hundreds of billions and trillions. The period of crisis and bailout has introduced the words “trillions of dollars” into mass culture. Every US citizen now knows that the US is a rich country, with a huge economy.

But at the same time, ordinary citizens are being told that they can’t have a sufficient share of this wealth to guarantee a secure and dignified life. They are also finding out, from official government sources, that this enormous wealth is owned by no more than 1% of the population. Figures about the massive mal-distribution of wealth are circulated everywhere; they too are becoming part of mass culture, not only in the cyber-universe but even in the big-business-owned media.

Furthermore, the openly pro-wealth media, such as Fox News, celebrate wealth and greed and openly campaign against all forms of redistribution of wealth as socialism. Their celebration of the flat tax, taken up by Republican presidential hopefuls, is symbolic of this.

All this points to a more or less insoluble ideological crisis for the US capitalist class. They can’t and won’t make redistributive concessions significant enough to quell the public unrest. The reforms advocated by the likes of Warren Buffet and George Soros are now far too little and too late. The tax reduction plans of Obama, even if implemented, will be just the left hand giving out a part of what the right hand has taken away.

The secret is out in the wider domain; it is part of everyday ideological life. There is no hiding it again. And the Occupy movement is its exclamation mark. In the US (and perhaps also in the UK), the ruling class will now have to manage a permanent ideological crisis as well as a permanent economic crisis.

Repression and ideological crisis
It is not surprising to read of the coordination between the federal government, US state governors, police chiefs and private security agencies in devising the police methods used against the occupations in the US. Just as neo-conservative “thinkers” understood that the neoliberal globalisation push from the 1980s would squeeze the Third World and create hostility and therefore require the US to arm itself better, now there are those who realise that it is not tenable to convince 300 million people to accept the 1% versus 99% divide and that they must pay through poverty to ensure the continued enriching of the 1%.

Now that the secret is out, protest will become endemic. Better to nip things in the bud, some are already thinking.

When riots occurred in London and other UK cities, Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron used the language of military occupation, borrowed from Iraq, to call for a police “surge” against the rioters. Now in US cities stun grenades and plastic bullets are being used, among other techniques. We can expect more of the same.

However, the US is not a fascist state able to repress all critics and opponents. The occupiers have been able to fight back, one way or another. Information and analysis around issues of wealth redistribution are spreading, especially via the internet. A new terrain is opening up, and new maps will be drawn, as more people in the US seek ways to fight for a redistribution of wealth and — crucially — for the power to implement such a redistribution. Finding a path through that terrain will involve fighting a war against what will be more and more like an occupying power.

Occupy in Australia
The situation, while sharing some similarities with the US, is clearly different in Australia. The US actions quickly inspired people in Australia who were also alienated from a reality that is so marred by mal-distribution of wealth, and from the elitist culture that goes with it.

But “mainstream” politics in Australia has not been marked by the same campaigning, open, gross and vulgar defence of trillion dollar bailouts of fat cats by big sections of the ruling class, nor has there been the same three-year-long jolting dislodging of millions from their homes. There has not been the extra burden of no access to health care. However, Australia has its equivalent, a steady grind downwards. In Australia, the same imbalance in distribution exists, with 20% of the population owning at least 60% of the wealth and the top 10% of households “earning” around four times as much as the rest. The poorest 20% own only 1%. And while there hasn’t been a big across-the-board jolt, there has been a steady decline in disposable income for a significant percentage of the population. Costs of utilities have increased more than 150% over the last three years, and rents have increased dramatically.

But a grind is different from a jolt. The political atmosphere of the circus of bourgeois politics is also different. In the US the terrain of bourgeois politics is defined by mass disappointment in Obama among his earlier supporters as he fails to resist seriously the pro-rich onslaught of the Republicans. In Australia, the atmosphere is created out of a supposed choice between a government that wants to raise taxes on polluters and mining companies and one that doesn’t. Labor’s carbon and mining taxes are at best just tinkering with the system, and most people will feel no real benefit. All the same, the current acts in the centre ring of the circus are not ones that in and of themselves are likely to expose contradictions easily.

It is therefore not surprising that the early excitement and dynamism of the occupations in cities such as Sydney and Melbourne have started to fade, with splits occurring and less radical or political ideas gaining some sway. In Brisbane, where reports indicated the spirit seemed to be particularly vibrant, the ongoing occupation has stopped, but there appears to be a strong commitment to continuing activity.

Culture and movement
The surface objective conditions in Australia appear to be less conducive for the Occupy movements to achieve the same level of impact as in the US. All the same, I think that they point to coming very important changes. The political atmosphere in Australia is also influenced by the developments in the US (and Europe to some extent). What is discussed politically is not determined only by conditions and developments in Australia. The Occupy Wall Street actions and the political discussion they generate also remind everybody that the same basic inequalities exist in Australia even if a crisis of mal-distribution has not yet hit. We don’t know how long selling minerals to China will delay a similar crisis here.

Perhaps the biggest impact of the activities in the US is in the cultural challenge to ruling classes and systems everywhere. The early pictures of the activity at Zuccotti Park inspired people with the realisation that life can be more than just shuffling along obsessed with consuming the next meal, no matter at whose expense. There was life, excitement, courage, creativity.

Of course, as Slavoj Zizek said in his speech at the park, “Carnivales are cheap”. But the life that the actions emanate stems, not from form, but from content. Fight for the 99% against the 1%, for a society’s wealth to be used for its people, for it be produced in a habitat-friendly way, and do it together, respecting everybody’s rights and freedom of speech. The ideas are what created the life of these actions. The form looked and no doubt was exciting, and these forms may be used again, but the most important thing is that the form intensifies the excitement that the ideas generate.

The immediate task is to spread the idea of collective activity to win the power needed to redistribute wealth in a more humane way and to produce it in a more environmentally friendly way. Winning such power will be no easy task, although in the end 99% should be able to defeat 1%. There is a lot to analyse, understand and explain. An organisation trying to use the same tools of analysis collectively can help advance this process. There will be a lot of activity to organise and a lot of chances for that activity to unite people with the same general goals, even if attempting analysis with different tools. Occupy is an example of the latter whose spirit needs to be replicated.