How Do You Get An Occupation Event Going? - and just home from occupy LSX November 6, 2011
In response to How Do You Get An Occupation Event Going? - http://attempter.wordpress.com/2011/11/06/how-do-you-get-an-occupation-event-...
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Ref –
Someone I know wants to get an event going here in suburbia, but so far there’s been a disappointing response to feelers sent out to e-mail lists, and we’re mostly at the stage of casting about for a specific rationale.
(snip)
Maybe an Occupation event could become a participatory assembly to discuss this future. Well, that’s a pretty far-out idea, but it could at least impress upon people the need for such a plan. So far as I know the only plans that exist still assume infinite growth. These are impossible, of course, but can still accomplish great destruction.
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I’m just home from a few hours at Occupy LSX. – http://occupylsx.org/ I was drawn to the bookstall, and information tent and tent university. Maybe those aspects of the occupy movement are the best ones to use and build on as you start in a small local way.
While I was at Occupy LSX somebody was interviewing people – asking who they were and why they were there. It prompted me to consider what my answer would have been… probably something about being interested in change, and collaboration and emerging systems for 21st century life and living.
Gradually I decided my reason to be there was about wisdom, and the search for it. It was about personal and group wisdom. It was about my desire to reflect on what I know and feel (about the changes that are happening and the future I would like to see emerging) and to learn what others know and feel. I want to clarify what the questions are that we are trying to find answers to… what kind of answers we want them to be. I don’t know what the atmosphere is like at other occupy sites, but in London, just outside St Paul’s cathedral, the atmosphere is co-operative, and collaborative.The people who are occupying LSX are part of this questioning process and the camp there is part of experimenting with new ways of trying to do things.
In the information tent I saw a sign – “occupy everywhere”. Suddenly it occurred to me that the word “occupy” has many meanings. We don’t just occupy places. We also “occupy our minds” (we think about things) we “have occupations” (usually taken to mean “have paid jobs”) we “occupy our time” – we fill our time – we live our lives. It struck me that this “occupy” movement is not just about “spaces” and who has power in the material world it is also about “time” and other aspects of life.
Somehow, the “occupy movement” touches deeply on how we live our lives – how we “occupy ourselves”, what we do with ourselves, how we use our time, how we steward it and share it with others. Are we full-time wage slaves or do we have time that is our own? If we have time of our own – how do we use this “ownership right” over “our own time”? Do we spend it on ourselves / by ourselves / with others / for others. Do we use our time to compete or to collaborate? What kind of future are we trying to build and occupy? What does it mean if we don’t just think about “occupy everywhere” but also about other aspects of occupation?
Maybe on a small local level you don’t emphasis the “occupy everywhere” approach and the protest side. Maybe you start in a completely local way, as and when you can. Perhaps you, and a few others, can spend some of your time in a public space, “occupying your time together” doing whatever seems right for that group, in an open way, creating shared wisdom – and positive role models – about our shared future – and letting people know this is part of the “occupy” movement . As a small group you may do better to challenge attitudes rather than authority, and to do so by providing alternatives to “how things are now”, even if you can only do things briefly. Maybe you can occupy “hearts and minds” more effectively through a smaller, more personal approach than would be possible if you try to copy the big-city approach.
Obviously I don’t know your situation, but I was impressed by what I learned today at St Paul’s and how encouraged I felt regarding the first steps we might be taking there towards a positive future. This is my somewhat clumsy attempt to share that experience with you and to encourage you in your local “occupation” and participatory assembly regarding our shared future.
Comment by Pamela_McLean (@Pamela_McLean) — November 6, 2011 @ 4:29 pm (NB from Pam - this was some USA timezone - it was mid evening for me)