All occupiers are equal, but some occupiers are more equal than others

Approximately 200 Cape Town residents participated in the call for a World Revolution Day on 15 October, inspired by the growing worldwide Occupy Movement. We arrived at Company Gardens next to parliament in typical Capetonian fashion: mostly late, disjointed, and with a huge array of goals and personal agendas to complete on the first day.


In fact, the majority of 'occupiers' arrived so late for the revolution that the clean-shaven undercover security operative (sporting an earpiece and touristy camera) had already deemed the protest to be non-threatening and was long gone. The police barely noticed the relaxed picnic atmosphere that was apparent once the crowd grew to more than 70.


Yet despite the beginnings of #OccupyCapeTown, the day did have #OccupyWallSt potential. Cape Town being one of the most unequal, segregated, and racist cities in the world has hundreds of thousands of angry (though demoralised) youth waiting for real change. The townships are a ticking time bomb anticipating the intersection between screams of Sekwanele! and sparks of hope that a mass-based social movement can provide. 
Would the 99 per cent actually show up? In the end, those that arrived, with the exception of an entourage from Communities for Social Change, were predominantly in the top 19 percentile of the 99.
And yet, there was still potential in this space of mostly white privileged activists. Some were acutely aware how their privilege posed problems for the bottom 80 per cent. Seeking to engage directly with issues of white supremacy, class and patriarchy within the 99 per cent, they tried to create a space of solidarity with poor communities without speaking for them or co-opting their struggles. To these few activists, Occupy Cape Town was an exciting experiment in building radical equality that is actively asserted, not merely assumed.


As the day progressed however, many of us were disheartened by the most vocal of the 19 per cent. Our four general assemblies seemed to be dominated by well-read internet activists who came with all the answers. Paraphrased crudely:


- The solution is for the poor to buy solar panels for their houses.
- We must all just stop buying things so the system falls apart.
- We should start an internet café for the poor to participate in our internet revolution.
- We must recycle!
- There's another way to occupy, its by our actions...eat baked beans on toast and close bank accounts.
- Machines should take the place of human labour to end wage slavery.


Yet when people critically reflected on the racial make-up of the meeting, there were demands from a barrage of 'colour-blind' activists to stop ‘making this about race’. When class was brought up in the assembly, it was countered with calls not to divide the movement. ‘We are the 99%,’ they cheered. When women spoke (and few did speak in this male-dominated space), it seemed that their points were often ignored. 
So how did the ideals of an occupation for the immediate assertion of equality get perverted so quickly?


The US radical Malcolm X once said: ‘If you stick a knife nine inches into my back and pull it out three inches, that is not progress.’ Many say that the post-1994 era was just that: the knife of white supremacy is still present while oppression is now couched in terms of ideals of a liberal non-racial democracy. Radical groups like Blackwash use much more direct language when they say: ‘Fuck the rainbow nation. Coz 1994 changed fokol!’
Groups like Blackwash and Abahlali baseMjondolo are saying that, while there are no more pass laws nor legal racism, poor and black people (especially black women) are still oppressed by essentially the same system that gave birth to Apartheid.

And if ‘oppression’, as John Holloway puts it, ‘always implies the invisibility of the oppressed’, one can begin to understand that a huge theoretical gulf exists between the lived experience of those whose voices are invisible and the liberal white activists who proclaim that we are all, in fact, the same.


Yet, the most telling experience of the day was the debate that took place before Occupy Cape Town marched up Long Street to the offices of ETV. During the general assembly that preceded the march, someone expressed their concern that a placard proclaiming ‘FUCK the Rich’ would be used against us when filmed by ETV. Others agreed saying that it was a violent statement, released negative energy, and was not in line of the peaceful purpose of the occupation.
Attempting to use the democratic procedure of the general assembly, a number of white liberal activists agreed, saying that there should be consensus with regards to the slogans we use on our placards and banners. Nothing seemingly violent or racist was acceptable. While the group of poor black protesters from Mannenberg who had written the placard reluctantly agreed to leave it behind, this decision was resisted by an independently-minded person within the group and that same placard eventually did find its way onto the news.

If its true as radical feminist bell hooks explains that ‘patriarchy rewards men for being out of touch with their feelings’, then a relevant corollary could be that, in a white supremacist patriarchal capitalist society, white men are not only out of touch with their own feelings and that of others, they are also out of touch with the modes by which they belittle and oppress others. This is not any less true during a radically democratic occupation than within the oppressive institutions of society itself. Thus, it was only logical that the dominance of liberal whites who mostly desired the tweaking of capitalism or the creation of idealistic utopias by withdrawing from the system (rather than overthrowing it), would attempt to build some sort of ideological hegemony based on their own privileged Western orientation.


If some occupiers are more equal than others, it is about time that white male activists who sincerely want to dismantle oppression, begin to take seriously the voices of the oppressed from within the 99 per cent. Some places to start might be the writings of well-known radical theorists like Franz Fanon, bell hooks and Bantu Biko. Yet, we may also want to grapple with the self-written works of shackdwellers like the Symphony Way Pavement Dwellers and Abahlali baseMjondolo.


BROUGHT TO YOU BY PAMBAZUKA NEWS

* Jared Sacks is a Cape Town-based activist working with community-based social movements and the Occupy Cape Town movement.
* Please send comments to editor[at]pambazuka[dot]org or comment online at Pambazuka News.