Lament for a Movement: The Failure of Occupy Vancouver

From where I write here in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, a relatively high degree of media attention has been accorded to the Idle No More movement. Many commentators cannot resist lumping the movement under the same roof as Occupy. Remember Occupy? That weird crazy party at a park in New York City where the protesters did not make any one single clear demand, much to the chagrin of the major media outlets. The mainstream media here has chimed this same chorus in reference to Idle No More as well.  

But for those of us seeking to overcome capitalism was Occupy the high water mark of our talents? Is it the best we’ve got? I certainly hope not. That Idle No More has in some essential respects been compared to Occupy, is, I believe, a sign of the latter’s failure. Given that Occupy has been the largest and most important movement of its kind for a generation of people born during and subsequent to the 1980’s (I count myself among that group of people), it would be important to critically revisit why the movement failed, while refraining from the kind of apologetics and hagiographies that attribute a positive outcome to the movement, a position only the most dogmatic of believers could attempt to defend with a straight face. I therefore want to point out what I see as some of the major shortcomings of Occupy. To this extent I do not claim to speak for the movement as a whole, only for the movement as it took place in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, by the name of, you guessed it, Occupy Vancouver.

Where did Occupy Vancouver go wrong? Simply put, Occupy Vancouver had no real understanding of Canadian politics and simultaneously suffered from a general lack of creativity. Instead, Occupy Vancouver was more than happy to trope on the commidified, pre-packaged discourse of Occupy Wall Street. Setting up tents in the heart of the Vancouver’s downtown, the trite, imported, slogans were disseminated as fast as one’s mobile data connection could download them. “We are the 99%”, “People over profits”, and so it began on Oct 15, 2011continuing until the occupation ended about four weeks later.  

How did Occupy Vancouver lack a real understanding of Canadian politics? A common theme manifest throughout the length of the movement was the notion of “rights”. Human rights, native rights, ecological rights, economic rights, you name it there was a right for it at Occupy Vancouver. What are these rights however? Why was occupy asking for them? Who was going to give them these rights? Why did they not have these rights?

            
It is in this forum that the misunderstanding of the Canadian political climate was most pronounced, clearly indicating that, at least in British-Columbia, an autonomously constituted civil society has yet to take place. What do I mean by this? The idea that I have a right that is to be respected, assumes the existence of a court where I can challenge someone who I believe has infringed my right. In other words, the idea of a right in this sense short-circuits the entirety of the political process and relies exclusively on the courts to ensure the privileges of citizens.

            
In Canada however, this role is meant to be fulfilled by parliament! In this sense, elected citizens, NOT APPOINTED JUDGES, are the ones who are supposed to safeguard the democratic rights of citizens. The idea that we have rights that are overseen and protected by judges is a wholly American concept and is entirely contrary to the notion of citizenship and democracy which occupy claimed to be in favour of! Occupy Vancouver was thus importing political concepts and ideas that are not wholly applicable to the Canadian context. The irony of Occupy Vancouver is that they played right into the hands of the Conservative Harper government by vulgarly and uncritically under-appreciating the role of parliament in Canada. All Harper had to do was sit back and watch as everyone missed the point. The proliferation of American media in Canada thus served to distract the majority of people from coherently understanding how to use Canada’s political institutions. This moreover showed that political power in Canada is, surprisingly, more unevenly distributed than in the US since a relatively smaller percentage of Canadians (compared to Americans) actually understand how their political system functions. Occupy Vancouver was a clear expression of this ignorance.

            
How was Occupy Vancouver uncreative? It suffices to note that while Occupy Vancouver was busy importing American political tactics, adapted to an American political system and society, a municipal election campaign was simultaneously taking place in Vancouver. If one of the concerns of the movement was democracy and inequality, there would have been no better institution to target (and right under its nose to boot) than the city of Vancouver. Unfortunately Occupy Vancouver was unable to take advantage of this golden opportunity. Why not run an Occupy candidate for mayor? The movement had a high profile and certainly the candidate would have been given a considerable soapbox by the media given the movement’s visibility.

            
Alas, such was not the case, as, again, Occupiers in Vancouver were more than happy to copy the perceived success of others rather than focus on its own concrete situation. A cursory glance at the list of candidates for election shows that it would not have taken much effort to put together a few candidates. 94 people ran for election, of note are the following (these are how their names appeared on the ballot): Daniel “Saxmaniac” Zimmerman, Amy “Evil Genius” Fox, and WENDYTHIRTEEN. How inconceivable would it have been to put together an Occupy slate then? Cleary, in its Vancouver iteration, Occupy lacked serious political insight and creativity.

At the end of the day, Occupy Vancouver was more than happy to revel in the vapidity of their internet connection to the American movement than take the opportunity to push the movement even further. To this day, supporters of Occupy Vancouver are defending an empty, unoriginal and bleak movement. Those of us in Canada who want to see the end of the Harper regime have to take a hard look at ourselves and come up with a profoundly different alternative to what we are seeing in the US. Who wants “capitalism with a human face”? Is not a human face without capitalism a wholly superior alternative? If all that “progressive” movements are striving for is the former, then it must be acknowledged that the Conservative’s platform is more honest since there are no secrets; we know we will be getting the real deal and not some kind of pretend socialism that lets a monstrous form of capitalism in through the back door.

Those of us looking to go beyond capitalism need to seriously start thinking about critical constitutional change in Canada; do we really want to maintain a monarchy? Occupy is not our high water mark. We can and must do better.