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Occupy your Neighborhood, by Dan Chodorkoff
Occupy your Neighborhood,
by Dan Chodorkoff
By Dan
Chodorkoff On October 8, 2012 · Leave
a Comment
A new essay from Dan Chodorkoff, co-founder of the ISE:
Summer fades to Fall and more than one year has passed since
Occupy Wall
Street entered the public arena. Occupy’s message
highlighted capitalism’s inherent injustices, and resonated with a
broad cross section of the public. The initial media frenzy has
subsided and occupy activists are now struggling to develop new
strategies to engage the 99% and to re-energize the movement.
Conceived as primarily a protest movement, Occupy is a testament
to both the vision and spirit of its organizers, and the limitations
of protest. The repression of the various physical occupations
of public space around the country undercut the primary vehicle of
the occupiers and their presence on the ground in the face of the 1%,
their allies, and hirelings.
Occupy, with its emphasis on prefigurative politics, presented a
model for how direct democracy can be applied in a movement setting
and served as an inspiration for both participants in and observers
of the movement. However, as events unfolded the limitations of
this approach were revealed. The open ended nature of the
General Assemblies led to time consuming and, for many, frustrating,
meetings dealing with formidable logistics of managing the
encampments and, increasingly, tactical and strategic discussions
were the province of working committees and other small groups.
The fetishization of process played a role in the decline of Occupy’s
public presence. As important as directly democratic processes are in
the movement context, they do not constitute direct democracy, they
constitute movement democracy. This conflation of movement democracy
with direct democracy both severely limits the movement’s
effectiveness and, at the same time suggests an approach that might
deepen and broaden Occupy’s presence and impact. We must understand
the protest-oriented approach as part of a larger strategy for social
change that links together oppositional and alternative movements,
and takes them into the realm of politics.
It is time to extend these examples into new arenas and transcend
the limitations of protest by applying direct democracy not just in
our movements, not just in our encampments and at our protests, but
where we live. It is time to occupy our neighborhoods, towns
and villages; to take the lessons learned in the streets and in the
parks to our own geographical communities. An old adage
suggests that all politics are local. Let us recognize that
change of the magnitude required to mount an effective challenge to
capitalism as a system will require a majoritarian movement, and that
it is a project which will require the development of not only new
institutions, but a new sensibility as well. If this seems like a
daunting task, we can take some comfort from history. Such
revolutionary changes in the underlying structures of society have
occurred before, and they can occur again. Inspiring and exciting
as moments like the occupation of Zuccotti Park and other public
spaces are, they constitute a festival of the oppressed, or in the
lexicon of post-modern anarchism, a temporary autonomous zone
These are important spaces for learning and celebrating the spirit of
revolt, they give us a glimpse of the what could be, but they are by
their very nature and definition illusory, and momentary.
The question that occupiers should be asking is not how can we
create more of these moments, but rather, how can the approaches we
celebrate become institutionalized; how can we create permanent
autonomous zones and expand them to encompass cities, regions,
nations, and, ultimately, the globe? Grandiose and unrealistic
goals? I do not think so.
In order to achieve a true democracy we must create democratic
forums in our own communities, where we live. Our
neighborhoods, villages and towns are the terrain on which direct
democracy must be built. Neighborhood Assemblies and Town
Meetings provide a locus for the practice of direct democracy around
issues that have a direct effect on people’s lives. They are
a space that allows people to experience directly democratic
processes and to begin to build a counter power to the State and
Capital.
Directly Democratic forums like these have a deep and rich
history. In the Western tradition we can look back to ancient
Greece, the medieval Folk Moat, and the New England Town Meeting , to
name but a few examples. In fact, for almost the whole of human
history, from the Paleolithic until the advent of civilization, many
cultures are understood by anthropologists to be egalitarian, with
all participating fully in the self-management of their society.
And even today, most communities can identify at least vestigial
institutions that embody that sensibility.
Actualizing these ideas will not be easy. It requires a
commitment to becoming part of a physical community. It demands
a recognition that change really does begin at home, and that the
process requires grassroots organizers ready to fight along side
their neighbors to bring a revitalized direct democracy to their
communities. We must be prepared for a long-term struggle, and
must ally ourselves actively with our neighbors. It is worth
remembering that the Zapatistas spent more than 10 years organizing
in Tzotzil and other indigenous communities before they emerged to
challenge the State.
The creation of true, community-based organizing and activism is
the only way to create direct, community-based democracy. My
personal experience with town meeting democracy in Vermont, and
“town meetings” in New York’s Loisaida neighborhood has
convinced me that it is possible to create and empower local forums
for directly democratic decision making in virtually any setting, and
to use them as a means of both educating people in the practice of
democracy, and helping them to affect their own lives in meaningful
ways. This is the way we can begin to create the new
sensibility required for the revolutionary restructuring of
contemporary society. The empowerment of these forums serves as
the basis for a new politics, and, importantly, a way to challenge
the legitimacy of the State and capitalism, and, through a process of
confederation, ultimately, contest for power.
The limitations of a purely oppositional movement, essentially
what Occupy has been, have become clear. We need to combine
protest with the creation of counter-institutions that empower people
to make decisions that affect their communities and the larger
society as well. Such an approach, termed libertarian municipalism by
Murray Bookchin, addresses the issue of power directly, something
that a purely protest based movement is unable to do, and attempts to
engage with politics by redefining the dynamic of power. It
replaces the principle of power over, central to our current
political system, and introduces mechanisms to create power with.
Rather than demanding redress and reform, this approach offers a
revolutionary redefinition and transformation of politics.
Organizing of this type requires developing real relationships
with ones neighbors. Participatory action research of the type
practiced by SDS in the mid sixties offers a good model for this
work. The Economic Research and Action Project brought
collectives of young SDS organizers into a number of low income
communities where they worked with community members to identify
issues they could address together. In addition to building
relationships of solidarity in front-line communities, they were able
to address the real needs of community members.
The alliances created through these struggles could provide the
basis for an effective, inclusive, “Town Meeting” approach.
For this approach to replace our current sham democracy a majority
of the population must begin to practice direct democracy, and they
must do it where they live, revitalizing and reinventing our
definitions of community and citizenship. Is it possible?
Yes! Will it happen overnight? No. It will take a
concerted effort over an extended period of time, but it provides a
clear path out of the conundrum in which we currently find ourselves
mired.
