Wall Street protests gather momentum across the world
Many have been intrigued by the Occupy Wall Street movement against financial inequality that started in a New York park and expanded across America from Tampa, Florida, to Portland, Oregon, and from LosAngeles to Chicago.
Hundreds of activists gathered a month ago in the Manhattan park to vent their anger at what they see as the excesses of New York financiers, whom they blame for the economic crisis.
In the US movement, Arab nations see echoes of this year’s Arab Spring uprisings. Spaniards and Italians see parallels with Indignados (indignant) activists, while voices in Tehran and Bei jing with their own anti-American agendas have even said this could portend the meltdown of the US. Inspired by the momentum of the US movement, which started small but is now part of US debate, activists in Dublin have gathered in Dame Street.
Others will gather in London to protest outside the London Stock Exchange on October 15 on the same day that Spanish groups will mass on Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square.
“American people are more and more following the path chosen by people in the Arab world,” Iran’s student news agency ISNA quoted senior Revolutionary Guards officer Masoud Jazayeri as saying. “America’s domineering government will face uprisings similar to those in Tunisia and Egypt.”
Chinese newspapers splashed news about Occupy Wall Street with editorials blaming the US political system and denouncing the Western media for playing down the protests.
“The future of America stands at a crossroads. Presuming that effective measures to relieve the social mood and reconstruct justice cannot be found, it is not impossible that the Occupy Wall Street movement might be the final straw under which America collapses,” said a commentary in the Global Times.
“This movement has uncovered a scar on American society, an iceberg of accumulated social conflicts has risen to the surface,” said the commentary in the tabloid, which is owned by the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily.
Others noted differences between Arab protesters and US protesters, branded by one Republican presidential candidate as “anti-American” and so jealousy-ridden they wanted to “take somebody else’s Cadillac”.
“The Arab protests started with requests for reform but quickly transformed into demands for governments to leave, or at least their leaders,” said Abdulaziz al-Uwaisheg, columnist in Saudi daily al-Watan. “The American protest is against specific policies ... It did not ask to change the government.”
Spanish media have devoted daily coverage to Occupy Wall Street, dubbing participants “Indignados in Manhattan”, with left-leaning newspapers saying the US protesters were inspired by Spain’s own disenchanted youth-led grouping.
Newspapers have sought to identify the true motor of discontent driving the movement, with the Korea Herald seeing an historic dimension reflecting the civil rights movement and anti-Vietnam war rallies.
“But perhaps the closest historical parallel is with the Populist movement of the 1890s, which, like Occupy Wall Street, was a broad, economics-driven revolt that targeted a predatory class of corporate capitalists — the robber barons of the Gilded Age,” the newspaper said.
Japan’s Kyodo news agency ran an interview from New York with organiser Kalle Lasn who said he hoped that “Occupy Wall Street” would inspire Japan’s jobless youth.
“Is there some beginning of some kind of ‘Occupy Tokyo’ or ‘Occupy Marunouchi’, something like that happening in Japan right now or not?” Kyodo quoted Lasn as saying, referring to the Marunouchi business district in Tokyo.
The Occupy Wall Street protests across the US with their focus on banking bailouts and unfairness appeared to present a dilemma for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The protests support one Kremlin agenda by underscoring the economic troubles of Moscow’s Cold War foe, but could also send a signal encouraging street protests — not what Putin wants as he heads toward a second stint as president.
“The Occupy Wall Street movement was sparked by the extreme disparity between the rich and the poor,” the Hong Kong Economic Journal said in its editorial. “Now it looks like the spark is being turned into a great fire that is spreading to other countries.”
British commentators were not so convinced by such an apocalyptic vision. Giles Whittell in the London Times, highlighting the movement’s lack of a coherent agenda, came to the conclusion in a headline that it was: “Passionate but Pointless”.
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