Public and Publics the Occupy Movement
public space | rights by corey schnobrich
commons protest encampment community democracy
Police and protesters face off following Occupy Oakland’s eviction, November 14, 2011
This was not the first time Occupy was accused of failing the public good. Though the movement was ostensibly inclusive, epitomised by ‘We are the 99%’, the encampments themselves were seen as an unlawful, exclusive appropriation of public space. Critics upheld the protesters’ right to freedom of speech and assembly, but argued that the way the protesters exercised those rights, through continuous occupation, impinged on other people’s ability to do the same — the many groups that participated in the Occupy movement did so to the detriment of the greater public. The rights of a few usurped the rights of the many, so the criticism went. This argument has an intuitive, almost unobjectionable appeal. But it is a dangerous one, both for rights generally, and specifically for the exercising of those rights in public space. By privileging the majority preference over minority protest, democratic participation can be squelched. And by barring this protest in public space, voices that have no other public forum, no presence in the media or political lobby, can be silenced. The idea that individual or group rights should be subordinate to collective or societal rights stems in part from the notion of a singular public. ‘The public’ is a broad term, encompassing all people of a place and time. In contrast, the term ‘publics’ better captures the ever shifting group identities we each either subscribe
On November 9, 2011, protesters with Occupy Cal attempted to establish an encampment next to Sproul Plaza, the Berkeley campus’s symbolic heart. A handful of tents were barely up before police in riot gear clubbed their way through a line of protesters to pull up the stakes. The police broke several students’ ribs and pulled to the ground, by the hair, a professor presenting herself for arrest. Videos went viral; international media covered the ensuing outrage. The following day all students received a message from Robert J Birgeneau, the university chancellor. He called the protesters’ actions ‘not non-violent civil disobedience’, and urged them ‘to consider the interests of the broader community — the tens of thousands who elected not to participate in yesterday’s events’. What he meant by ‘the broader community’ remains a mystery. Student and faculty councils condemned the police violence and the student senate passed a resolution supporting the goals of the movement — but by invoking the ‘interests of the broader community’, the chancellor implied the protesters were a minority at odds with their peers and the common good. At best misguided, at worst, selfish, radical and exclusive.
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