Yesterday morning at 7 a.m., as much of New York City was just waking up, Occupy Wall Street took to the roadways of the city to mark the nationally recognized movement’s one-year anniversary. Numbering in the thousands, some protesters carried cardboard signs while others went a step further and dressed in costume.
Halfway around the world in Syria, other protests were already well underway. In cities ranging from Aleppo to Homs, it was another day of demonstrations, another day of being beaten down. Both Occupy and the Syrian Revolution share the goal of fighting against perceived government oppression; real or not. Unfortunately, the similarities end there. While those gathered at the New York Stock Exchange faced a few police officers and arrests, Syrian protestors face bombings, torture and bloody executions. While OWS is focused on fighting big, bad banks and all that they represent, the Syrian Revolution has a much more fundamental driving goal: democracy.
With the return of the Occupy movement, it is a good time to assess the real meaning of that word. Democracy. The will of the people, expressed through voting for and electing government officials. By no means does that concept exist in Syria.
In the United States, democracy is alive and well. Maybe the population is unhappy with the officials that have been elected, but that is how democracy works. You cast your vote and then accept the decision of the majority. That is the social contract that anyone partaking in democracy enters into.
On the Occupy Twitter feed, the protestors speak of building “a wall with the will of the people.” The United States, though, is nothing but a nation built on the will of the people. The will of the people is present in everything from the smallest mayoral election to presidential voting. A country such as Syria does not have that same democratic infrastructure. Not even close. Perhaps the most telling difference between the two movements though is the fact that Occupy is returning. The Syrian Revolution does not return — it simply is. In Syria, the stakes are far too high to take time off of protesting. The Syrian people recognize the possibility that their precarious movement can be brought to an abrupt and bloody halt at any point, a situation that would be unthinkable in the United States.
None of this is meant to demean the work of Occupy. This is not an article about how someone somewhere else in the world has problems that are worse, and therefore ours are invalid. It is recognized that the ability to vote does not necessarily equal democracy. Democracy means that the majority can change. It does not mean that one ruling party or set of ideas stays in power; that is oligarchy, and that is what the Occupy movement is protesting. Still, on this day, the return of OWS should give us cause to stop and think. While we take to the streets to fight for democracy, we should remember our fellows around the world doing the exact same thing and feel blessed that we have the opportunity to protest, no matter what we are protesting against. That opportunity is one of the hallmarks of democracy, and it is much, much rarer than one would think.
A version of this article appeared in the Tuesday, Sept. 18 print edition. Emma Dolhai is a contributing columnist. Email her at [email protected].
Thribhu • Sep 18, 2012 at 4:41 pm
Few things. First off, your definition of democracy is wrong. Demos – people. Kratos – rule. It is literally “the rule of the people.” Political theorists have spent ages debating the meaning of “the people” – from Western theorists like Aristotle and Robert Dahl to Indian theorists like Kautilya and Gandhi. The reigning opinion seems to be that the people is everyone hence “omniarchy” has replaced the word democracy in reference to the original meaning of the rule of “everyone.” That said, it should become clear that neither Americans nor Syrians have a functional democracy. And their respective protests convey this. What you don’t seem to understand is that Syria has had elections – it’s just that Assad has won them all with mindblowing stats similar to Hussain in Iraq, Ahm. in Iran and Musharaf in Pakistan. In fact, Syrian women were given the right to vote in 1949! These “democracies” however are referred to as “illiberal democracies” – meaning they are flawed in some way or another. And they are CLEARLY flawed. But so is the American democratic system. As you said, much of the population, if not a majority, doesn’t trust our government. There is a term in polisci called “efficacy” which refers to how much a citizen thinks his/her government can change and solve problems. Many studies show that Americans have a pretty shitty efficacy – internal, meaning THEY think they can’t help change and solve problems, and external, that the government can’t. That said, understand that the American system is illiberal – look at 2000 presidential elections, run the numbers in Texas or Louisiana, consider gerrymandering. They are all practiced and corrupt omniarchy – which is already corrupted by the “liberal” representative democracy. Lastly, Occupy is faulty at the core. It is a social phenomenon more than a political movement. Put succinctly – revolutions don’t have lunch and tea breaks. It is a jihad, a war, a suffering done. Why do you think Oakland was the last remaining hope for OWS? Coincidentally, it was the most violent, facing thousands of instances of police brutality. What do you say to that about being allowed to protest? Isn’t this repression?