Occupy which street?

Photo: AFP

It has been three weeks since the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement rocked 951 cities in 82 countries of the world on a single day on October 15. Nothing has happened in Bangladesh so far, nor have any of our enlightened minds spoken on this subject. We have had hunger strikes, sit-ins and protest rallies over plummeting prices in the stock market, road accidents, price hikes and removal of ministers. But not a word has been uttered to express solidarity with rest of the world where people are fighting against corporate greed, banking irregularities and skewed distribution of wealth favouring the rich.
Does it mean we don't have any of these problems in this country? Depends on whom you are asking. The corporates will tell they are doing a great service to the economy by expanding business and creating jobs. Talk to bankers and they will laugh in your face, defending their clean hands with amazing words that should leave copywriters for soap commercials gasping for breath.
And, the distribution of wealth is a contentious subject. Who is supposed to distribute whose wealth? If the wealth belongs to the people, do a few rich men have the right to earn so much money? If the wealth belongs to the rich, do people have the right to claim more than what trickles down to them?
The OWS movement is asking some saucy questions. Accountants who embezzle a few thousand bucks from their employers go to prison. Crooked used car dealers go out of business. But Wall Street bankers, whose fraudulent schemes caused millions of ordinary Americans to lose their homes, got government bailouts and soon returned to business as usual.
The movement started when a few hundred people gathered on Wall Street in New York on September 17 to ask these questions. The organisers claim they were inspired by political movements in Egypt and Tunisia, and the emergence of the Tea Party in the United States. They used Facebook and Twitter to mobilise a huge number of people to give vent to their anger out on the street.
Why have we failed to connect in this country when so many people in so many cities of so many other countries could do it? We have also got a lot of anger on our streets. There is a great deal of free-floating rage that one can hear in marketplaces, offices, schools, colleges and universities. One can also hear it in bus stands, political rallies, editorials, seminars and workshops. Motijheel in front of Dhaka Stock Exchange has become a permanent shouting corner for national outrage.
OWS has two drivers: injustice and invisibility, which were the very grievances that drove the Arab Spring. The financial fraudsters of Wall Street have created a mess in which the American people are losing their jobs and homes. The injustice part is that while none of these people got punished for their crimes, a tiny percentage of rich Americans got richer throwing ordinary Americans into dire straits.
The invisibility is even worse. At a time when one in six Americans live in poverty and virtually all of their social indicators are worse than at any time since the Great Depression, their political system is locked in partisan paralysis. The Americans feel they are not being heard, and so the movement is all about being seen.
October 15 was the day when the American condition proved to be a global phenomenon. In each country the protestors targeted an icon of corruption and greed. In the UK it was the London Stock Exchange. In Tokyo and Taiwan it was the nation's capital. The Swiss protestors picked the European headquarters of the United Nations. In Philippines it was the U.S. embassy. The Australians staged their protest in front of the Reserve Bank of Australia. In Spain they targeted a clothing company named Zara.
Why haven't the waves crashed on our shore? The small investors have been griping for months. The average citizens are creaking under the oppressive burden of unfairness and corruption. We have got injustice because petty thieves go to jail while coelacanths of crime sail smooth. We have got invisibility because after elections it is hard to tell if our People's Republic belongs to the people.
The conman's motto has become work ethics in our business, bureaucracy and government. Prosperity is breadcrumbs falling off the tables of the rich at an accelerating rate. In the hocus-pocus of growth and development, what belongs to the people is siphoned off to the rich.
So why doesn't OWS appeal to us? We have got the stock exchange. We have got the communication ministry, the court system, the police, and business houses that appear to be living incarnations of vice and evil. We have got many streets to occupy. Who can tell why we aren't interested in any?

The writer is Editor, First News and an opinion writer for The Daily Star.
Email: [email protected]