Glenville Ash­by

As if from nowhere the Oc­cu­py Wall Street lum­bered out of the start­ing blocks. That was four weeks ago. To­day, the move­ment has failed to gen­er­ate the elec­tric­i­ty and mass sup­port of the Arab Spring from which it was fash­ioned. In essence, it re­mains a dis­parate, dis­or­gan­ised and dis­so- nant group-with a fair spat­ter­ing of fringe el­e­ments who threat­en to sul­ly an al­ready frac­tious mes­sage. A few decades ago, I would have been more im­pressed. Then again, be­ing young can be a charmed ex­is­tence. Mind you, ma­tu­ri­ty does not nec­es­sar­i­ly reap con­ser­v­a­tive ideals. How­ev­er, it al­lows for a sober­ing as­sess­ment of bur­geon­ing so­cial move­ments.

Un­doubt­ed­ly, Oc­cu­py Wall Street, pur­port­ed­ly in­spired by the on-go­ing Mid­dle East un­rest, falls ter­ri­bly short in fer­vour, or­gan­i­sa­tion, and sin­gle-mind­ed in­ten­tion. Let us be clear, the Arab up­ris­ing must be viewed as a last-ditch re­sponse against re­pres­sive regimes his­tor­i­cal­ly propped up by suf­fo­cat­ing and po­ten­tial­ly dead­ly se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­rati. Sure, the move- ment lat­er re­spond­ed to job­less­ness and eco­nom­ic de­cay, but its com­bus­tion is re­flec­tive of seeth-ing re­sent­ment and over­flow­ing po­lit­i­cal frus­tra­tion. This is hard­ly the case in New York, or in the US for that mat­ter. Do the oc­cu­piers of Zuc­cot­ti Park, re­named Lib­er­ty Square, have a le­git­i­mate case? I am not too sure.

A plac­ard-wav­ing young man, don­ning a fine jack­et, told me that he grad­u­at­ed from a no­table uni­ver­si­ty two years ago and has not been able to find work. "For every job open­ing," he said, "there were 300 ap­pli­cants." He cit­ed "lat­est job re­ports." The CEO of a cred­it union in Rochester spoke about "the hard­ship that her mem­bers have been ex­pe­ri­enc­ing," and be­long­ing to the "99 per cent" of "the dis­en­fran­chised." Of course, the one per cent sym­bol­i­cal­ly resided on Wall Street. Asked why the crowd was not nu­mer­i­cal­ly rep­re­sen­ta­tive of those "hurt­ing," she said "they were there in spir­it." She con­tin­ued: "Many peo­ple are do­ing two jobs just to make ends meet."

Sup­port for the move­ment has come from heavy­weights. Mu­sic mogul Rus­sell Sim­mons of­fered to pay for the clean­ing of the park to avoid con­fronta­tion with the may­oral of­fice and law en­force­ment. Al Gore en­dorsed "non-vi­o­lent change," and Bill Clin­ton added that Oc­cu­py Wall Street could be a pos­i­tive thing if it could make spe­cif­ic sug­ges­tions. And it is this state­ment by the for­mer Pres­i­dent that rais­es nag­ging ques­tions re­gard­ing this move­ment. Yes, hedge fund "smoke and mir­rors" eco­nom­ics have brought un­earned mil­lions for some (with­out signs of the prover­bial trick­le-down ef­fect); and sure the Gov- ern­ment has bailed out big busi­ness and not the peo­ple-while un­em­ploy­ment edges to dou­ble dig­its (17 per cent among blacks and Lati­nos).

How­ev­er, Oc­cu­py Wall Street is yet to pre­pare a man­i­festo or work­ing pa­per on the state of the na­tion. As such, there is no re­al ar­tic­u­la­tion of its agen­da or pol­i­cy state­ment. In­stead, you are fed with relics of by­gone rev­o­lu­tion­ary pro­pa­gan­da. Words such as "hi­er­ar­chi­cal" and "struc­ture" are scoffed at-anath­e­ma to the move­ment. The move­ment's gen­er­al as­sem­bly is noth­ing more than a plat­form for "free speech," es­pous­ing dis­parate mes­sages, rang­ing from an­ti-war di­a­tribe to the nos­tal­gic rant­i­ng of 1960s rad­i­cal icons. "We are pur­pose­ful­ly lead­er­less," they say, ad­vo­cat­ing what they call "hor­i­zon­tal pol­i­tics." And pro­hib­it­ed from us­ing bull horns, "lead­ers" and sup­port­ers re­sort to echolalia-eeri­ly con­jur­ing im­ages of Mao's Chi­na.

Cu­ri­ous­ly, the move­ment has failed to at­tract those who have been hit the most-mi­nori­ties. Its sup­port­ers re­main white and ul­tra-lib­er­al young men and women who have the "lux­u­ry" and "pop" in­cli­na­tion to chal­lenge the es­tab­lish­ment and any sem­blance of au­thor­i­ty. I don't usu­al­ly agree with colum­nist Charles Krautham­mer, but when he re­ferred to the pro­test­ers as "Star­bucks-sip­ping, Levi's-clad, and I-phone clutch­ing" bent on blam­ing a sys­tem in which they wal­low, he has a point. This brings me back to my point. The sheer tenac­i­ty of the Arab Spring against state bru­tal­i­ty has top­pled three gov­ern­ments in the process. Not sur­pris­ing. They are hard­ened peo­ple with noth­ing else to de­fend but their ho­n­our- and will­ing to be mar­tyred for the cause.

Amer­i­cans-al­though sad­dled with a soar­ing deficit and the bur­den of two un­end­ing wars-are far from des­ti­tute. While many on hand de­cried US plu­toc­ra­cy, they are un­will­ing to ac­knowl­edge the fis­cal ir­re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of most Amer­i­cans. Case in point, the sub­prime loan de­ba­cle which pre­cip­i­tat­ed this "cri­sis" should not be placed sole­ly on the shoul­ders of the rich. With eco­nom­ic and po­lit­i­cal hope, mass con­sumerism per­sists through­out the US. The par­ty is far from over. Till such time, the mass­es will not risk loss of lib­er­ty, in­jury, and pos­si­ble death. Amer­i­ca's democ­ra­cy, with all its faults, is the sure safe­guard against the ex­plo­sive­ness of the Arab Spring. Call it Amer­i­can ex­cep­tion­al­ism if you may.

No one is privy to the fu­ture, but al­low me this one time to wa­ger. Oc­cu­py Wall Street is des­tined to fade away-like au­tumn. And as the bit­ing cold awaits-the fi­nal death knell to the fan­ci­ful over­tures of priv­i­leged rene­gades is sure­ly nigh at hand.

• Dr Glenville Ash­by is the New York cor­re­spon­dent for the Guardian Me­dia Group

THOUGHTS

• Do the oc­cu­piers of Zuc­cot­ti Park, re­named Lib­er­ty Square, have a le­git­i­mate case? I am not too sure.

• Cu­ri­ous­ly, the move­ment has failed to at­tract those who have been hit the most- mi­nori­ties.

• Oc­cu­py Wall Street is des­tined to fade away-like au­tumn.