DNA in Movement: Reflections on a New Form of Movements

“Occupy has entered our DNA. It is in our ways of relating, organizing, and being. And, just as during replication DNA unwinds so it can be copied, so too, Occupy has retained its essence while it has multiplied and changed form.”¹ I wrote this in September of 2014. Yet, as we have been seeing with subsequent movements, from Nuit Debout in 2016 in France to the current Climate Justice actions and occupations around the globe, the many forms of Occupy continue to grow and expand. Before writing this, I could have just as easily written the same about the Global Justice Movement from which Occupy derives some of its DNA. 

Occupy Wall Street, and assembly-based prefigurative movements, were born of an historical rupture with past ways of organizing—a rupture that began in the 1990s, made most visible by the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico in 1994 and which then took off during the Global Justice Movement (GJM) following Seattle in 1999. This rupture most visibly presented as horizontal, over hierarchical organizing models; looking to power from below, not institutions of power; and focusing on prefigurative social relationships that manifest the desired future in present relationships, while eschewing “ends justify the means” sorts of politics. 

When Adbusters put out the call to Occupy Wall Street in 2011, the announcement was for an open assembly, and thus many people turned up with non-party politics as well as who had participated or witnessed the movements in Egypt, Spain, Greece and the Global Justice Movement before them. And when a small political party tried to take over the microphone with speeches and the same old sort of discourse, these people democratized the mic, creating space for conversation and a horizontal assembly. That day the New York City General Assembly (NYCGA) was born, which subsequently met regularly to plan what became the occupation of Zuccotti Park (turned Liberty Park) and Occupy Wall Street. 

As a participant in the NYCGA, the GJM before it, as well as similar horizontal assembly-based, prefigurative movements around the globe, I was not exactly surprised that massive movements of these kinds were again taking off. I was pushed to think, however, more deeply about what it is that they hold in common, and whether or not there was now definitively something “new” happening around the globe. 

What I was coming to see was the emergence of a new approach, which was expanding forever the traditional concepts of social movements—and power itself—into something far more open, horizontal, and broad. I find Raul Zibechi’s “societies in movement,” useful for trying to understand this emergent form, while also grounding my discussion of this new wave in the GJM and, in particular, the role and influence of the Zapatistas. What follows are some thoughts exploring this shift in global movements as well as some of the commonalities across them. Occasionally I will also use the voices of movement participants to more deeply explain these musings. The theory emerging from these movements is live, active and engaged, and cannot be extrapolated without it coming directly from those creating the new. 

Global Justice Movement

Although often referred to as the Anti-Globalization movement, it is always corrected by those of us who participated to positive names such as the Global Justice or Alter Globalization Movement—it was not an “anti” movement even if it was against corporate globalization and undemocratic attempts to control regions and nations by international financial institutions. It was about creating a new and different form of globalization, based in solidarity and dignity. 

These protests targeted their meetings all over the world, from the WTO in Seattle in 1999 to anti World Bank, International Monetary Fund, G8 and World Economic Forum protests in Prague, Gothenburg, Cancun, Quebec and Genoa, among many other places. Each were organized as “convergences,” often explicitly anti-capitalist, and always had an inclusive and prefigurative infrastructure— from spaces where people could sleep and eat for free, legal and medical support, as well as dozens of workshops and trainings to choose from. Convergence Centers were set up to greet people and help orient them to the actions as well as the surrounding processes. Directly democratic assemblies, often in the spokescouncil form, took place so as to organize the actions along with prefiguring the sort of real democracy people desired to see. ² 

These were not typical “protest” movements or groups, but groupings and networks that were generally anti-capitalist as a whole and who chose various targets to demonstrate this. There was no single claim, or even a few that could be met that would then satisfy or appease the movement. The major organizations and networks greatly ranged in aim and approach from the Direct Action Network in the United States to Via Campesina, which was a core part of the People’s Global Action international network. It was a movement about changing everything. 

The Global Justice Movement and DNA of Occupy

In 2002, I conducted a series of interviews with GJM participants for the newly formed Left Turn magazine. In these interviews, I asked in particular about the question of movement longevity. I have included excerpts from the introduction of that issues along with two short interviews below. What is so striking, is that although these comments were from seventeen years ago, it feels as if they could have been made yesterday:

For me, the most important thing the global justice movement has contributed to the politics and culture of the world is a new creative vision, a new way of imagining social relationships and a new way of placing ourselves as actors in the world. The way in which we measure the life and health of a movement is in the effect and affect it creates, not just in relation to power structures, but also in our relationships to one another, in what we are creating day to day with one another. I believe that the global justice movement is alive and continues to generate new ideas, passions and movements all over the world. This is seen most in the ways in which people are organizing globally, using horizontal visions while maintaining a clearly anti-capitalist and anti-empire focus. This is not merely a reflection of different decision-making structures, but is a broader reflection of shifting views on power: from the concept of power-over and taking power to concepts of power-to and the creation of another power.

Ora and RJ, US

We see the movement as a set of ethics, new ethics that emerged with the Zapatistas in the South and Seattle in the North. New ethics, non-sectarian relations rooted in values of direct democracy and direct action. A new politic and ethic distancing itself from electoral politics and not interested in state power. There really is a much longer list, but this is what we decided to use as a base for the discussion. So, the GJM is a set of values and these values then inform the movement. 

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A metaphor that we came up with is that of the change of seasons and growth. The GJM is under a bunch of snow right now. The seeds and worms are down there working, and there is more than a lot of potential. There will be another blossoming, but things now are mainly in the growing phase a little lower down. 

The work is really only just beginning, we need a longer-term vision, and we need to be ok with putting down roots and nurturing them. The Zapatistas are a great example. In 1983 a few people started organizing and slowly, very slowly began growing, but growing in the right way, which is key. In ten years they enter the international scene and change the face of global politics forever. Some people only focus on the moments of January 1994, but that misses the point, we need to also look at all the nurturing and growth that made 1994 possible.

David Solnit, Freedom Rising, Art and Revolution, San Francisco Bay Area
 

The most significant threat and hopeful prospect is not our most militant opposition, but our positive alternatives. Both in practice and in our vision, whether a neighborhood organization that encompasses the community or an autonomous community in Chiapas, or the relationships within our movement. Unlike in society generally, we get a taste of what it would be like to participate democratically in decisions. This was seen quite powerfully in Seattle in the organization of the direct action, thousands of people got to experience thousands of people making decisions in an openly democratic way. Those experiences then translated into liberating the streets for a day. That taste of how things could be left a lot of people with a strong thirst for what they tasted. 

There have been some pretty remarkable experiences around the world, like the social centers in Europe. Half a million people marched in Barcelona in the spring against the IMF. There was a meeting of people before the protests who are involved in creating radical alternative structures (independent radical unions, social centers, squats etc.) and called it Another World is Under Construction. This was not just about what is possible, but about a reality many are creating with a vision of what is possible.

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I think the other thing we have to shatter is all these educated radicals/revolutionaries running around with cookie cutter ideologies that they attempt to apply everywhere. Instead of looking and listening where they are and what is appropriate and what all these threads are that can be woven together from where they are. 

I have continued to talk to, and interview, people in similar movements from all over the world throughout these years. The consistency in what people are saying and doing is nothing short of remarkable. So, what is it? What has been happening? It is not politics the way they are generally explained and defined, with people organizing to take over the state, through elections or direct action. Nor is it with people organizing identifiable hierarchies of leadership who direct a movement, generally with a pre-determined set of tactics or repertoire. No, instead what has been taking place in disparate places around the world is a new revolutionary wave, without precedent in terms of its consistency of form, politics, scope, and scale. And the current frameworks provided by the social sciences and traditional Left have yet to catch up with what is new and different about them. The theoretical frameworks for protest and social movements are not sufficient to understand the emergent horizontal and prefigurative practices. 

I am both averse to giving such movements a name, reluctant to lump them under the same umbrella, and also inclined to do so. It has now been more than two decades, and the forms and articulations continue in geographic diversity, number, and expansiveness. There is so much held in common across them that it is important and useful to think of them as connected. And with the recent twentieth anniversary of the WTO protests in Seattle, which sparked the Global Justice Movement in the US, we have a wonderful opportunity to think together, and ask questions as we walk.

I am now going to focus on a number of areas that the newer movements share in common. Many distinctions also exist between and amongst the movements, some quite significant, for example, such as on the question of what sort of relationship, if any, to have to the state. In particular, I will consider their commonalities, organizational forms, and the centrality of social relationships across them.

Emergence of a New Form

One of the common and most attention-grabbing aspects to these movements, was their public emergence. Again and again commentators asked “where did they come from?” and “what do they want?” This was the case for even those actions that were quite specific and targeted, such as the 1999 anti-WTO demonstration in Seattle or what became the APPO in Mexico. By not being organized in the familiar way—meaning by trade unions, parties or one mass organization—from the outside these movements seem to appear from nowhere, with many thousands of people organically and spontaneously coming together. They also said a great range of different things and held numerous perspectives. This seeming chaos has consistently repeated itself throughout the past twenty years. It should no longer come as a surprise when it does occur; rather than a surprise out of nowhere, it is this new movement form grounded in decentralized groupings, which relate to one another without a hierarchical structure or unified concept of power.

From Ya Basta! To Another Possible World 

Following the GJM, each movement has begun with dozens, then hundreds and soon thousands of people gathering in public plazas and squares, and, oftentimes, later setting up camp. Most all though, they began with a feeling the “Basta Ya!” of the Zapatistas, which echoed in various languages from “Kefaya!” (Enough!) in Egyptto “Degage!,” (Get out of here!) in Tunisia to “No Nos Representan!” (They Don’t Represent Us!) in Portugal, Spain and Brazil and the “Que Se Vayan Todos” (They All Must Go!) in Argentina before the Movements of the Squares. While these sentiments were shouted, they were not printed on posters or banners in the traditional social movement repertoire sort of way. They were also not meant as demands as much as they were a collective reflection, which then inspired and catalyzed the directly democratic assemblies. 

The construction and desire for new forms of democracy is also reflected in the slogans that have been emerging around the world and leading to formation of these assemblies. Consider, for instance, “Another world is Possible,” one of the slogans of the GJM, together with “Un altro modo é possible” (Another Way is Possible) in Italy in 2001, and later in Oaxaca in 2006 the APPO which began with Ya Basta! and quickly evolved into “an alternative democracy to establish a new social pact and new form of government.” Similarly, the Movements of the Squares rapidly shifted to: “We are the 99%,” first used during Occupy in the US, while they chanted “Democracia Real Ya!” (Real Democracy Now!) in Spain, “You can’t even imagine us!” in Moscow, and “Que se lixe a troika – as pessoas devem governor” (Screw the troika - The people must rule!) in Portugal. In each of these, is a call for direct democracy as opposed to global corporate rule.

Organized by People, Not Unions or Parties 

Together with the questions from commentators and academics of “who are these people?” and “what do they want?” was also “who organized them?” The idea that thousands of people would come together, practicing such similar forms of democracy and organizing with a variety, yet continuity of content was not believable to many, and there were constant questions as to who was really behind organizing the squares. Was there a union? A party? Some sort of centralized force? And, of course, the answer was not only no, but that this sort of organizing is a break from traditional forms of “mobilizing” people. Similar questions were asked of the Global Justice Movement a decade prior, when there had been rumors of a secret organization orchestrating the many global actions.

While not organized by parties or outside groups, most of the movements related to Occupy and the Squares were first called together by at least a handful of people already knew each other. They had either found one another on the internet, such as in Tunisia and Iceland, or were connected through larger groupings involved with the movement such as with Democracia Real Ya (DRY) in Madrid or The New York City General Assembly in New York. 

Interestingly, I found in my travels that every place that had an early organizing group of some sort, also had a few individuals who had been a part of the GJM. This is not to argue that it was led by, or even facilitated by an older generation, but rather that the lessons and practices from the GJM were passed down through lived experiences. I saw this generational knowledge in different global locations from the PAH and DRY in Spain to Occupy in the US. A similar phenomenon is also seen in the Climate Justice Movement as GJM participants who were doing land defense and blockades in the mid and later 2000s are now part of Extinction Rebellion. 

Not only were the movements not coordinated by political parties, but there was an explicit rejection of them and their formal participation. And while, with the exception of the first weeks of Oaxaca, none of the movements were organized by trade unions, this does not mean unions were not often helpful or their members active. In the US, Tunisia, for example, local unions lent space for movement participants to use. In the movement of the squares in Bosnia and Spain no political parties was one of the first agreements, where it became more of an implicit decision in Occupy and Greece. 

In Oaxaca they were clear that it was a “Movement of the bases not of the leaders.” And while the GJM did have the participation of NGOs and unions in locations around the world, they were not organized by these institutions, and the base, those people creating the assemblies and direct actions on the streets were anti-hierarchy. There was a debate and tension to emerge in some locations, especially around Social Forums in the early 2000s, when, as has happened around the world historically, political parties and similar small groups tried and take control of the processes, but as a whole the movements were about the process of democracy.

Directly Democratic and Horizontal 

Horizontalidad (Horizontalism in English) was first used to describe the relationships that emerged in Argentina after the 2001 economic crisis. Similar to the Movements of the Squares and APPO, in Argentina hundreds of thousands of people went into the streets, without political parties or unions leading them, and formed assemblies. Horizontalism became one of the main ways people described what they were doing. It is a social relationship that implies, as its name suggests, a flat plane upon which to communicate. Necessarily this implies the use of direct democracy and the striving for consensus, processes in which attempts are made so that everyone is heard and new relationships are created. This form of relating is not an end, but a tool to help facilitate new relationships, that are grounded in trust, sharing and open communication – an issue that sometimes arose as some movement participants saw the use of a form of consensus, such as in Spain or the US, as the end rather than means to help in the striving for horizontalism. 

In these cases, and as has sometimes been done by scholars, Horizontalism is characterized as an “‘ism,” a political program or totality, rather than as a relationship and a tool. This mischaracterization misses the point entirely of what people in movement have been doing, which is to strive for a dynamic and ever-changing democratic form that empowers people’s sense of self and relationship to one another. The specific democratic form that relationship takes must be determined by those people involved, for example it was a form or consensus in OWS, and in Greece a vastly different form of direct democracy, sometimes using a lottery form to select speakers, and in Argentina it varied assembly to assembly. The goal, is that it is a means, not an end. 

This dynamic relationship has been described similarly around the world. As Ernest from the PAH and 15M in Barcelona Spain described of the early days of Plaza Catalunya:

It was like - the way you can imagine another possible world - everyone discussing issues that the media and politicians never talk about - it was awesome. If you took a walk around, maybe even at midnight, you would say: “these people are crazy”. There were groups of 5 or 6 people who didn't know each other, talking about the energy crisis, nuclear treaties, or discussing labor issues. People who had never met before were there, having discussions, more and more people adding themselves to the discussions, something like mini-forums. It came out of a need to express, to communicate, and to imagine other worlds that never existed in the reality before 15-M.

Prefigurative Relationships and Facing Each Other 

Each of the movements in the squares, and the mobilizations of the GJM prioritize the relationships of people to one another in the present – attempting to prefigure the sort of politics envisioned. To do this all of the encampments organized structure of support, many including things such as: food, medical care, legal, child care, translation, libraries, media centers, safer spaces and security, as well as spaces where one could share skills, learn, teach and relax, such as: art, music, meditation, yoga, lectures, discussions and all sorts of trainings, such as: facilitation, legal rights, art making, media and technological usage and on and on. This, while not a mirror of the GJM, was a model so similar to the spaces of convergence, the comings together, before mass actions, that it must be identified and further research should be done to examine the direct lines of continuity. For example, I put together the legal group in OWS in New York, having been a part of the People’s Law Collective in New York with the GJM and other similar legal collectives post Seattle.

Similarly, all of the movements focused on the importance of each person speaking and being heard, using forms of direct democracy to help facilitate this, forms that were similar around the world, each evolving and borrowing from one another. For example, the use of the spokescouncil in Occupy in New York and San Francisco came from people who had used the same form in the GJM. The People’s Mic that took off globally and was made famous with Occupy in New York had first been used on the streets of Seattle in 1999. Jazz Fingers, sign language for applause, also used around the globe, beginning in Spain with the 15M came from the GJM before it as a way of showing support for an idea without taking up time with loud applause. 

One of the most important aspects of all the movements for the directly democratic or participatory assemblies was that all people could be able to speak and be heard. In some, such as the Occupy and 15M movements, there was a great deal of facilitation work, which used many tools from prior directly democratic movements. In some movements, such as Occupy in New York, Oakland and throughout the US, as well as the 15M in Madrid and other locations in Spain, specific forms of the consensus process were also adopted almost exactly as they were used in the GJM, such as the ability to use blocks to stall a conversation semi-indefinitely. Gender balance was at the heart of the process in many locations. For example, during the GJM with CLAC in Montreal speakers’ gender had to be alternated. Or in Paris in 2016 the feminist Commission created a hand sign for a comment being sexist, which called for the conversation to pause.

New Subjectivity, Affect and Dignity

Luis, 15-M, Madrid:

One of the things that most impressed me about 15-M was how people took care of each other, it was a policy of taking care, because if not, it wouldn’t make sense. It was to say and show that we are not just talking about ideas, but taking into account feelings, affections and relationships. 

No doubt, this focus on new forms of relationships is what led to formation of new subjectivities for participants and commonly expressed feelings of joy and dignity. 

One area that almost all movement participants reflected upon, from Spain and the US to Turkey and Greece, was how they feel different. They felt more confident and more affection for others, since being a part of the movement. This is an area that is not easily or often discussed in the social sciences and social movement literature. Feelings are often relegated to the areas of culture or gender studies, though a number of scholars have argued that they should be a part of all social movement studies (Sitrin 2009: Hardt 2010). Movement participants in 15M have also reflected on the importance of feelings and affect not only in the movement, but that participation changed feelings of confidence and care for others, established new relationships, led to feelings of “happiness”³ as opposed to despair—all of which, I see as part of the success of these movements. This is also evident in the way many assemblies and spokes councils ended, with spiral dances, music, and an overall atmosphere of joy and play. 

Enduring Influence of the Zapatistas

Another significant commonality across these movements is the influential role of the Zapatistas had on them. Some movement participants reflect upon this directly and are conscious and intentional about the influence, while others seem to be influenced, but in a way that is less clear, perhaps having heard something about the movement but not having studied them or spend time in the communities. Either way, intentionally or more indirectly, the Zapatistas were one of the most influential movements for the Global Justice Movement, APPO, and later, often through more indirect forms of resonance, the movements of the Squares. The concept of changing social relationships, looking to one another and not trying to change society by forming a party to take state power, but rather prefiguring that alternative are all located with the Zapatistas. In other movements as well, of course, but the Zapatistas broke open people’s imaginations around the globe in ways that are beyond compare. In large part because the Zapatistas were creating these ideas out of their practice – prefigurative in their very existence.

Ernest, from the 15M and PAH in Spain reflected:

Without Zapatismo and the anti-globalization movement the movements today wouldn’t be possible, they are the political foundation that make all this possible. The global dimension experienced in public places comes from the anti-globalization movement, and that sensibility towards the new comes a bit from the Zapatistas. People now, with social networks and apps, receive updates of what’s happening in Greece, of what’s going on in the Arab countries, but in a more distant way, but they understand that this is not just a nationwide movement, and that it’s linked with current globalization processes.

And Ana, from an autonomous union in Greece, and participant in the Syntagma square assemblies commented, related to their specific form of organizing in the union:

We say that real participation and real action of the workers should be done by assemblies “from below”. We support horizontal forms of organization. If we don’t do that, if we work with representatives, we will end up in forms of organization that do not allow people to take their lives in their own hands, to be responsible, to make decisions and act by themselves. We want to feel as workers that we are active subjects and protagonists. We are against intermediation. We know it is difficult. But working in a horizontal way is an answer to the current situation that comes from the future. It is an answer that was given from the movements in Latin America, and especially from the Zapatistas. At this historical point this is the suitable way of organizing.

Similarly, Gustavo Esteva, from the Universidad de la Tierra in Oaxaca, Mexico, and life-long organizer and movement thinker noted in 2007:

The Zapatista uprising is clearly a very substantial change in conditions, in the country, I would say until 1994 the general attitude was “we don’t agree with what’s happening, we don’t agree with globalization, with the Free Trade Agreement, but there’s nothing to be done. It’s a reality and we have to accept it.” The Zapatistas create the possibility of hope … of saying “enough, already, we don’t accept this and we are not going to accept it under any circumstances.” And the people immediately react; they take up the “enough, already,” and begin to act everywhere. 

And, finally,Tamara, from the group Los Machetes, participants in the Otra Campaña, in Puebla, Mexico explained in late 2006: 

The Zapatistas, since 1994, have generated a sense in the country that there is a need for a new form – that we are lacking new forms – new ways of living, of solving our daily issues, health, education and ways of seeing the other. And doing this in a way that is indigenous inspired, with a respect for difference. 

This has generated a lot of hope in the new forms we are creating, even if they are very small, but towards this other world we want to construct, no? This is something that is not only felt in the Zapatista communities. I have felt it in those exact moments where we relate to one another in another way – in the moments when someone who has had fear of speaking decides to speak, or to meet others, and then to find that they are in a similar new search, and this also generates hope, opening small windows and then finding there are passionate worlds on the other side.

The other characteristic of the new, is to break with the idea of a future, and to think of history as the moment, as now. It is to break with this idea of “finding paradise” and instead create it now – even in the little acts and ways of living, in small spaces and the creation of territories. 

Diffusion, Contagion, Resonance, Or … 

The influence of the movements on one another goes without question, as does the role of prior movements. What this looks like and how it happens is an entirely different question. In part there was the influence of the media and internet. While not an internet revolution as some commentators and scholars have argued, technology did play a huge role in mobilizing these movements as well as underscoring the concept of horizontal spaces (though the practice of the deepening democracy via internet platforms is contested territory). The first time a massive open access network was established for movement to movement, and movement to the world communication was in 1999 with the Independent Media Center in Seattle. This sparked a shift in the ways in which people in movement communicate and at whom they direct their media. 

This is neither to say that the internet is a horizontal space, or one that all people use to get information or mobilize since there are many people still without access. There is also a huge discrepancy between those who have facility with online communication and those who, for various reasons, often tied to gender, social position and class, are observers of the information. This is an area that is rapidly changing, and a great deal of work is being put into creating platforms that can become more horizontal and participatory. Even so, it is undeniable that new media and internet have had a shaping influence on these new horizontal movements.

It is not totally clear how or why these movements so quickly spread and replicated one another. Yet, it is clear, that many movements identified with what others were doing at the time and replicated their experiences, or what they imagined their experiences to be. 

The question, however, is this simply a matter of movements spreading and diffusing orr / and perhaps it is something much bigger. Without discounting the above, perhaps what is going on globally is a massive response to a system comprised of states and international financial institutions that does not represent people, combined with the failure of reformist movement models, which results in people looking to one another, using direct democracy, and seeing power as something to construct—and maintain—from below..

These movements are dynamic, moving at their own pace, unevenly and without one clear objective, except, to change everything here in the present by manifesting that desired change as we move forward into the future. In the language of the Zapatistas, this is walking while asking questions, or as Guestavo Esteva described, “We know we don’t want what we have, we want something else and we are going to make it together.”⁴ How we do this and how long it takes is wonderfully captured by our Turkish sisters and brothers in the song , which they sang in Taksim, Gezi Park to the sound of pots and pans— we are going “slowly slowly, as the ground is still wet.” And, as the Zapatistas remind us, we go slow, since we are going far.