Recently a lot of articles against the Occupy movement were published in the so-called Canada's national magazine, MacLean's. (Which doesn't really surprise me considering the fact that MacLean's belongs to Rogers Communications inc., a 11 billions $ revenue company. I'm just saying.)
Anyway, actually I have no problems with criticizing this movement, or talking about his drifts... it's a part of the democratic game and to debate is always a good thing. We must also be aware to know all the aspects of a question and to don't fall into simplistic idealization.
But nontheless one thing is for sure : I will never agree on saying that the Occupy Movement is a "farce" or "has it all wrong" like some people wrote in this magazine.
Since this movement has spread itself worldwide since some months now and that almost eveybody knows it at least a little bit, I won't get to far in the details but we must keep in mind that it is before everything else a democratic, non-violent and authenticaly popular protest. The idea in itself is excellent, it was really about time that some people get on the streets and stay there as long as things won't change. It's maybe a bit utopic and naive and maybe tomorrow the World's problems will be still there, but there again the immediate result has really little importance compared to the message itself and it's eventual long-terms consequences. Because, first of all, we cannot deny that today there ARE problems in our political/financial system. Everyday we can hear of people losing their jobs and their homes, of students that cannot afford their studies without working, and of this increasing gap between the extremely rich and the extremely poor. Our political elites are getting more and more corrupted, or at least we can say for sure that only few of us trust the politicians as much as we should in theory since they are actually governing us in our name. In my opinion, the obvious reason to this is that financial interests and those behind these are now more powerfull than our democratic institutions. We can see that with the tuition fees problem here in Québec, and as far as I know in a lot of places in the world like Germany. The raising of these fees is not in itself an absolute necessity like some are trying to make us to believe, but a sign that our universities are becoming some trivial economical tool instead of a place where we to learn is a basic right and where the knowledge is in itself a riches like it used to be. This situation seems intolerable to more and more people and has to change but the elites just don't seem to react concretely. So it was inevitable that a movement like the Occupy Wall Street's one would appear one day or an other. And now it's there since september. As I said, I don't think that this movement will in itself all the world's problems, but it is at very least important to listen what these people have to say. But I think that doing everything to bring the protesters in discredute like MacLean's does, and to expulse them like it is happening in some places, is just making the situation even worse than it was. It is in fact making the point of those that say that the governments are corrupted and don't listen to the populations they are supposed to serve. And if people understand that democratic, non-violent protests like the Occupy one doesn't work, then we can fear more violent reactions.
However, today it is still time to refresh our capitalism and to make it more human and fair. At least, I believe it because it is an imperative necessity. We should focus on that instead of trying to hide the problems.
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