social movements

Introduction

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow

They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know

And I think to myself what a wonderful world. (Weiss and Thiele, 1967)

 

What if it’s a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing? [437]

Pirate politics between protest movement and the parliament

The internet is the greatest thing that has happened to mankind since the printing press, and quite possibly a lot greater […] And we have only seen the beginning. But at this moment of fantastic opportunity, copyright is putting obstacles in the way of creativity, and copyright enforcement threatens fundamental rights… (Engström and Falkvinge, 2012: 7)

Protest camps is an inside look at various protest camps all over the world, from Resurrection City in Washington, DC to Greenham Common in the United Kingdom and to Horizon in Stirling, Scotland; from Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt to OccupyLSX in London. The book provides a detailed account on how protest camps work to achieve their goals. More specifically, it provides both inside and outside accounts of protest camps. The book thereby takes into account several theoretical approaches, such as a sociological, a political science, and a communications approach.

Introduction*

Labels are often flashy conduits for hasty assumptions and partial truths.  At the time when I was writing Action and Existence: Anarchism for Business Administration in the late 1970s, the term anarchism served as a handy synonym for mess, chaos, and disorder. In this context the word cropped up in public debates about the Baader-Meinhof terrorism in Germany in the aftermath of Paris 68, for example. In putting my book together, I set out to explain what I had learned through my own reading and discussion about this often short-changed term.

Introduction*

I receive and I give – such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination. (Bakunin, 2012/1882: 33)

It has been two years since Occupy emerged on the global scene, inspired by an on-going wave of protest movements and upheavals. Like its predecessors, the movement was met with great skepticism – not least by many self-acclaimed leftist academics and journalists. How could a political movement, one objection went, be of any significance and endurance if it failed or refused to produce a clear, univocal agenda? How could it affect society or politics beyond the border of its own tent camp?

Introduction