#OccupyWallStreet Drawing Arab Spring Comparisons?

thepoliticalnotebook:

aatombomb replied to your post: This morning, Ezra Klein wrote that the Occupy Wall Street protests are “explicitly inspired by, and modeled on, the Tahrir Square protests in Egypt.” I’m not quite sure how he made that connection. Any thoughts?

I don’t like this comparison. We have democratic tools at our disposal to change our political reality if we so choose. Whether we make those choices wisely is an open question, but we’ll never have to demand regime change the same way Egypt did.

This is a point I don’t see brought up often enough, actually. Although, to be careful here, I don’t know that AdBusters is exactly putting Occupy Wall Street on the same plane as Tahrir. The acampadas in Spain are a slightly more accurate comparison. I think it’s perfectly fine to say that the ideas of using the model of mass peaceful protest in an attempt to achieve deep change is something that OWS has found exemplified in Tahrir or that Tahrir has generated a greater sense of popular empowerment in general. It’s another to say that what OWS is doing is like Tahrir. Or any part of the so called Arab Spring. The contexts and motivations are wildly different and to pretend otherwise erases the experiences of those who lived and are living under tyranny.

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    aatombomb replied to your post: This morning, Ezra Klein wrote that the Occupy Wall Street protests are “explicitly...
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  7. stjn said: I’d say the protests are similar in the way they both demand political reforms that benefit the people instead of a small elite. In Cairo through the removal of a dictatorial regime; in New York by decreasing the influence of capitalism in politics.
  8. iradeh said: Being Arab myself, the only reason I went to Occupy Wall Street this weekend was to see if it was really like the Arab Spring or not. Anyway, after talking to people I think the sentiment is the same.
  9. andrewgraham reblogged this from thepoliticalnotebook
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