This past week, hundreds of Occupy Boston protesters have been gathering in the financial district of Boston. Inspired by the Occupy Wall Street protesters, they are people who think this country is in need of some serious changes.
It's clear that all of the Occupy Boston protesters are passionate about change, but what's not clear is what exactly they hope to accomplish through their actions. The national Occupy movement has been unable to produce definite leaders or a clear list of objectives beside a general series of left-leaning talking points. It's definitely understandable to be upset about the state of the economy, but successful protest movements require a lot more than just a public outpour of frustration.
Some of history's most effective protest movements were intricately organized and had clear, defined goals. A great deal of planning went into the Montgomery Bus Boycott as well as Gandhi's Salt March.
For such a young movement, the Occupy protesters have proved remarkably well-organized, leveraging social media to get the word out and discuss behavioral guidelines for protesters. However the movement, as it is currently structured, faces serious hurdles in becoming more than a gathering of individuals airing their grievances. In the first post on their website, Occupy Boston's organizers state, "We do not represent any one union, activist group or organization in Boston. We are a large gathering of disaffected, angry, fed-up Americans from all walks of life."
The biggest issue the Occupy movement seems to have is that it does not know what it wants. Just like the protesters, people in the United States are angry about the economic situation, rampant foreclosures and sky-high unemployment rates. A protester from Occupy Wall Street told the Associated Press, "We don't have one central argument... we have a lot, but the basic issue is our democratic structures are broken in this country." Saying that our government is broken is actually not a very "basic issue;" it's a massive one. Is the purpose of this protest then to demand a new governmental structure or a new economic system? If so, then it's going to take a lot more than people camping out in financial districts to make that happen.
The Occupy demonstrators have stated that they were inspired by the Arab Spring demonstrations that rocked the Middle East earlier this year. However, the comparison is flawed: Those movements were most effective in countries both smaller than the United States and with far more totalitarian governments. The people in power in the United States were put there legitimately via open elections. A complete, protest-spurred governmental overhaul isn't going to happen overnight in a country as large or as democratic as ours.
The protest has also failed to produce known leaders or a leadership group. Leadership is integral to a successful protest. It's almost as important as the feelings behind the protest themselves. There is a reason why Martin Luther King, Jr. is synonymous with the Montgomery Bus Boycott, as is Gandhi with the Salt March. They were vital in training their protesters, stating the demands of their movements and giving a voice to the collective masses. Occupy Boston and the Occupy movement thus far have no leader. Even if someone in the finance industry or the government was planning to work with the protesters, who would they talk to? They can't engage in negotiations with a horde of thousands.
The feelings behind this movement are certainly understandable. People have a right to be angry, especially given the years-long downturn that this country is in. People also have the right to protest, but for these protests to effect change, they need to have goals and defined methods for how to obtain said goals.
