Arab Spring copycats on Wall Street

By Peter Apps,

LONDON: After the Arab Spring and unrest in Europe, New Yorks Occupy Wall Street movement may be the latest sign of a global, popular backlash against elites with increasingly shared rhetoric and tactics.

On almost every continent, 2011 has seen an almost unprecedented rise in both peaceful and sometimes violent unrest and dissent. Protesters in a lengthening list of countries including Israel, India, Chile, China, Britain, Spain and now the United States all increasingly link their actions explicitly to the popular revolutions that have shaken up the Middle East.

The slogans on the streets of Manhattan and other US cities also show a host of other intermingling influences, from the British student protests last year to the indignados (indignant) anti-austerity demonstrations in Greece and Spain.

What they all share in common is a feeling that the youth and middle class are paying a high price for mismanagement and malfeasance by an out-of-touch corporate, financial and political elite.

When hundreds of protesters blocked Londons Westminster Bridge on Sunday in anger at upcoming changes to Britains National Health Service, they took on slogans from US protesters who describe themselves as the 99 percent paying the price for mistakes by a tiny minority.

With the economic outlook darkening just as the growth of social media helps disparate groups around the world knit together a global narrative of anger, there may be more to come.

This is most definitely going to be a multi-year trend, perhaps even a decade, says Tina Fordham, chief political analyst for US bank Citi. Whats interesting is the way youre increasingly seeing these strands come together. So far the policy impact has been mini! mal, but that could change. An extended period of low or no (economic) growth could galvanise these emerging movements into political forces.

While those largely leaderless groups taking to the streets might be getting better at articulating what they are against, they still struggle to define what they actually want. But they are still gaining traction.

Already, the tactic of occupying a location be it a park, the central square in an Arab city or a university common room appears to be becoming commonplace, allowing debate and providing a focal point from which to engage the media and authority. So too are days of rage, a term first used during the Middle East risings, not to mention the use of social media and messaging systems to stay one step ahead of authorities.

Something in the air?

When English student and occasional fashion blogger Jessica Riches, then 21, began posting twitter updates from a student sit-in at University College London late last year, her postings and online interactions inspired like-minded students elsewhere. That led to a string of other occupations across Britain and fuelled further protests against planned tuition fee rises.

This didnt stop the coalition government pushing through the reforms part of a wider debt-reduction strategy but now Riches feels she is seeing the beginnings of something more.

Theres definitely something in the air, she says, now avidly following events in New York online and encouraging activists in the United States to occupy everything.

In many ways, they remind me of us last year.

What the Internet revolution is doing, some experts suggest, is leading to perhaps a new internationalisation of political discourse. If nothing else, ! tax refo rms to redress a widening wealth gap. In doing so, they may end up accelerating trends already visible.

Last month, US President Barack Obama echoed billionaire Warren Buffett in calling for Americas richest to pay more tax.

Even before the protests, Goldman Sachs had lost around a quarter of its value in the stock market largely because of fears it might face a regulatory backlash.

But at the same time, the financial crisis and its aftermath has also helped fuel the rise in the United States of the right wing Tea Party with almost exactly the opposite demands slashing back state intervention in the economy and society.

In the euro zone, a left-wing response against austerity in troubled borrowers in the Mediterranean south such as Greece is counterbalanced by the rise of Eurosceptics and right-wing parties in the fiscally more frugal north Germany, Finland and other core EU states opposed to ongoing bailouts.

What youre seeing is a loss of confidence in institutions and their legitimacy because they are not seen as delivering, said Jonathan Wood, global issues analyst at Control Risks.

Its hardly a surprise that its producing a degree of paralysis. Politics becomes very reactive and its hard to deal with the bigger issues.

For the protesters of the Middle East dealing with the aftermath of revolutions or facing a sometimes bloody backlash from autocratic elites clinging to power, events in the developed world are all very interesting.

But for many, there are more pressing concerns than how they might fit into a wider global generational zeitgeist. I think the bankers in the region are worried, United Arab Emirates-based blogger Sultan Al Qassemi told Reuters via twitter. But not the Yemeni and Syrian street, if you know what I mean.

- Reuters