(15 December 2011) The unprecedented wave of protests and those which participate: the protestors have been honored by Time Magazine with the cover of the Person of the Year 2011. Time Magazine devoted a long article to the various protests movements 2011 has seen:
- The people driving out dictators in Tunisia and Egypt
- The young people and many others that opposed government policies and called themselves Indignados in Spain
- The mobilizations with people demanding change in Greece
- The movement in Israel
- The Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States
- And also the people that are complaining about the corruption and fraud in Russia
While the long article does not mention the many union members and unions that have been involved and were supporting the various movements and are standing up for social justice and seeking change, the article does pick up the general demands that unite so many people across the world sick and tired of a political class and corporate elite that pushes neoliberal policies and with it systematic attacks against public services, against trade unions and others which challenge the existing system.
Some quotes from the article: “All over the world, the protesters of 2011 share a belief that their countries' political systems and economies have grown dysfunctional and corrupt — sham democracies rigged to favor the rich and powerful and prevent significant change’”
“It was, in other words, unlike anything in any of our lifetimes, probably unlike any year since 1848, when one street protest in Paris blossomed into a three-day revolution that turned a monarchy into a republican democracy and then — within weeks, thanks in part to new technologies (telegraphy, railroads, rotary printing presses) — inspired an unstoppable cascade of protest and insurrection in Munich, Berlin, Vienna, Milan, Venice and dozens of other places across Europe, as well as a huge peaceful demonstration of democratic solidarity in New York that marched down Broadway and occupied a public park a few blocks north of Wall Street. How perfect that the German word Zeitgeist was transplanted into English in that unprecedented, uncanny year of insurrection.”
"We are not goods in the hands of politicians and bankers." They were frustrated by unemployment, a lack of opportunity and politics headed nowhere. They called themselves Los Indignados, the Outraged.”
“The grievance package was familiar: good jobs too scarce, cost of living too high, politicians corrupt, only the well-connected rich getting richer. Soon there were 100 such encampments all over Israel, in working-class towns as well as yuppievilles”
The full article of the Time: www.time.com
Image of Time cover page from www.standaard.be 1>
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