vendredi 2 décembre 2011

L'occupation de Occupy Montreal

Par Michel Kelly-Gagnon:

One of the most revealing and ironic illustration of the importance of those basic rules occurred last week. As in other cities, the camp had gradually been invaded by drug addicts and homeless persons who found there a place to stay and food distributed for free. The situation finally became untenable: at night especially, there were continual fights, some tents were transformed into shooting galleries, death threats were being uttered.

The occupiers, who had appropriated land that did not belong to them* in the name of a vague right to express their indignation, got a taste of their own medicine: they themselves became occupied!
And how did they react? Just like typical property owners would do when faced with invaders: they asked the police to expel these "undesirables," as they called them. Hilariously, the police said they had no way to justify expelling some of the occupiers while tolerating others. And indeed, from a legal as well as a moral perspective, nobody had more reason to be there than others. The two groups, occupiers and undesirables, are interchangeable, depending on one's perspective.

A group of occupiers then decided to take drastic action to get rid of the undesirables: they refused to give daily food rations to those who could not prove that they participated in the camp's organization. The food distributed in Occupy "people's kitchens" across the continent was of course not bought by the participants themselves but donated by outside organizations and supporters. Occupiers realized that handing over free stuff encouraged unproductive and parasitic behaviour, and that this could not go on without obvious economic and social disadvantages.

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