Spreading struggle in the squares

IS THERE a future in the U.S. for the "squares movement" that has spread, in a matter of months, from North Africa to the Near East and, a bit more recently, southern Europe?

The working class in the U.S. is certainly being confronted by a predatory national ruling class that wants to dump the cost of the latest capitalist financial crisis on the masses here in the same fashion that the national ruling classes are attempting to impose the cost of the international crisis on the masses in those countries where the squares movement is in full bloom.

So it should come as no surprise that discussions are surfacing in New Orleans, Newark, Los Angeles, New York and no doubt elsewhere about initiating "liberation squares" in the cities of this country.

Several meetings have been held by the Exploratory Committee for a Liberation Square in New Orleans. The broad theme of a liberation square in this crisis and austerity ridden city will likely be, to borrow a phrase from our brothers and sisters in Spain, "real democracy now."

Why raise the issue of democracy? Simply put, it's hard for many of us to imagine a government less accountable to the people than the one that rules over us here.

At the same time, there is a recognition that building a fight for democracy with deep roots will require raising demands pertinent to the particular challenges that face the oppressed and exploited of the Gulf Coast area.

The goals for creating a liberation square protest in New Orleans include: 1) forging a ground zero organizing area for mass protest; 2) uniting a currently fragmented and weakened progressive and radical community; 3) asserting public control of a public space; and 4) galvanizing the widespread passive resentment to the status quo among the local working class, African Americans, the homeless, youth and immigrants into an active fightback for democratic rights and against austerity.

The first planned action aimed at building a liberation square in New Orleans will be a free speech assembly on July 30 in Duncan Plaza Park. The park is adjacent to New Orleans City Hall. It is also the site of the post-Katrina tent city occupation of 2007. This occupation/protest attracted the participation of hundreds of the city's homeless and their supporters.

The July 30 assembly will be the first of hopefully a series of planned actions that are designed to help win a broad layer of the public to the idea that Duncan Plaza should, and can be, an organizing space for mass resistance locally to austerity and repression.

Hopefully, folks throughout the country will give serious consideration to joining the international squares movement and helping it forge a strong presence in the U.S. And, hopefully, SocialistWorker.org will be a voice in encouraging discussion concerning the squares movement here as well as abroad. If you are interested to network concerning this issue, please contact me at [email protected].
Mike Howells, Exploratory Committee for a Liberation Square in New Orleans, New Orleans