2013 Articles

Their Fight Is Our Fight: Occupy Wall Street, the Arab Spring, and New Modes of Solidarity Today

Alessandrini, Anthony C.

From its inception in September 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement has been linked to the revolutions and popular uprisings throughout North Africa and the Middle East that have gone under the name of the Arab Spring. This connection is reflected in the official OWS website, which declares: 'We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.' While the rich and complex set of popular struggles across North African and the Middle East cannot be reduced to a single 'tactic,' this acknowledgement of the Arab Spring as an inspiration for the Occupy movement represents my point of departure for considering OWS within current conversations about global solidarity. More specifically, the claims and practices of Occupy highlight an important distinction between the movement’s self-understanding of being inspired by the Arab Spring versus the even more important question of how a U.S.-based movement can stand in solidarity with popular movements throughout North Africa and the Middle East, as well as the less publicized popular movements throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.