Late were their protests, the Arabs led the way. It is never too late, if you believe what they say.
The Occupy Wall Street Movement was at its peak when I landed in NYC last year. Over seven hundred protesters had been arrested on Brooklyn Bridge, the day before.
Zucotti Park, which the protesters had occupied and which consequently became the epicentre of the global Occupy Movement, had a strange eerie feel under the brooding New York cloudscapes and the looming Gothamesque skyrises. The menacing policemen did not help either. Tension hung rife in the air.
Drums played their tunes to a hazy war: the rules of the game laid out bare. The opponents cared not much for playing even. Arrests, detentions, evictions and brutal attacks on protesters and sympathisers were the order of the day.
A year has passed since they took to the streets, rocking the financial district to its core. Zucotti Park lies empty today, a far cry from the din of October last…yet the spirit lives on. ‘Within the history of capitalism, Manhattan is the island reserved for those who are damned because they have hoped excessively.’ – John Berger, Manhattan, The Sense of Sight
