Richard Renshaw: More on the 99%

Monday 24 October 2011

More on the 99%

Celebration

General Assembly

It is now more than a week since the 99% invaded Square Victoria in the heart of Montreal and established the People's Square. They began with a few tents and a great desire to build another world that is possible, one very different from that of the 1%. The "village has now grown large in every sense. There are more than 200 tents -- it was necessary to occupy additional space to accomodate all the tents and more space may still be required. There is a kitchen that serves two meals a day, a small library and daily general assemblies where direct democracy is both very real and inclusive. There is even a large tent marked "hospital" with at least one bed and qualified personnel. The relationship with the city and with the police continues to be good. They are learning from those who have expericence, to prepare for "winter camping" with a view to staying throughout the bitterly cold months ahead. There are signs everywhere reminding people to be clean, non-violent and inclusive. Next Saturday there will be a march in solidarity with all the other groups around the world who are expressing the voice of the 99%. Thousands are expected. What I have seen of the media in Montreal is fairly positive. The community has excellent media capacity: a really good web site (http://occupymontreal.tk/), a facebook site, a forum site, and so on.

Shared Kitchen

I speak of all this because it leads me into a reflection on liberation theology. If liberation theology was initially "invented" to attempt to discern the presence and path of God's liberating Spirit in the struggle of the excluded "non-persons" of society, then the experience of the camps, like the one in Montreal and others around the world, is certainly an irruption of the poor (the 99%) into the social, economic and political scene of 2011. This irruption deserves profound reflection. When I am on the site, when I witness the general assemblies, when I see their initiatives to build community, when I hear them struggling to express the values and directions they want to move in, there is no doubt in my mind that the Spirit is at work here building something radically new, something that draws deeply on our faith traditions. It is a phenomenon that will mark history and that builds on the struggles of many other peoples in many other places -- today and in the past.

Theology is a very pretentious word: it claims to engage in discerning and interpreting the path of liberation in the here and now. In the past liberation theology tried to give "voice to the voiceless." Theology no longer needs to do that. The voiceless have found their own voice and are giving powerful expression to their own path. There is no need for philosphers, theologians or social scientists to help them analyze the current situation; those on site in the camps are extremely articulate and connected to those analyses. There is perhaps not even a need to provide a word of support and hope since the artists among them (musicians, poets, graphic artists) are providing a powerful cultural expression of the vision that animates and directs their presence. While I am not advocating "slogan" theology, there is nevertheless much for a theologian to reflect on in the signs displayed in downtown Montreal . There is also much to be reflected on in the way the camp functions, in the way decisions are made, in the way food is shared, in the way people are welcomed, in the way the "word" in honoured.

At this point it seems to me that what theologians need to do is to be PRESENT. This is one of those times when the theologians (and other professional religious folk) need to physically displace themselves in order to grasp the situation. We need to go there, spend time there. Theologians need to become the defenders of this movement for those sectors of the wider society who practice what the religious institutions dictate. There are broad sectors of the Churches that are sympathetic to what is happening in these camps but who have very little access to know how to understand it. While the people in the camp are doing a wonderful job, it is up to those of us who are close to the movement to make sure that the message gets through to our circles. Those circles can be crucial to the future of the movement. If we truly believe that this is an expression of God's Spirit

in our world today, in 2011, then we surely need to reflect deeply on the ways in which this phenomenon embodies our tradtion and make absolutely sure that the religious sector (at the base and in the hierarchy) understand and support it. It is what liberation theology has attempted to do for more than forty years. We cannot do less today. If the religions of the world get behind this, it is clearly unstoppable.

(All the pictures are taken from the Occupy Montreal web site. The credits are given there.)

David Suzuki interviewed at Occupy Montreal:

http://youtu.be/rUTDxUicSmo