Why Do Protest Camps Have Libraries? | - Gift Ideas

Photo by Michael Gatton

From Hong Kong to Istanbul to New York, libraries are one of many defining components of 21st-century demonstrations, says techno-sociologist Zeynep Tufekci, they usually will help illuminate why individuals danger discomfort, arrest and hazard to face collectively.

A pious Egyptian lady arrived in New York on the peak of the Occupy Wall Street protests of 2011, and he or she was drawn to affix the demonstrators in Zuccotti Park. While a hijab-wearing spiritual lady from the Middle East won’t have appeared a part of the pure constituency of the dreadlock-sporting anarchists of Zuccotti Park, this Egyptian felt in another way. She introduced herself to the group — “I’m from Tahrir, and I support you guys!” — and never solely was she welcomed, she was acknowledged as a outstanding Twitter voice from the Egyptian rebellion earlier within the 12 months. She’s only one instance of how international anti-authoritarian protest tradition is slicing throughout political ideology in nontraditional methods.

Each nation has particular influences, and every motion has particular options and grievances. Yet there are commonalities the world over’s actions. Thanks to digital media and simpler journey, protesters in different places can work together and type extra direct interpersonal connections than ever earlier than — in reality, the shared protest tradition and politics of 21st-century networked protests have a foundation rooted in friendship and solidarity that has been constructed over a long time. (I exploit “networked” as a shorthand for digitally networked.)

There are few formal organizations on this new panorama. But these networked actions are inclined to share key traits: a leaderless nature, a participatory impulse, a sudden rise and fall, an emphasis on expressive politics, a job of digital connectivity and a political tradition.

Of course, the act of protesting takes time and power and it may be harmful, relying on the nation, with dangers starting from arrest to tear-gas publicity and, generally, dying. When protesters do obtain their targets, the ensuing advantages will be loved even by those that didn’t take part. Given the risks and the truth that the payoffs go to all, many students have requested, Why do individuals protest? Why don’t extra individuals “free ride” and let others shoulder the burdens of protest? To perceive this, we will think about an easier query that has lengthy puzzled me: Why achieve this many protest camps arrange libraries?

Protests are places of self-expression, communities of belonging and mutual altruism.

The Occupy protest in New York’s Zuccotti Park erected a library, as did many different Occupy encampments around the globe. Hong Kong’s democracy protesters and the Plaza del Sol protests in Madrid, the most important protests of the Indignados motion that swept a lot of southern Europe, had libraries as nicely. They appear to be some of the typical fixtures of networked protests. Although they don’t seem to be a necessity, they’re among the many first buildings constructed by protesters they usually’re stocked and defended with enthusiasm. Many protest camps additionally embody soup kitchens, clinics, clothes exchanges and different hubs which might be normally defined by demonstrators as requirements (although typically talking, protest camps collect far an excessive amount of donated meals and most of the people attending protests do probably not want further garments).

Clearly, these libraries and donations replicate one thing concerning the spirit that strikes individuals to protest within the first place. The sense of revolt that’s felt at a protest and the work that folks carry out in protests are inseparable. Protests can’t be described as a single entity; they’ve a mess of parts, some in rigidity with others. Protesters need the world to vary and could also be demanding a set of insurance policies or consideration to their points. But protests are additionally places of self-expression, communities of belonging and mutual altruism.

Protests have at all times had a powerful expressive aspect, interesting to individuals’s sense of company. The English poet William Wordsworth, writing concerning the French Revolution, mentioned, “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,” a sentiment that may be at house in 21st-century Istanbul, Madrid, Hong Kong, New York or Cairo throughout an illustration, or in lots of different occupied squares and parks around the globe. For many, participating in a protest is a joyful exercise and infrequently gives a strong existential jolt, particularly if there is a component of hazard and menace to the security and the well-being of the protesters. The French sociologist Émile Durkheim wrote of “collective effervescence,” the emergence of a way of being swept by means of one’s actions by a bigger energy when one is “within a crowd moved by a common passion.” That transcendent feeling of being a part of one thing bigger than oneself applies to protests, nonetheless secular their goals could also be.

In organising the library, protesters specific a need for individuals over income or cash.

This relationship between belonging and particular person expression is a key part of protest participation. One cause that folks exhibit as an alternative of free journey is as a result of the expressive aspect of protest is a big a part of the reward that they search. Even although the success of many protests is judged on whether or not they achieved their expressed goals, protests will be ends in addition to means. People want to belong, particularly to communities that make them really feel good whereas providing Durkheim’s collective effervescence. This additionally happens on-line and offline when individuals be part of viral conversations so as to add their voice to the collective, despite the fact that theirs is only one extra voice, and once they be part of protests, despite the fact that they’re only one extra individual.

The environments that demonstrators intentionally trend are a significant a part of what makes participation worthwhile. Seen by means of this lens, organising libraries amid the tear gasoline makes good sense. Libraries specific a set of values which might be aligned with the deeply held values of the protesters. At Gezi Park in Turkey in 2013, the library was in the midst of the park, staffed by a person in a clown swimsuit and a rainbow-colored wig. He waved merrily at passersby and handed out books. Protesters instructed me the library had been relocated as a result of the primary one, a smaller house on the entrance of the park, had been knocked down throughout a police incursion. The second library was constructed from cinder blocks and was stocked with a whole lot of books.

Occupy Wall Street had a library containing greater than 5,000 volumes, together with books, magazines and newspapers. The police destroyed it through the eviction of the group’s occupation, and the town was later ordered to pay a whole lot of hundreds of dollars in restitution. From Toronto to Oakland to Hong Kong to Tahrir, libraries had been among the many first areas protesters provisioned in occupied encampments, precisely as a result of they encapsulated the spirit of the protest: that folks can and will work together with each other and alternate concepts in a relationship not mediated by cash. In organising the library, protesters specific a need for individuals over income or cash, a slogan that comes up in lots of demonstrations. Unlike different gadgets that one can purchase, like meals or garments or cigarettes, however which are sometimes distributed free of charge in camps, books embody mental values and symbolize data and, often, revolt.

Many persons are drawn to protests because of the alienation they really feel of their extraordinary lives.

Karl Marx coined the phrase “commodity fetishism” to explain the tendency of market exchanges to blur and bury the financial relations embedded within the social relations underpinning them. Today, a cellular phone, for instance, could also be manufactured in China in a manufacturing unit with few labor protections, transported through containers in trans-Pacific ships to wealthy nations in accordance with advanced, usually opaque commerce accords, comprise software program written in San Francisco by corporations with offshore headquarters, and be marketed with an advert marketing campaign that features undisclosed product placement. At every step within the chain of provide, distribution and advertising and marketing, there are legal guidelines, historical past, commerce agreements and remedy of people inside quite a lot of social contracts.

Many persons are drawn to protests because of the alienation they really feel of their extraordinary lives as customers. Exchanging merchandise with out cash is like reverse commodity fetishism. In protest camps, the conspicuous lack of cash is much less a few lack of sources than about taking a stance relating to the price of human beings outdoors financial concerns. Under extraordinary capitalism, individuals alternate presents and gadgets to indicate their emotions however they achieve this in discrete circles (household, mates, lovers) embedded in reciprocal relationships. In protest camps, unencumbered and infrequently nameless giving to 1 one other and to the group is an alternate that’s explicitly not reciprocal.

In Gezi, I used to be provided meals or cigarettes at each flip. All day, there was “gifting” when somebody would possibly give you a tray of pastry and cross it round. Gezi was additionally repeatedly cleaned. People attributed it to Turkish customs — many Turks do clear their homes obsessively — however in Egypt, Tahrir protesters regularly cleaned the sq., even organising recycling stations (curiously, neither avenue cleansing nor formal recycling is frequent in that nation). Wisconsin protesters who occupied the state capital in 2011 to protest an anti-union invoice additionally cleaned their camp, as did Hong Kong protesters, who garnered press protection about their cleanliness. So did the #electricyerevan protesters in Yerevan, Armenia, in 2015, and Ferguson protesters in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2014.

There is a sensible aspect to this cleansing, since authorities usually declare that protest camps are filthy and have to be closed due to unsanitary situations. But past that, the incessant cleansing is an announcement concerning the sacredness of the house, and the housekeeping stems from activists’ need to guard their “home” and their house of revolt.

This affirmation of belonging outdoors of financial relationships and of the intimacy of caring for individuals is on the core of what motivates many to take part. A protest is, if nothing else, a group. Challenges to conventional communities have come from many converging elements: prolonged households have shrunk to nuclear ones dwelling within the suburbs, dad and mom work lengthy hours, and native establishments like union halls that facilitated interactions between individuals outdoors of household and work have disappeared. Some sorts of group is perhaps in decline, however the seek for group and belonging is on the rise.