As the world watched the Egyptian people overthrow the hated dictator Hosni Mubarak earlier this year, there would have been many who asked themselves: Could it happen in my country too?
Some did more than wonder, they took to the streets and tried to “walk like an Egyptian” and a wave of people’s power began to sweep the Arab world. But this wave of revolt didn’t stop there.
There were powerful reverberations in Spain, Israel, Malaysia and even in the United States, the world’s richest country.
The popular movement against cuts to social services in the US state of Wisconsin in February was only the first spark in the US. Now people are occupying public spaces all around the country, taking the cue from the Occupy Wall Street protest.
Now that movement has come to Australia. On October 15, similar occupations will be attempted in Australian cities. Thousands of people are getting organised, using the social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter and numerous blogs.
At the heart of this exciting development is a broad realisation that the world is being unbearably distorted, and risks being destroyed, because our societies are being twisted to make the world’s richest 1% even richer.
This 1% already owns 43% of the world’s wealth but effectively control almost all the wealth. They have bought and corrupted governments and enslaved billions of people.
Permanent war has been inflicted on numerous nations and economic misery on many more.
No moral or environmental boundaries are respected by this 1%. Half the world’s population is forced to try and survive by sharing a small part of the world’s wealth.
So what are we, the 99%, doing about it? Are we just going to sit back and let our common future be ruined?
The people who will attempt to set up these occupations around Australia on October 15 will need your support and solidarity. Get down there yourself and enlist the support of your community, your trade union, your church or your workplace.
As the cover of this issue signals, Green Left Weekly will throw its energy into reporting on and supporting the new global movement to liberate the 99% from the tyranny of the 1%.
But we ask for your urgent help, practical and financial, to help make our people-powered media rise to the challenge.
Donate online today to the GLW fighting fund. Make direct deposits to Greenleft, Commonwealth Bank, BSB 062-006, Account No. 00901992. Otherwise, you can send a cheque or money order to PO Box 515, Broadway NSW 2007 or donate on the toll-free line at 1800 634 206 (within Australia).