Part One: The Arab Spring in Bahrain is posted separately. Part Two: The American Fall in Richmond Coming to America In October 2011, explicitly drawing on the methods of Arab Spring protests, the Occupy Wall Street movement began. As in Bahrain (see Part One of this blog), a continuous presence in a public place of symbolic importance was central to the movement’s message and tactics. As the movement’s name made clear, its target was the global corporate elite (which it termed… Read the rest

(Part Two: Richmond, Virginia is posted separately.) Part One: Bahrain 2011 has been a year of occupations. From Cairo to Columbus, citizens have appropriated public spaces as sites of protest. They have set up encampments and insist that they will maintain a continuous presence until their demands have been met (as in Cairo) or they are forcibly removed. This latter fate befell protesters in Bahrain in March, and, on a much smaller and less violent scale, in cities around the U.S.,… Read the rest