From Ram Lila to Wall Street: The spread of middle class rage

What do Occupy Wall Street, the Hazare fast, and the recent Israeli ’tent’ protests have in common? For starters, they’ve all been compared to – what else? – Tahrir Square. In the case of the Wall Street protests, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof was the first to go there: “Most of all, there’s a similar tide of youthful frustration with a political and economic system that protesters regard as broken, corrupt, unresponsive and unaccountable.” Lazy Tahrir analogies aside, the events do have one thing in common: middle class outrage. The kids in Zuccotti Park are furious at corporate fat cats and the politicians who bailed them out at taxpayer expense. The ’t ent protests’ galvanised more than a half a million Israelis angry at escalating costs of living which they view as a symptom of crony capitalism. As for the Hazare protests, well, we know what that one was all about. (There’s the tens of thousands who rallied against British PM David Cameron’s austerity plan earlier this year, as well.) The demands are different as are their political views. Folks at the Ram Lila maidan were not angry at India Inc nor were they asking for more state intervention in the economy as were the Israelis. But the underlying theme of middle class revolt is the same. And they share a set of common characteristics that are both their greatest strength and Achilles heel. Pay attention, now!: Whether it’s a couple of thousand camping out on Wall Street or lakhs of protesters turning out to express solidarity with Anna, everyone pays attention when the middle class takes to the streets. They have the resources, time, and now technology (oh, the technology!) to mount protests that are impossible to ignore — much as the media nor the political class may attempt to do so. The impact is even bigger in places like India and Israel where middle class protest is relatively rare. [caption id=“attachment_99182” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“A protestor reacts as he is arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge during an Occupy Wall Street protest in New York October 1, 2011. Jessica Rinaldi/Reuters”]  [/caption] The television cameras descend, a media feeding frenzy ensues, and heated debate abounds. Critics complain about the lack of interest in less-privileged protesters – as in Latino immigrants, dispossessed Arabs, suicidal farmers et al. Others accuse demonstrators of hamming it up for the camera. The protestors in turn are quick to rage against the very corporate-funded media whose coverage fuels their cause. It’s the same old tamasha, be it in Tel Aviv, New York, or Delhi. For better or worse, protests by lesser mortals rarely provoke either such attention or high-pitched debate. It’s a protest party: It ain’t a middle class protest without music, food, and celebrities. Pizza deliveries in New York, special kitchens in Tel Aviv, the extended picnic at the Ram Lila. Middle class protestors always eat well — even at a fast — and their activism is usually accompanied by some form of musical entertainment, self-created or otherwise. With the frenzied media coverage comes the celebrity guest list, be it Susan Sarandon, Shlomo Artzi, or Om Puri. All this in turn leads to inevitable jeering that d ismisses the protest as just a “street festival” (NYC), “yuppie revolt” (Tel Aviv), or “family entertainment” (Delhi). The media criticism is remarkably the same around the world: the protestors are always too superficial, too lighthearted and lack true grit. Continued on the next page Part-time warriors: Middle class folks have jobs, kids, and when young, college, that requires their attention. Hence many are inevitably “after-hours”, “weekend”, or “tourist” protestors — the kind who join in because they’re free and happen to be in town. Even those in full attendance can’t sustain it at length — except may be for the kids. (The Israeli protests where people actually lived in tents for seven weeks were a powerful anomaly.) For the middle class — unlike, say, farmers in danger of losing their land — protest is a choice not a desperate measure of last resort. Despite the “sky is falling” rhetoric in New York, their basic security is rarely at stake. This is often interpreted as a weakness: Where’s the sacrifice? The risk? Isn’t this just self-indulgent time pass? Or it can be seen as a strength: They choose to protest when they could just as easily stay home or hang out at the mall/coffee shop. The debate over class and privilege remains exactly the same across the world. Limited shelf life: One undoubted effect of protest-by-choice is that all middle class demonstrations come with a built-in expiry date. Middle class protestors tend to be impatient for good reason. People can’t put their lives indefinitely on hold. Even the die-hard Israelis packed up their tents and went home last month. The Occupy Wall Street protests will not endure either, not with winter round the corner. The Hazare protests had a natural timer in Anna himself. A fasting septugenarian ensures that both sides will quickly move toward a settlement. But even without such a pressing incentive — and much as die-hard Hazare protestors may deny it — the Ram Lila show would have eventually wrapped up within a month. [caption id=“attachment_99192” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“Volunteers prepare donated food for participants of the Occupy Wall Street protest in Manhattan’s financial district’s Zuccotti park, Sunday, 2 October, 2011, in New York. John Minchillo/AP Photo”]  [/caption] A downside is that a determined government can simply wait them out, as George Bush did with the massive anti-Iraq war rallies. More often, it will offer to seriously consider their demands without committing to details. Bibi Netanyahu set up a commission and closer to home, Manmohan Singh offered a parliamentary resolution, all in the hope that the middle class will lose its appetite for revolt by the time the final outcome is nigh. But irrespective of the results, middle class protests are astonishingly effective in reshaping the national debate within a short time. Corruption, once considered a part and parcel of Indian life, is now a pressing problem that demands redress. The anti-war protests may not have stopped the invasion of Iraq, but their objections fueled an ongoing resistance not just to the ensuing occupation but also the war on terror that became impossible to ignore. And that’s the true measure of middle class clout. In this age of middle class rage, it is worth reproducing at length that famous, incandescent speech in The Network by TV anchor Howard Beale:

We know things are bad - worse than bad. They’re crazy. It’s like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don’t go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, ‘Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won’t say anything. Just leave us alone.’ Well, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I want you to get mad!… Things have got to change. But first, you’ve gotta get mad!… You’ve got to say, ‘I’m as mad as hell, and I’m not going to take this anymore!’ Then we’ll figure out what to do about the depression and the inflation and the oil crisis. But first get up out of your chairs, open the window, stick your head out, and yell, and say it: “I’M AS MAD AS HELL, AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANYMORE!”

Sound familiar? That middle class howl is being heard across the nation and around the world. We pay attention because it is middle class, and at the same time dismiss it as being “too middle class.” And therein lies the rub.