In the two months since the first organizers occupied Zuccotti Park in New York City to protest national economic inequality, similar encampments sprung up throughout the country, each of them claiming public space as a way to spread their messages. Since cities around the nation began breaking up these groups, the movement is facing the difficult task of having to rethink the nature of its protest.
Although Occupy Charlottesville is still legally allowed to camp in Lee Park until Thanksgiving, accusations of factions forming within the group, arrests, and the looming expiration of its camping permit have cast doubt about the future of the movement.
|
Lee Park has been the home of Occupy Charlottesville for close to a month. The group’s camping permit is set to expire after Thanksgiving and city officials have indicated that they do not intend to renew it. |
)/Occupy-Lee-BL_ROBINSON.jpg)
The first noticeable rift came when organizer Evan Knappenberger, who signed the initial permit that allowed the group to camp overnight in Lee Park, left Occupy Charlottesville, citing the formation of a radical sub-group that rejected the core value of non-violence.
“A group of individuals with personal vendettas, axes to grind, has gradually taken control of the park,” wrote Knappenberger in a public e-mail explaining his departure from the group.
He added that he was afraid the movement as a whole was headed in a “downward spiral.”
On his last day in town, Knappenberger, a graduate of Albemarle High School and a veteran of the Iraq war, told C-VILLE that the group was no longer representing the values he associated with the movement.
“When it started out it was about the 99 percent and cooperation and working together,” he said. “It’s just become a way for the anarchists and the radical feminists to push their agenda.”
Occupier Zac Fabian refuted these claims and said it was Knappenberger’s attitude, actions and his “mental state” that created the problem. Rumors about people leaving Lee Park once the permit expires only exacerbated speculation that the movement’s days were numbered, but Fabian said the group’s future is still not certain.
“We are not even at that point yet, because the group hasn’t decided to stay,” said Fabian. “We are not even that organized to come to a decision ahead of time.”
But that decision may have to come sooner rather than later. City Spokesperson Ric Barrick said the city does not intend to renew the permit after the 30-day mark. When Barrick erroneously told reporters that the permit was to expire prior to when they expected, occupiers were taken aback.
While the occupiers have strong ideas, the reality is that the movement was never intended to be militant.
“Mayor Dave Norris came to the park to make sure there was no confusion, because this is Charlottesville and no one here has an interest in turning to violence,” said Fabian. Norris, in fact, told the group that his understanding was that the permit was to expire on November 26.
“We are not expecting any violence,” he said. In contrast to what has happened at various Occupy movements throughout the country, Norris said that the camp in Lee Park won’t be raided.
“We are not going in in the middle of the night to evict them from the park,” he said. “We expect it to be a very orderly transition.”
Norris said occupiers told him that they want enough time to pack their belongings and move them off the park. Fabian, for his part, imagines a tidy end to the occupation, but the group has addressed the possibility of conflict with law enforcement.
“Part of our promise is that we were going to leave the park in a better condition than we found it when we came,” said Fabian. “If they pulled the permit early, we just wouldn’t be able to uphold that.”
The group recently passed a declaration of non-violence that states that some of them “may choose to participate in nonviolent civil disobedience” that “may result” in arrests. “We will not retaliate against any member of law enforcement or anyone else,” it reads.
Aside from the imminent expiration of the permit, another action that will affect the camp is City Council’s decision on a curfew in Lee Park. The curfew was originally imposed by Council in response to concerns from residents about illicit activities taking place in the park. For Norris, the curfew “served the neighborhood well,” but the bigger question revolves around land use.
“What is the nature of Lee Park? Is it a neighborhood park or is it a 24/7 free speech zone?” asked Norris. “Since that is more of a policy question as opposed to a procedural question, then that’s where City Council needs to weigh in.” (Check www.c-ville.com for an update on City Council’s curfew decision.)
Throughout the month of occupation, the movement was faced with the reality of having to deal with a portion of the population that they said was “ignored,” as the city’s homeless population gathered in Lee Park. Occupiers, then, began seeing the homeless struggle as part of their own message.
“We are addressing issues like homelessness,” said Fabian. “We are out there with them and bringing light to them, we are connecting with these people. If you ignore them, cast them in the shadows, there is no check on their behavior, there is no motivation for them to actually be part of society and they are just going to digress.”
But Norris said that each homeless person in the camp will have a cot available at PACEM, a winter night shelter, for the next four months.
“They all have a place to stay. Nobody is going to be homeless as a result of this permit not being extended,” said Norris, PACEM’s former executive director.
Regardless of what happens to the physical home of Occupy Charlottesville, and to the larger camps nationwide, both Fabian and Knappenberger believe that the movement has the strength to move forward.
“I see in certain places it’s going to keep going for a really long time,” said Knappenberger.
Fabian, speaking of the recent actions against the occupiers in Manhattan, said the action of police only helped the movement’s cause.
“There is really no stopping this, the physical space doesn’t matter, it’s the beliefs that people hold in the head,” he said.
But the notion of an occupation is about controlling a public space. Without it, the movement will have to find a new definition for the collective action.