CASE 7.2 COLLECTIVE RESISTANCE THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA: THE CASE OF SOCIAL MOVEMENT ORGANIZATIONS (SMOS) Amir Keshtiban The emergence of radically decentralized collective protest movements in 2011 has offered a radically new template for political activists. The initial movement arose from what commentators label as 'the Arab Spring' in which a series of anti-government protests spread across much of the Arab world. These came about following the Tunisian Revolution on 17 December 2010, when an unemployed man set himself on fire in protest against confiscation of his wares and the brutal behaviour of the police. The public response was widespread with fast flows of information across social media channels. The result was bloody conflict and uprisings underlining new forms of collective resistance. Following the success of the Tunisian Revolution, Egyptian activists organized a demonstration in Cairo on 25 January 2011, marked as National Police Day, to protest against police abuses. Over two million people demonstrated and occupied Tahrir Square, and within 18 days, the revolution forced Egypt's president to step down from power. Inspired by the Arab Spring, the digital underpinning of social movements for collective resistance has spread to Western countries. The drastic consequences of the financial crisis of 2008 and the austerity measures put in place by governments were a driver for an upsurge in social movements. For example, the 15M movement in Spain marked the largest occupations of public squares since the country's transition to democracy from the Franco administration of the 19703. The biggest protest on 15 May took place in Madrid, when self-styled indignados chanted slogans such as 'we're not merchandise in the hands of politicians and bankers', and 'the guilty ones should pay for the crises'. The Arab Spring and the 15M movement reportedly inspired the Occupy movements across the world. These movements enable people to resist the growing power inequalities in which the individual alone remains voiceless. Growing wealth disparities, economic inequalities and dismantling of democracy are all called into question by these socio-political movements, for example, the Occupy Wall Street movement started on 17 September 2011 when hundreds of protesters marched through the streets of Manhattan and set up an encampment in Zuccotti Park. This triggered similar protests across the US and in more than 82 countries. The Occupy Wall Street movement introduced itself in its website (OccupyWallSt.org) as: A leaderless resistance movement with people of many colours, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that we are the 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants. Thousands of people occupied the financial districts of large US cities. Most protestors wore Guy Fawkes masks to illustrate their discontent with the status quo and capitalism. These became a symbol of protest against the system. Almost a month after the Occupy Wall Street movement inception, the London Occupy was initiated on 15 October 2011, when a small group of anti-austerity protestors gathered outside St Paul's cathedral. Following a number of failed attempts to occupy the buildings of the London Stock Exchange (Occupy LSX) on 15 October 2011 a much larger group of protesters began to gather on the steps that surround the cathedral. Up to 3,000 protestors were involved in the early stages of the St Paul's protests. Although the goals of the Arab Spring movements were different from its counterparts in the West, there were some unifying themes. As an article in The Guardian (Addley, 2011) notes: Each movement has its own local flavour. The Israelis complained about housing, high cost of living and 'social justice'. For Chile, education was the catalyst. In Greece, it was a backlash against austerity. For Filipinos, US imperialism was apparently the target. But there were unifying themes, too: tents, social media, the 'human microphone' where the crowds chant back phrases uttered by a speaker, and shaky 'jazz hands\" to indicate agreement. (Addley, 2011) Gaining a collective voice through these events and the social media, enables forms of leaderless resistance. \"lime magazine highlights this leaderlessness in their selection of 'the Protestor' as 2011's Person of the Year. Indicating that 'in 2011, protesters didn't just voice their complaints; they changed the world.' Time went on to state: Everywhere this year, people have complained about the failure of traditional leadership and the fecklessness of institutions. Politicians cannot look beyond the next election, and they refuse to make hard choices. That's one reason we did not select an individual this year. But leadership has come from the bottom of the pyramid, not the top. For capturing and highlighting a global sense of restless promise, for upending governments and conventional wisdom, for combining the oldest of techniques with the newest of technologies to shine a light on human dignity and, finally, for steering the planet on a more democratic though sometimes more dangerous path for the 2fst century, the Protester is TIME's 2011 Person of the Year. (Stengel, 2011) Most Occupy protesters were highly educated young adults who were underemployed andlor had recently experienced layoffs or job losses. Many were in substantial debt, especially those under 30 years old. As a result, the reason most often cited for protesting was their personal experiences of economic hardship. With its memorable slogan, 'We Are the 99%', and because it laid no formal demands on the table, the Occupy movement was able to attract supporters with a wide variety of specific concerns, many of whom had not previously worked together. They occupied a physical space to voice their concerns. This enabled face-to- tace communication in a physical occupied space. Intense messaging through digital media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and blogs using the #occupywallstreet hashtag for the Occupy Wall Street and the #occupyLSX (Occupy London Stock Exchange) hashtag, made its physical space a trending location. Digital technology and media channels are central to facilitating these new forms of collective organization to resist current policies and voice their collective discontent. Although the Occupy Wall Street movement and the London Occupy did not last for example, the New York police evicted the Occu py Wall Street movement on 15 November 2011 and the Occupy London movement evicted demonstrators two months later on 28 February 2012 the impact of these socio-political movements is highly significant. They promote collective resistance through a non-violent, decentralized, leaderless horizontal and egalitarian approach. Protests promote participative democracy through using 'General Assemblies' as an alternative way to the representative democracy. As it is stated in their webpage (h_ttp:/loccupywallst.orgo, 'A General Assembly is an open, participatory and horizontally organized process through which we are building the capacity to constitute ourselves in public as autonomous collective forces within and against the constant crises of our times'. An interesting aspect of these movements is their insistence that they are leaderless and decentralized, although there are some attempts by members of the movement to get a leadership title for the movement, for example, 'the wolf of Occupy Wall Street' (Barber, 2014). However, no formal or informal leadership positions were in evidence in these movements. The question of the leadership was at the centre of the debates even for the movements' members, which has brought different arguments to the fore. Members of the Occupy London Movement who were active in the St Paul's encampment, for example, viewed the question of leadership in a wide variety of ways. Some protesters claim that the movement was completely leaderless, others suggest that the movement was quasi-leaderless. Several protesters emphatically denied the presence of hierarchy within London Occupy, claiming that the movement was entirely structureless; some participants stated that the movement had no leaders, but only facilitators and organizers. Interestingly, those taking this stance were also facilitators or organizers in the movement. They always avoided the word 'leader' and tried to come up with other words to clarify their role in the movement: Initiator! What was the other thing that I defined myself? Connector. So something that I do a lot of l was making sure that the working groups were sharing the information. I was connected to many different groups so was able to say, like, 'Oh, OK. You are working on this, and that group is working on that and you can work together.' Apart from labelling themselves with creative adjectives, on some occasions, the Occupiers discussed the amount of time they had dedicated to the movement, for example some pointed out how long they had spent in the movement 'you might have heard so many things about me before, because I am very famous in Occupy.' One advocator of leaderlessness of the movement was unable to convince two other people that the movement was completely leaderless. He concluded that: Occupy is a leaderless-ish movement! Even though it is not leaderless, it is still actually managing to create change, positive change. It's a battle. It's a battle between the dark forces of multinationals and people, and this is a measure of the difficulty. Digital technology enables the emergence of this new collective form of resistance to inequalities associated with the world economy. Unlike collective forms of resistance through bodies such as trade unions, these are largely decentralized and leaderless through the quick connection to people over social media channels. However, there are still instigators, connectors, organizers, facilitators and people who take some responsibility. In other words, there are forms of administrative leadership but also reluctance to take on the label of 'leader' because of the socio-political implications of the term. For instance, one participant said that there were leaders who just did not admit their role, but they existed. Another suggested that members were confused about whether or not using the word 'leadership' was appropriate in that context, as they were not quite sure what leadership actually is: So, there is a level at which everybody has leadership and no leadership. All I am trying to suggest is that, in the end, for me, I am not really sure what leadership is or isn't! Because nothing happens without somebody taking responsibility. Maybe the word is not 'leadership' but 'responsibility'; maybe it is as simple as that! These responses show that protesters expressed a range of divergent (and often mutually contradictory) views on the question of how the movement was coordinated and controlled. What we do know is that these new collective forms of resistance are significant and likely to remain a central method for expressing a collective voice to broader forms of inequality and hardship