The End Of "Occupation": The People's Assembly of Victoria

Terence Stone

Language freights power. Once raised to awareness, it’s obvious to most people how we use language conventionally and unconsciously, often in ways that oppresses people in the hierarchical nexus of social relationships--cultural, political and economic. The Peoples Assembly of Victoria has been sensitive to how this works in renaming itself from the colonial and martial term, “Occupy” Victoria. By doing this, unconscious facets of dominant attitudes are shifted, both personal and collective, that influence how progress is made through “peace and building” rather than “battle and ownership”.

To use some recent examples: I don’t want to be semantically associated in any movement with the overt, brutal occupation of Iraq by the British-American axis, the occupation of Afghanistan by a broad coalition of nations, or the occupation of Palestine by Israel; I don’t want to be associated with the myriad economic occupations that brought us together across all the imposed divisions between us to call for social justice. And yet the term “Occupy” stubbornly occupies the way we talk amongst ourselves or document our activities. We do ourselves a disservice and play into the hands of those who would destroy our movement in a “counter-offensive” by a continued use of the word “Occupy”.

Our first community consciousness of how inappropriate the term “Occupy” was came by way of a recognizing the displacement of indigenous peoples from the very place—Centennial Square—where we stood together in solidarity to begin dismantling the systems of occupation that are oppressing and destroying the Earth and her Children.

On November 7, an article appeared on the home page of the People’s Assembly of Victoria website titled, “Statement of Intent and Action for Decolonizing Victoria & Memorandum of solidarity and support with Indigenous peoples”. It was centrally concerned with the word “Occupy” as the residue of colonialism. The following day, November 8, an article appeared immediately above (I couldn’t help but note this curious accident of position) the “Statement of Intent…” titled “Declaration of Re-mobilization” (note “re-mobilization” as another martial term). In the second line of the text, “Occupy” is used twice. We might be excused for naming “Occupy Wall Street”, but it was tautological and an unnecessary reiteration of the very colonial attitudes embedded in language we are attempting to purge to have written “People’s Assembly of Victoria (Occupy Victoria)”. Now I add my confession, I find myself using “Occupy Victoria” every day in conversation. I always correct myself, but it is insidious and persistent in the “occupation” of my mind. I’m working at it, as I believe we all must, for reasons beyond those already mentioned.

One of the problems is that I don’t believe that PAOV serves our purpose in the notion of the “movement” we’ve become and need to enhance as our settled days in Centennial Square become numbered. The People’s Assembly is a functional and elegant notional term of solidarity in relationship for purposes of discussion, decision-making, socializing, and fundamental change in oppressive institutions, along with a host of related roles; but it cannot convey the idea of spatial presence that the word “Occupy” imperiously provided, and I think this is the main reason we are constantly defaulting to use of the word.

Going forward, taking up space as a right is going to be essential to our movement. Unfortunately, the English language is terribly impoverished in ways of talking about doing this without using terms that convey notions of ownership, property, invasion, domination, exclusion, and so on. Why? Because for its entire history the UK and its imperial offspring have been preoccupied with wars with others and a class system that is psychologically embedded in its history and its people. By contrast, I suspect the indigenous peoples of the places we occupy could never have thought in such terms before colonization. If anything it was the other way around—the indigenous people belonged to the land and were of it in unity.

Unfortunately, we are left to muddle our way through all this using primarily English (or other Euro-centred languages) for articulating a nascent paradigm of being in the world that fully embodies social and environmental justice. I’m sure there are many ways we might progress with all this in mind, but to get the ball rolling I’d like to offer a humble suggestion. The proposed “Flash Occupations” could be called “flash actions”. The notion of occupying space could be replaced with the term “holding space”, a notion that has many powerful connotations: it asserts the right of being there; it does not convey invasion, occupation, or ownership; it carries a connotation of care and nurturing; but it firmly asserts a dignified strength. I began by saying that language freights power, but I believe we must find ways of using this power with others, rather than the colonial notion of power over others.