Armenian American Voices in ‘Occupy’ Movement

From the Armenian-American social democrats: 

BOSTON, Mass. (A.W.)—Spread over 80 countries and 1,000 cities, the global Occupy movement is growing fast, with protesters camping out in financial districts and public areas, demanding an end to “corporate greed.” In the U.S., they come from various walks of life, sharing similar—and often interrelated—grievances, from exorbitantly high-priced educational opportunities, to a lack of health insurance, to the flood of home foreclosures, and anger over bank bailouts. Many Armenian Americans share the same frustrations as their fellow citizens and, like them, have taken to the streets, lending their voices to the occupying masses.

Occupy Boston (Photo by Nanore Barsoumian)

Action Through Poetry
Sevan “Apollo” Aydinian, also known as Apollo Poetry, is an Armenian American poet who is a spokesman for Occupy Phoenix. He hopes the Occupy movement will result in “a complete restructuring of the political and monetary system,” he told the Armenian Weekly. Once the public understands the relationship between the two systems, once “they see that they are being used as slaves,” they will join the “revolution,” he said.

Occupy Phoenix began on Oct. 15 when protesters gathered in the city’s Cesar Chavez Plaza at noon. Less than 48 hours later, many were already arrested, charged with trespassing or loitering, and then released. As in many other cities, however, the protesters kept coming back.
Aydinian has been careful in discussing the movement in on-air interviews with leading channels. The media often tries to misrepresent the protesters, he said. In a recent interview, he went to great lengths to explain the lack of vertical hierarchy in the movement to an interviewer bent on pinpointing “the leaders.” There are facilitators and organizers, maintained Aydinian, and anyone can assume either position. But Occupy Wall Street, or any of its side-shoots, has no leaders—not in the conventional sense, anyway.

The poet stressed the diversity of views present on the ground. You can’t box the protesters in a single category. “There are people from all parts of the political spectrum. That’s the main reason [Occupy Wall Street] grew to over 1,600 cities in a couple of weeks. It includes everybody. This is truly the people’s movement,” he said.

The “We are the 99 percent” slogan has caught on. It refers to the increasingly better-known and disturbing statistic that the top 1 percent of Americans controls between 40-50 percent of the country’s wealth. And that wealth, say Occupiers, has been used to undermine the democratic process and the wellbeing of the other 99 percent.

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