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Wednesday, 18 January 2012

Occupy the world !

I have to start by saying I don't fully understand the whole Occupy movement. You see for me I was not there at the start, I was living in a remote part of Africa at the time, so the only exposure was CNN and a few posts on Facebook, mainly my daughter, so for me all it was was people moaning about life and how unfair it all was. So when I came home late last year I wanted to get up to speed on the whole thing.

I went to vist the Occupy London camp at St.Pauls, and I must be honest to say that the people there just reaffirmed my view. People just moaning about how unfair life was, how hard life was, how the rich were all evil, how bankers were all greedy and how the world would soon end. It was all negitive, I did not hear one positive idea or suggestion. I just came away thinking how pointless the whole thing was.

Then I went online, I now had access to YouTube and so I watched copious videos and started to see both sides of the debate. And it was there I saw the first positives, social media was really being used to convey a message, and thats a really good thing. But when you check Facebook, the Occupy Movement starts to look such an American thing, 90% of the groups were US, a good thing and a bad thing in my eyes. However thanks to this wave of voices, the injustises of a country I had been living in, Nigeria, suddenly have a band-wagon they could jump on, and so "Occupy Nigeria" could take place. This for me was the second real positive.

But my issues are this, what is the point ? what is the goal ? who are these people ? and most of all, what ideas are they putting forward ?

I have personally lived beside real poverty, lived in countries that excell at political and commercial corruption, I have seen first-hand the impact of greed, I have also lived in Nigeria and South Africa, but I do wonder if this movement can or will make an actual difference. One thing I have learned through life is never take things at face value, to question is to learn.

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