Birth of a new movement
The day of global solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York on 15 October marked the emergence of a new movement with a rejection of capitalism at its heart. Protests were held in over 950 cities across 80 countries and five continents with over a million people taking part.
But impressive as this is, the ideological impact was even greater. The atmosphere has already been transformed more than once this year already. The democratic revolutions in Tunisia, and especially Egypt, reasserted the collective power of the masses to defeat dictatorships. The mass strikes in Greece and the youth-led rebellion of the Spanish "indignados" signalled a new willingness to challenge austerity.