Stephen Collis believes that Occupy is still going strong, and may ultimately change our entire society
By Alison Roach
Stephen Collis, an associate professor of English at SFU, has written a new book that explores the Occupy movement and the philosophical question of how our society affects social, economic, and political change. Last year, Collis was awarded the Shadbolt Fellowship after he presented a plan for a book that was more philosophically concerned about the history of change, but then the Occupy movement happened, and Collis saw the opportunity to look at his subject through this new lens. He says, “The book was sort of an accident in a way.”
The final product, titled Dispatches from the Occupation: A History of Change, was published in mid-August of this year, and is comprised of blogs and short essays Collis wrote while the Occupy movement was happening, as well as critical reflections of change as a larger concept. The book is heralded in its description as a collection of “short manifestos, theoretical musings, and utopian proposals.” Collis explained that his goal was to help the people involved in the Occupy movement understand the issues facing us now as a society, and to realize that these issues all stem from a larger problem. Collis said, “I think what Occupy did to people was represent that it’s all part of one big puzzle. . . . The whole system is built on inequality.”
Collis himself was an active member of the Occupy movement, making his way to downtown Vancouver every day of the occupation, and was recently interviewed by CBC’s The National for his involvement and opinion of the lasting power of Occupy. He believes that the movement left a lasting impact here, that “it introduced a bunch of people to activism and social movement that weren’t involved before.” Many of these activists still meet regularly in groups to discuss the issues that gave birth to Occupy, like, according to Collis, a “lame-duck” government in B.C., a government that favours privatization over public programs, and the fact that corporate profits are at a 50-year high, while wages are at a 50-year low for starters. These groups include the Environment Justice group, Food Not Bombs, and The People’s Library.
Of the people who were involved in Occupy and continue their involvement today, Collis said he was pleasantly surprised and excited that the majority were younger people in their 20s. He said, “I think it’s young people and university students who should be the most concerned,” and cited the fact that Canada — a nation not currently involved in any foreign conflicts — has a $25 billion military budget, while taking only $5 billion away from that would be enough to pay for every student’s tuition in the country. Collis spoke specifically of Brigette DePape, a 23-year-old who participated in the Canadian Senate Page Program, and stood up during the Throne Speech in the Senate silently holding a sign that said “Stop Harper.” Collis has heard DePape speak as an activist and says of the young woman, “She could be prime minister right now as far as I’m concerned.” For him, the idea of an apathetic millennial generation was completely abolished.
For now, Collis is interested in the future of the Occupy movement. He commends the idea of Occupy being leaderless, but said that “at the end of the day, you need to get organized . . . build structures that help you stay organized, but don’t create hierarchical problems.” The Occupy Vancouver movement has taken on a rolling, nomadic life, with pop-up occupations still occurring in the city. With a utopic vision, Collis hopes that the final outcome of Occupy will be a society very different from the one we live in today. He envisions a society based on the “commons” — all the regular people of the world. Collis said, “I’d like to see a movement raising consciousness about the common, the importance of the shared, and that protects the common. . . . To me, it’s a simple idea.”
