By Haley Strack
Monday, April 01, 2024
Comrades in New York City have constructed an autonomous
zone at Zuccotti Park in the Financial District. The “People’s Park,” as it’s
called, is reminiscent of Washington State’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone
(CHAZ), a six-block occupation in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood that
arose during the 2020 summer of rage fueled by George Floyd’s death.
No matter the scale, autonomous zones have a common goal:
join together activists to promote the most hideous, and often unrelated, of
social causes. In Seattle, it was the anti-cop movement, coupled with the
“decolonization” effort, tacked on to movements to overthrow capitalism, the
patriarchy, white supremacy, classism, and a few other -isms, probably. You’ll
remember just how insane CHAZ’s concept was. It resulted in a racially
segregated garden (a garden for only “BLACK AND INDIGENOUS FOLKS AND THEIR PLANT
ALLIES”); a “reverse hierarchy of oppression” which Native-American, black, and
transgender women led; and a rather robust border and security system — despite
the group’s anti-cop mantra. The group eventually developed a sort of mob rule
— and cops arrested 44 people on charges of rape, assault, and theft when they
ended CHAZ’s occupation. With CHAZ as their most recent model, pro-Palestinian
activists should not trust that an autonomous zone will promote justice;
in National Review, Jason Rantz described the original CHAZ as “at times a
street fair and at other times a social-justice workshop, with an unhealthy
dose of violence and intimidation mixed in.”
There’s little reason right now to believe that Zuccotti
Park’s micro-state will evolve into a CHAZ-level block party. CHAZ is, though,
probably an inspiration and dream for pro-Palestinian activists. At the top of
their advertising materials, anti-Israel activists display the slogan: “All
Cops are Bad,” and have added a number of social-justice calls to their
anti-Israel mission to garner more support. For example, Occupy Wall
Street is back, they are happy to inform us — the movement
occupied Zuccotti Park in 2011, and has returned to “free Palestine and let
Gaza LIVE!”
Activists at Zuccotti are demanding that New York “lift
the siege on Gaza, end the occupation in Palestine,” “redistribute funds to the
community and dismantle SRG + National Guard out of MTA,” “not send any funds
to Israel and the federal govt will end weapons sales + seaport in Gaza,”
convert “the 400,000+ empty buildings in NYC” into homes for “migrants and
houseless residents,” give New Yorkers “rent decreases and pauses as landlords
+ real estate companies are held accountable” (for what?), and sanction “all NY
companies involved in genocides in Palestine, Congo, [and] Sudan.” They also
want New York mayor Eric Adams to quit and be charged with rape.
Since October, American protesters like the vile
antisemites at Zuccotti have become more comfortable with “saying the quiet
part out loud.” At a pre-park march last weekend, activists chanted “one
solution,” and held a banner that read “by any means necessary.” Also during
the march, an activist held a sign saying “land you have to kill for is not
yours.” Signs that read “no Zionists allowed” and “no pigs allowed” now haunt
Zuccotti’s entrance.
The group’s guiding principles are: no transphobia, no
ableism, no anti-blackness, no sexism, no racism, and no homophobia; Within Our Lifetime, the group’s organizer, said on
X that the occupation will continue “until demands are met.” Apparently,
the crew has established a library, and this weekend rallied pro-Hamas troops
for recreational games of soccer, frisbee, and chess.
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