Occupy São Paulo failed where crime and urban violence deterred sympathizers

Evidence

Then in October, Ocupa Sampa—that is, “Occupy São Paulo”—popped up beneath a bridge near City Hall. It was directly inspired by Occupy Wall Street (which was inspired by Tahrir Square, which was inspired by the uprising in Tunisia), and it was more visible than it was well-attended. I walked by this part of town all the time, and the tents were always present even if they were fairly empty. In this part of the world—and that part of the city especially—street life is dominated by crime and violence that far exceed anything in New York or Cairo. This scared away some potential sympathizers. … The organizers called themselves indignados and said that the movement was about direct democracy, as well as the environment. To explain the encampment, the media turned to “Anonymous,” the decentralized “hacktivist” collective famous for subversive action and for wearing the mask from V for Vendetta, a revolutionary British graphic novel made into a 2005 film in the United States. Under the bridge downtown, however, things looked desolate. The movement did not “occupy” São Paulo at all; something like the opposite happened. Ocupa Sampa was swallowed up by the darkness of the city center. — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 270

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts with the urban-strangers material on how public-space danger and local chaos shape whether movements can claim territory. — connects to: Urban commuting misery fueled Brazil’s mass protest movements — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and…, 143