If you are interested in political and economic news, you have encountered reports about “Occupy Wall Street.” Occupy Wall Street is the name of a protest movement. This movement was small scale and local at first, but now the Occupy Wall Street movement has spread worldwide with participants attending the demonstrations from all over the world, such as Rome, London, Hong Kong, Seoul, and so on.

At first, only 30 people began the movement, and they just demanded solutions for what they thought were the root causes of problems which people face in today’s economy. Their activities then spread through social networks, so now the number of participants is in the tens of thousands.

Slavoj Zizek, a psychoanalyst and philosopher who visited the protest location, Liberty Plaza, New York, said, “We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself. We all know the classic scenes from cartoons. The character reaches a precipice. But he goes on walking, ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath. Only when he looks down and notices this does he fall down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street – Hey, look down!”

(If you want to see the text of Zizek’s, visit a website: http://occupywallst.org/article/today-liberty-plaza-had-visit-slavoj-zizek/)

He likened Wall Street to a cat ignoring known risks and dangers for the sake of its own benefit. I think his words are a declaration against capitalism, because Wall Street is the symbol of capitalism. I am profoundly moved by his right-thinking.

But I have a concern about the movement. The wave has arrived in Korea, too. However, there are some people who abuse this movement as a tool for achieving their goals in Korea. I do no want people to abuse the movement and disgrace the ideals of Occupy Wall Street.

by Ryu Seung-bong, Editor-in-Chief

Ryu Seung-bong  nawow100@changwon.ac.kr

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