Two cities, Two movements, One Tux

This is a New York story about the revolution in Egypt, a rented tuxedo, Occupy Wall Street and how we, as journalists, are covering a rising tide of global discontent over economic inequality.

So here’s the tale. It was November and the height of the Occupy Wall Street movement. I was just back from a reporting project in Egypt and came to New York for an awards event.

On my way to Men’s Wearhouse in Lower Manhattan to pick up a $92 tuxedo rental for the black-tie dinner, I realized I would be passing by Zuccotti Park where the Occupy Wall Street movement had put up its stakes. I was on a tight schedule, but I wanted to see Zuccotti, which was very much in the news, and I was hoping I could get a column out of it.

I had seen the Egyptian flag flying in the clustered tents of the Occupy movement in my hometown of Boston and as I approached Zuccotti, I could see Egypt’s red, white and black banner with its distinct gold falcon insignia. Was there in fact any connection between the two seemingly disparate stories, Egypt’s continuing revolution after the 30-year reign of Hosni Mubarak and the movement of the 99 percent against economic inequality in America and around the globe?

I had always heard that Occupy was inspired in part by the heady days of the Arab Spring as huge demonstrations in Egypt’s Tahrir Square toppled Mubarak. But I was skeptical about any genuine connection.

In the fall, while reporting in Cairo for GlobalPost, I had seen a small march through Cairo of the Occupy movement that confirmed my cynicism. I noticed most of the placards were in English and it was mostly Western media following the tiny knot of protesters. And so it seemed clear what audience the demonstration was actually addressing, and that was CNN not Egypt.

So what did the global Occupy movement really mean in places like Cairo, Athens, Delhi, London and the many other cities where it was sprouting up around the world? What did it tell us about the global economy?

For sure, at GlobalPost our 70 correspondents in 50 countries are covering important stories about the global economic divide between rich and poor nations and the further divide between the rich and the poor within those nations. It is a constant theme marbleized into so much of our coverage. Every day, we are in some way grappling with the issue of economic fairness, or unfairness. And we did a good job covering the Occupy movement as a global phenomenon.

Still, as I waded into Zuccotti Park, stepping through the mud and the blankets and plastic tarpaulin, I had to get some answers for myself.

Dressed in jeans and a leather jacket — a cold drizzle was just starting — I sat down on a milk crate and talked with a few people who were huddled in tents out of the rain. Like just about every journalist I know, except for a rare few with hefty network television contracts, I would land squarely in the 99 percent category.

I felt strangely at home there in Zuccotti among the tents after having spent much of the last year covering Cairo and hanging out in the tents of Tahrir Square.

No one seemed to know who placed the Egyptian flag there in the middle of the park, but there was general consensus that it was part of a broad solidarity. I was told that just the week before, Ahmed Maher and Asmaa Mahfouz, two legendary Egyptian online activists, had come to Zuccotti Park to express that sentiment. Both Maher and Mahfouz were part of the April 6th Movement, a disciplined, non-violent, grassroots organizing effort that actually grew out of a labor rights movement at factories in Egypt.

For the April 6th folks, economic justice was at the core of the revolution in Egypt. They stuck to this message even if it was only part of the agenda for the other large demographic swaths who came by the hundreds of thousands to Tahrir Square, ranging from the secular elites to the working class Muslim Brotherhood.

Known as ‘Facebook Girl,’ Mahfouz was widely credited with posting the video that went viral on January 18, 2011, calling for protests which led to the revolution. Maher, an engineer, was a central organizer of the protests which toppled Mubarak in just 18 days. Both Mahfouz and Maher were featured in a documentary, “A Revolution in Cairo,” which I worked on with Frontline.

During Mahfouz’s visit to New York, she told the radio broadcast Democracy Now, “We have to keep going all over the world, because another world is possible for all of us… So that I am here to be in solidarity and support the Occupy Wall Street protesters, to say to them, ‘The power to the people,’ and to keep it on and on, and they will succeed in the end.”

Amid Zuccotti’s rows of tents, I saw John Penley, a longtime community activist I recognized from years ago when I was a street reporter with the New York Daily News and he was a freelance photojournalist shooting the Tompkins Square Park riots. Penley was tweeting about a plan to march on the Egyptian consulate later in November and said, “Of course we’re inspired by Egypt. This is a global movement and part of a global cause.”

I took a few notes, but was mostly just listening and then quickly realized that I had run out of time. In just 10 minutes, I had to be in the rent-a-tux at the nearby hotel event.

I burst into Men’s Wearhouse and quickly changed into the tux. The employees of the shop were helping me with those annoying little black studs for the shirt and the cuff links. I noticed they both had Arab names and, if I was hearing them correctly, a distinctly Egyptian accent.

I asked them where they were from. Hisham Osami said he was from Alexandria which was in many ways the epicenter of the protest movement that led to the street demonstrations that erupted in Cairo. Hisham told me that he and a handful of the employees had all come to the U.S. because there was no economic opportunity in Egypt, that the corruption of the sclerotic Mubarak regime had crippled the economy.

For them, it was quite clear that the events of Tahrir Square and the people living in the tents across the street in Zuccotti Park had very little in common. They had heard that the Occupy movement was inspired by Egypt, but they just didn’t see how you could compare them.

“I mean we lived under a dictatorship for 30 years and we had clear goals of the revolution. We want a better life in Egypt, more opportunity. These people?” he asked, nodding his head out in the direction of the tents.

“These people, I don’t think they know what they want. I respect that they are speaking out, but I don’t think they know what they want,” he said.

I wanted to talk more with the Egyptians, but I had to run. So dressed in my tuxedo and carrying my muddy duds in a plastic bag, I headed out past the same part of the park where I had been reporting.

Now, I had made myself a target.

“Hey, fuck you!” I heard a voice shout from the opening in a tent.

“Hey asshole, give me your money!” someone else yelled.

There was some more muttering of invectives and a ripple of laughter. For a moment, I wondered who they were directing this anger at and quickly realized the derisive comments were intended for me, the idiot in the tux. I got it. Suddenly, I wasn’t a reporter anymore, I was a walking embodiment of the one percent. I was the enemy. Just like that.

And so maybe at the end of the day, this New York story is about the fine line we as professional journalists tread somewhere in the upper half of the 99 percent but, by virtue of our work, crossing over to mingle with or reporting on the one percent. Or perhaps, we end up just looking like the one percent even if it is in a rented tux. The point being, we as reporters know these people even if the vast majority of us aren’t among them.

And I walked away trying to figure out the meaning of this parable from Lower Manhattan. I told the story at the dinner and it got a few laughs, and I have been thinking about it ever since. After a few months of reflection, I think the story is about what seems to be a skin of resentment that is wrapped like tarpaulin over the Occupy movement. It is protective perhaps and not malevolent. But it is there, muttering in the shadows of a tent.

I realize now that the feeling of Zuccotti Park was very far from the excitement and the hope of Tahrir Square. Perhaps these two public squares had become epicenters of two movements that were both motivated by economic inequality. But one was focused on the big, sweeping ideas of justice, freedom and ultimately dignity while the other seemed stuck on what smells a lot like resentment. And if indeed that is the case, resentment is just not a big enough idea to drive a revolution.

OPC member Charles M. Sennott is the executive editor and co-founder of GlobalPost.