The capitalist world is confronted with a challenge from within, as ordinary people everywhere rise up in revolt.

“You may say that I am a dreamer/But I am not the only one/I hope someday you will join us/And the world will be one.” John Lennon, Imagine.

The idea was simple enough: Occupy Wall Street. In September this year, thousands of protesters gathered at the Zuccotti Park on the Wall Street. They held placards, and wore t-shirts with inventive slogans. At night around two hundred participants slept over at the park. This has been going on till date, without a break. Every day they have been joined by hundreds, sometimes thousands of other protestors. What’s going on?

Frankly, nobody knows for sure. There is no tangible demand being made which have to be met. It is not even clear who the demands should be addressed to. All that we know is that it is directed against ‘Wall Street’. What possible grouse could millions of people around the world have against a street? Plenty.

This one street houses New York Stock Exchange and many other leading stock exchanges in the US. It is the financial nerve centre of the world. It was here that decisions were taken over the last decade that led to the economic meltdown the world over. The banks, financial consultancies and their top executives made billions of dollars. Their tie-ups with the real estate industry finally led to an artificial real estate boom. When the bubble burst, major banks and financial institutions were pushed to the verge of bankruptcies.

As that would have had disastrous consequences for the economy, over a trillion dollars were poured into these companies by the US Government. In the meantime hundreds of thousands of families lost their homes, and millions lost their jobs. US President, Barack Obama has failed to live up to the expectations piled on him. This story has been played out with variations all over Europe, and the rest of the world. Unemployment figures are at an all time high, everywhere.

With the economy in shambles, the right-wing conservative forces have been forcing the governments in US and the rest of the world to slash the funding of welfare schemes – from health insurance to pension funds. At the same time they wanted tax cuts for the richest segment of the society. The argument was that that would stimulate the economy. Of course, the economy did not recover.

And, governments submitted to what were obviously anti-people pressures. They had to. All these eminent democracies were being funded by a clutch of corporate entities.

It is against this backdrop, that the Canadian magazine Adbusters made a proposition to those on their e-mail list: let us occupy Wall Street. Like the Egyptians occupied the Tahrir Square. The idea caught on like wild fire – on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking media. On the appointed day, thousands landed up at Wall Street.

Why did they do that? This was not Tahrir Square. There was no visible tyrant that you could direct your anger at. All they knew was that the speculators on the Wall Street were responsible for the financial mess in their country and their own personal miseries.

Most of them did not know the figures that I quote here. They did not have to. They were living it.

The richest 1% of the Americans today own more than 35% of the national wealth. The top 20% owned 85% of the national wealth. The bottom 80% owned 15% of the national wealth. The financial situation was even worse, with the top 1% receiving 42.5% of the national income, and the bottom 80% receiving just 7% of the national income. This was more or less the state of Europe and rest of the world.

Things weren’t always so bad. Matter of fact, just twenty five years ago, life was pretty good for the average middle class and working class families in both US and Europe. Things began to change with Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. The final straw was George W. Bush, who “de-regulated” Wall Street, and doled out huge tax cuts to the richest Americans. And, oh, he started hugely expensive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Something akin to a tiger caught by its tail.

As evident from the unedifying spectacle of the Eurozone crisis of the last few weeks, citizens of the world are fed up with the way our world is run. They don’t know what is wrong. They don’t know what should be done. All that they know is that they don’t want this.

This movement does not have a leader. There isn’t a group deciding the course of action. But it is growing by the day. People are showing up, all over the world. Something very big is afoot. Hold your breath.

The 99% is looking for its voice.

By Ajit Hari