Occupy London protestors open Bank of Ideas
The Bank of Ideas: open for 'business'. Photograph: Julia Ross
Campaigners at Occupy London’s Bank of Ideas yesterday hailed the “symbolic” occupation of the UBS building in Sun Street, Hackney, on its opening day of public events.
The former financial offices in Shoreditch were first occupied late on Thursday evening.
Franklin, 36, an occupy supporter and organiser, said: “UBS has a reputation for being unethical from our perspective. We don’t look on them favourably.
“Companies like UBS aren’t protecting the man [sic] on the street. What we are doing here is community-building.”
The Bank of Ideas plans to host more talks and debates in the coming weeks as well as a possible gallery space at the building in Shoreditch.
Another organiser, Madeline, 25, called the building “a place where people can some and a focal point in order to organise our actions for the future.”
However, it is unclear how long the protesters have until they are moved on. Franklin told the Hackney Citizen: “We were served notices to leave the very same day we got in here.”
The focal point of today’s activity was a speech by Alessio Rastani, an outspoken US banker, in which he criticised the high bonuses paid to bankers as incentives and threw his weight the Occupy movement.
He said: “These protests are not about anti-capitalism or socialism but about our democracy.” He added: “If you want to hurt Wall Street, invest in your mind.”
He told the Hackney Citizen he supported the occupation of the UBS building as well as the Occupy movement itself.
The Bank of Ideas will continue with talks and events today, including a debate on a possible ‘Robin Hood tax’. For a full list of upcoming events go to the Bank of Ideas.
How beautifully symbolic of the whole movement that their “Bank of Ideas” is an empty building.
Helen,
You are so right! There is no corruption inside. There is no police brutality. No billion-dollar Mayors. No greedy brokers taking advantage of pension holders. No undercover agitators starting confrontation in crowds or in poorer nations. No guns stopping food trucks get to where it’s needed.
It is empty and free.
What a beautifully perfect place to start the discussion. Of course, you did know that this is the point of occupy? Not to make a list of demands, but to start the debate. To have true democracy. It is certainly not prevalent in our society today.
What would you like to happen in the future? Maybe go to the Bank of Ideas and talk about your aspirations in a real democracy now, whatever they are.
It’s great to have the support of someone like you who can see the beauty in everything, instead of attacking peaceful people.
Nice to have you around 😉
Here’s one of my ideas: use software in schools that is free from proprietary restriction. That way, the children can copy and share and learn freely. They can gain knowledge and build new software. Schools would not be penalised for teaching more students with software license fees. We would have more money for other areas of education. We could create sophisticated learning systems much more rapidly.
There’s one.. I have thousands.. if you’ like to hear? Pop down to the bank, you will learn so much – perhaps you have ideas of your own? 😉
Take care, keep up the dialogue.. that’s how we make the world better, right? Communication…
Yours kindly,
Lloyd
Lloyd hardy, MSc [IT]
I endorse and respect what Lloyd Hardy says –
It’s great that there are these forums opening up all over the world – shame they’re being mis-reported as full of trouble making anarchists that want to mess things up!
I saw the occupy movement outside St Pauls, and I was inspired. People should stop just talking about TOWIE and Jordan’s latest conquest and actually THINK about what is going on in their world.
There will always be people that want to manipulate and exploit the people and resources of the world for their own means, and now and then, the balance needs to be reset.
This is part of that solution and the more people that realise how much of an amazingly positive thing free speech and free thinking is, the more quickly we can make sure that people are prioritised over profit and fix the shortcomings of the current democratic system.