Comrades in New York City have constructed an autonomous zone at Zuccotti Park in the Financial District.
Comrades in New York City have constructed an autonomous zone at Zuccotti Park in the Financial District. The “People’s Park,” as it’s called, is reminiscent of Washington State’s Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), a six-block occupation in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood that arose during the 2020 summer of rage fueled by George Floyd’s death.
No matter the scale, autonomous zones have a common goal: join together activists to promote the most hideous, and often unrelated, of social causes. In Seattle, it was the anti-cop movement, coupled with the “decolonization” effort, tacked on to movements to overthrow capitalism, the patriarchy, white supremacy, classism, and a few other -isms, probably. You’ll remember just how insane CHAZ’s concept was. It resulted in a racially segregated garden (a garden for only “BLACK AND INDIGENOUS FOLKS AND THEIR PLANT ALLIES”); a “reverse hierarchy of oppression” which Native-American, black, and transgender women led; and a rather robust border and security system — despite the group’s anti-cop mantra. The group eventually developed a sort of mob rule — and cops arrested 44 people on charges of rape, assault, and theft when they ended CHAZ’s occupation. With CHAZ as their most recent model, pro-Palestinian activists should not trust that an autonomous zone will promote justice; in National Review, Jason Rantz described the original CHAZ as “at times a street fair and at other times a social-justice workshop, with an unhealthy dose of violence and intimidation mixed in.”
There’s little reason right now to believe that Zuccotti Park’s micro-state will evolve into a CHAZ-level block party. CHAZ is, though, probably an inspiration and dream for pro-Palestinian activists. At the top of their advertising materials, anti-Israel activists display the slogan: “All Cops are Bad,” and have added a number of social-justice calls to their anti-Israel mission to garner more support. For example, Occupy Wall Street is back, they are happy to inform us — the movement occupied Zuccotti Park in 2011, and has returned to “free Palestine and let Gaza LIVE!”
Activists at Zuccotti are demanding that New York “lift the siege on Gaza, end the occupation in Palestine,” “redistribute funds to the community and dismantle SRG + National Guard out of MTA,” “not send any funds to Israel and the federal govt will end weapons sales + seaport in Gaza,” convert “the 400,000+ empty buildings in NYC” into homes for “migrants and houseless residents,” give New Yorkers “rent decreases and pauses as landlords + real estate companies are held accountable” (for what?), and sanction “all NY companies involved in genocides in Palestine, Congo, [and] Sudan.” They also want New York mayor Eric Adams to quit and be charged with rape.
Since October, American protesters like the vile antisemites at Zuccotti have become more comfortable with “saying the quiet part out loud.” At a pre-park march last weekend, activists chanted “one solution,” and held a banner that read “by any means necessary.” Also during the march, an activist held a sign saying “land you have to kill for is not yours.” Signs that read “no Zionists allowed” and “no pigs allowed” now haunt Zuccotti’s entrance.
The group’s guiding principles are: no transphobia, no ableism, no anti-blackness, no sexism, no racism, and no homophobia; Within Our Lifetime, the group’s organizer, said on X that the occupation will continue “until demands are met.” Apparently, the crew has established a library, and this weekend rallied pro-Hamas troops for recreational games of soccer, frisbee, and chess.