Today I occupied Fairbanks

Today I met a guy. And that guy isn't just anybody. Chris is sixty-ish and is camping between the city hall of Fairbanks and the supermarket parking lot. I don't need to recall the weather conditions up here. But Chris doesn't care that much. And on top of that, I firmly believes in what he does : he occupies Fairbanks...

For the newbies, the Occupy movement is an worldwide pacific protest movement. It struggles economic and social inequality. Born last year in Canada, finding influences in the Arab Spring and the movement of the Indignados in Spain, it reached a certain level of fame with Occupy Wall Street in New York City. Occupy protests had reached more than 1,500 cities in the world, where millions of citizens gathered spontaneously to bring the change our society needs.

Chris, and his fellows Forest, Dave, Beth and half-a-dozen more, make their most to raise awareness among Alaskans. They struggle for policies that are not conducted only by financial markets or powerful economic lobby. They protest against over-exploitation of natural resources (oil, gas, etc.) and its environmental consequences. They camp outside to prove that what is essential is the change of the system. They have one only hope: Barack Obama's reelection in November. “It's the most important election for the century to come”, he warned me. And he knows what he speaks about, in this very Republican State of Alaska.

Chris is an average Alaskan. He was a minor and then a bus driver. He likes hunting and fishing. And same goes to his fellows. They are not anti-capitalists, they are not extremists, even less mad or marginalised. No. They just have faith in what they do and that's how they survive to the -35°C. They have such a strong ownership of the society that they don't want to let it drift just for economic and financial interests. They firmly believe that everyone has a word and can contribute to the change of the society.

They have been protesting here since September. “Our kids went back to University and occupied it, he told me. Then we decided to do something as well”. And they don't want to stop. The mayor tried to remove them but they have for them the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: the one that protects the Freedom of Speech. It is their only weapon but it is amazingly effective. And they start to gain support from the population.

I stayed there a while this afternoon. We drunk a coffee and tried to keep warm next to the wood stove. I took a lesson of citizenship. To keep it short: today I occupied Fairbanks.