(OccupiedStories) — so what does #S17 means to you?
(Atchu) — great question, my friend! damn, thank you for asking that.
(OS) — you’re welcome! why you say so?
(atchu) — it was almost like you felt what i wanted to share, this amazing story that pretty much explains what #occupy & #S17 means to me.
(OS) — let’s hear it!
(atchu) –  ok. share this at the website.  \\ all i can tell you is that it was the beginning of my life turning into literature. maybe more, it was the discovery of a whole autobiographical book of change whose pages were waiting for my (trembling) handwriting to fill. a discovery that made me live incredible experiences. my life, i found it. for the first time, i felt truly free.

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(atchu continues) – fuck, let’s go. the only difference is that it was my life, really. i never thought that doing direct action & good ol’ anarchy could be so fun: infiltrating a high security complex in a metropolis, acquiring permissions, the thrill of getting in, dancing around security personnel until the target was hit: Empire always has security cracks, ready to be explored by the playful revolutionaire.

you could see ‘em everywhere. big guns and big radios, choppers in the sky and clean uniforms. Rio de Janeiro during Rio +20  (the United Nations megaconference on Sustainable Development) was looking like a military zone. there were over 190 chiefs of state representing, ambassadors, students, campesinos, some 5,000 indigenous people, press… — damn!, the city was a melting-pot! the extra amount of visitors counted 40,000 people and overloaded the transportation network to the point the city declared official “holiday” among public servants so people would stay in their homes. the city was not able to breathe.

in this mess, one could notice three main axes of discourse — one official, destined to the “leaders” of the planet (ugh), a second parallel event called People’s Summit, which was an unofficial but sanctioned platform for “dissent”, and lastly a rogue encampment that was criminalized. guess which one was #occupy’s? right on.

the official conferences were conveniently located on the outskirts of the city, protected by lines and lines of heavy infantry. the People’s Summit located opposite ways at the downtown parkish-freeways called Aterro do Flamengo. there one could see miles and miles of beautiful tents with biodiesel generators lighting the sponsors of the event; the spectacle of “Green Capitalism” screaming loud: big oil companies, banks, music stages, food courts and cash machines alongside portapotties, everything recyclable, smiling models with the official message “The Future We Want”, whoa. is there anybody listening? who was “We” after all?

#occupy’s base attracted trouble for not asking “permission” from the state to settle a camp at Aterro do Flamengo. but you know what? oops. we don’t need permissions from a power that we don’t recognize as legitimate; a power that repeatedly disregards the Social Contract. the police was called in, and right on the first day we had mounted cavalry paying respects to occupiers. we all thought that we were getting evicted right there, but after they left for the night, all the anxiety of the day left  a occupier was hit by a car in an accident and a lot of attention for some reason; it was enigmatic and rustic. there dozens of occupiers announced the “Rio+99 OccuSummit”, happening in parallel and in dialogue with the other two events. occupiers came from many different regions in Brazil and some even from abroad. mostly young people, but the presence of other age groups could be noticed. middle class people mixed with poor, people sharing space in solidarity.  one occupier started #OccupyFavela in the favela he lived, was greeted by the drug lords of the ´´morro“ with an assault rifle, and after explaining that it was a peaceful protest against the oppressive police state and the ongoing war on the poor in Brazil, he was granted to stay and occupy. Pretty AMAZING feat, not brought to your attention by mainstream media.

the negotiations were completely stalled with the voices of dissent not able to make themselves heard, either because of the security apparatus or the bureaucratic way of the UN to construct “democracy”.  frustrated that the final document was not taking into account these voices, and alarmed by the looming environmental collapse — our #occupy camp decided to act.

so on the last day of the conference, two occupiers decided to infiltrate the Rio+20 official complex: me, atchu — a 29 year old male occupier from #OWS and Maroca — and a woman on her early twenties from #OccupySaoPaulo. \\ with the normality of a thief, we asked with a big smile to the information-booth girl “where is the room of the final press brief conference, please?” {smile lingers} and she replied with a disciplined smile, in a certain cadence of conduct “it’ s right there sir, way down to your right room P3-7″. YES. the infobooth-girl had just given us the map to wonderland.

it was 12:17pm already and the doors would close at 2:00pm; we hasted down the narrow plastic corridors until the entrance to room P3-7 appeared. the security guard was checking people one by one if they had press passes, and of course we didn’t have ‘em (duh). we had to improvise  –  i was already wearing an infallible anticorporate disguise, a fine suit, which always helps to camouflage behind enemy lines; waging a class war against Corporatocracy has its secrets.  Maroca put her big camera on front of her body and accelerating our pace, we rushed to the entrance tagging a small entourage of reporters. {guard} “ok, you ok”, “let me see, thank you”, “thank you”, and it was almost our turn; the guard distracted himself for a second on the last group and we quickly showed him our no-good passes  — a green N instead of a yellow P (for press)  — and the dude LET US IN! infiltration can still get you somewhere.

inside the final press conference room there were easily over 300 seats with reporters from all over the world; the panelist table was beautifully decorated on the front with a row of orchids; the speakers had their names on the table with big respectable titles: UN Secretary General for Rio+20, UNDP Hellen Clark, ex-chiefs of state, etc etc etc… big fish. dozens of logos, “the future we want” rhetoric, translation booths on the far East corner, and at least two sets of network TV cameras arranged on the back and on the far West side of the room. the Spectacle was set — and we were not turning back.

despite being nervous as fuck, we kept on the mission: to expose corporate takeover of the UN process and unmask representative democracy and its affair with the 1%. no one else would do it if not us ::”Intergenerational Responsibility”:: and as soon as the panelists arrived, Maroca and i started to draw the position of UN security “cops”, their distance to us and to the panelist table, the best angle to approach, what to do, what to say, how much time would it take, 30s? 15s, 10s?, we only had one shot!

when the second panelist started saying that the 2008 crisis wasn’t caused by banks but by “inability of governments to take action”, we looked at each other and knew it was the right time to strike. we positioned ourselves in the center corridor, Maroca took out her camera to fake out some photos, looked and said “it’s NOW or NEVER, are we going?” no,  “wait!” — hands trembling, the cops are still looking, damn! and right there, we both realized that there was only one thing we could do: make out. so that’s what we’ve done: we started making out in the middle of the press conference room, nice wet good luck kiss, ’cause we are about to pull a Bonnie and Clyde mothafucka’! –

kiss done, looking dead straight into the target, countdown “1,2,3……… NOW!” and we bolted towards the center of the room, positioning our bodies right in front of the panelists, and after taking two orchids from the front, we turned to all those 300+ reporters from all over the world and shouted:

“THEY DON”T REPRESENT US! WE WANT A REAL DEMOCRACY!”

and BAM! done –  a hit with the max poetic payload:: flipping power against itself::  fireflies setting wildfires! all those people just staring at the scene, their BS unmasked, priceless. we were shoved out of the room by UN security staff and had to run through the mazes of the Media wing of the complex to lose the federal police behind us, called to arrest us; we quickly turned a few corners and went civilian until we arrived at the main pavilion from where a bunch of electric carts transported people around the complex. we looked at each other, hopped into one and had our glorious escapade riding a fast and furious vehicle:: A GOLF CART.

we managed to leave the RioCentro complex, and had our entire journey colored with kisses, laughs and a feeling of invincibility:: “YES, we DID IT! can’t believe! OMG that!” it was too much for us to take in. amazing. we had to share it with the group, as soon as we returned to the #occupy camp and announced the action using the people’s mic  — to everyone delight!, — the occupiers laughed, cheered and chanted,

“THEY DON’T REPRESENT US! THEY DON’T REPRESENT US! THEY DON’T REPRESENT US!”

in an orgy of sounds and political lust! a drum circle immediately formed, the celebration running wild — and we had work to do! we rushed to Lapa, the bohemian neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, determined to do “outreach” for the action, and found a shitty internet cafe where cats ruled and the keyboards were pink. We started collaborating smoothly with a solid press release, uploaded photos and provocative tweets.

by night, our action had reached the 4 corners of the world, including Radio France and the national brazilian news network; the buzz we were hearing was exactly what we wanted:: attached to Rio+20 balance sheet was the final message from #occupy:: “They Don’t Represent Us — We Want a Real Democracy”.

our message.

things would never be the same again.

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(atchu) — so, yeah. that’s what #S17 means to me. {smiles}
(OS) — whoa… that was fun!
(atchu) — haha, yeah, i think that story sums well all that #S17 means to me: to #occupy is to live life in literature.

- Atchu -