“We are not dreamers. We are the awakening from a dream that is turning into a nightmare.” Slavoj Žižek, Zuccotti (Liberty) Park, New York City, 10 Oct, 2011
No – I am not making an obscure reference to Anabaptists in Montana’s Lustre-Volt communities (along Wall Street Road). Rather, I am muddling through potential similarities and differences between the so-called Radical Anabaptists of pre-Modern Europe, from which the Lustre-Volt Mennonites descend, and current non-religious social and market protesters in Cairo, Vancouver and New York.
Žižek's words were directed to Occupy Wall Street protesters in present-day New York City. Yet, they could just as easily be applied to the social upheavals of 16th Century Europe.
Žižek's words were directed to Occupy Wall Street protesters in present-day New York City. Yet, they could just as easily be applied to the social upheavals of 16th Century Europe.
Contemporary Anabaptists – what your everyday North American thinks of when you say Mennonite or Amish, are in many ways the result of a very successful, centuries-old public relations effort. In reality, Anabaptists have only recently been seen as harmless, pacifist farmers who dress funny and speak poor English. For much of history, the term Anabaptist indicated a suspicious, grass-roots, democratic and anti-elitist movement in both church and state – a movement condemned and feared equally by Rome, Martin Luther and the secular princes of Reformation Europe.
