Story and Photograph by Lehan Winifred Ramsay

Recently a movement called Occupy Wall Street has sprung up, and to the delight of many has captured the attention of the media. The media is happy to find an enclave of potential disruption; it makes it easier to get the lighting sorted and have the journalists standing by. Besides, this Occupy Wall Street enjoys the patronage of many well-to-do celebrities keen to share the spotlight. A cause and a celebrity is an attractive combination for the media.

Occupy Wall Street identifies itself as the 99 percent of the world that is asking the richest 1% – to stop being so greedy. Perhaps to give up a little of its money. Particularly the Bankers of Wall Street, those who receive huge bonuses for their financial management whether it works or not. Occupy Wall Street participants take to patches of city land and camp there. My suggestion here is that Occupy Wall Street participants could do better to find a way to Occupy Apple. And I am asking you – yes you – to do it.

I do not mean that you should take your tent and sleeping bag and move into the Apple shop. Nor that you should fill up the footpaths in front of it. I am suggesting that instead you find a way to nestle inside your Apple Products until there are enough of you, and then send a polite note to the Apple bosses that says hey, we need a little help with a small problem – do you have a minute?

Those Occupying Wall Street – what are they occupying, how are they occupying? Why do we like them so much? They are not asking for anything in particular, they say. Just for the bankers to give up some of their wealth. I like them – they have the springy innocence of Apple products. And they are not causing any trouble – it is the police that are the trouble, it is the governments that are the trouble. They don’t look at the police, don’t look at the government, just carry on being fresh and uncomplicated.

I remember when Apple had some great advertisements using their Think Different slogan, using the pictures of famous people; Gandhi, Mother Theresa. Now we could put Steve Jobs in there; he was world-changing too. I think it is highly possible that he was. Certainly there are people whose lives are better because of his work. Perhaps though he was more of a “working-class” hero; mostly helping people with good lives to live better lives. We should try to Think Different too.

Really poor people don’t usually have mp3 players. Sometimes though they do get to build them. What if you were to ask Apple to add a function to your computing devices that allowed you to meet the people who built them for you. It wouldn’t be so difficult would it? And then, like the tracking that allows you to know where your food sources grew up, you could also know who had built your devices for you, what their names were and what they looked like. That would be one way in which Apple could help.

I am wondering how it would be possible to mimic the behaviour of the Occupy Wall Street action to achieve a similar result. And I am wondering where this behaviour has come from. The first step is to set up a camp in a place that is not Wall Street, but call it Occupy Wall Street. So it is a kind of a virtual occupation. What is the precedent for this?

The second step is to not look at the Government, even though one’s actions are directed at the Government. Then, the peaceful protests change into violent resistance and the government forces are blamed for the violence. That is not so new, we would probably find that this has been tried before.

How could you replicate this in an Occupation of Apple? Perhaps all the apple owners could declare that their purpose, in stocking up on apple products, was actually just to use the product because they liked it. Then, they could reveal that actually it was something else: It was to give Apple the power and the means for implementing a peaceful revolution. And then wait. Wait for the peaceful revolution. And then, in the case that it didn’t come, that Apple didn’t come through, to drop all their products in the bin and encourage another company to fly high.

We should not be giving Apple all of our ideas for what we could do to address inequality in the world. Because that’s what Apple does, that’s what it trades in; ideas. Ideas, brought to life and clothed in the best design there is. If there is an idea out there worth pursuing, Apple will find it for us. And if Apple finds that idea, we can rest assured that Apple will also find a way to make it pay for itself. And we will have a profitable solution to the world’s greatest problem. That’s not something that Wall Street can lay claim to. They didn’t make a profit out of the Global Financial Crisis, did they? Occupy Apple. Because it’s a sure thing.

Question. Question yourself and what your stake in this is. To question your involvement in Apple and to question your own values and your own place in the world and in the problem. We know that Occupying Wall Street places our governments in the firing line, between us and the big corporations. And we know that looking at causes in far off places can take away from our sense of responsibility for what happens here and now; problems connected to us. You may have figured out how to occupy Apple. If you are not sure about what your question to Apple is going to be – for you are likely only to have one chance, one question – take some time to consider it now. Once you get in there, we’ll be counting on you to ask it.