The first snowstorms of the season saw the Occupy movements in Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, struggling to keep up their tents at the public parks where they have camped since the beginning of the fall in September 2011.

But the snow and the cold are not the reasons behind the dismantlement of some of these camps. It is the eviction orders that have come successively from municipal, provincial and federal authorities that have forced the "Indignados", as they were first named in Spain, to leave the parks.

I wasn't directly involved in the Occupy movement. However on an intellectual level, I liked the idea as I watched it emerge in Europe and the United States and later in Canada. I saw in it, the empowering of the 99 per cent who have for decades been seen by the 1 per cent merely as docile consumers, quiet citizens and passive voters.

I saw in the movement a strong signal given to politicians and to bankers to get out of their ivory towers and to open their eyes and hearts to the new troubling reality we are living in. The Occupy movement was a sort of a big scream in front of huge wave threatening to sweep years of savings gained by the hard labour of many working class families. In other words, it was a big "NO" to oppression in all its forms; a giant denunciation of the power of finance over people, and of the power of economic, religious and political lobbies defending their own interests over the real issues faced daily  by common people.

After being ignored for the first few weeks, the movement was able to capture the interest and lenses of the media. People learnt about cause and they saw pictures of hundreds of protesters in New York, in Montreal and elsewhere in the world. Crowds sympathized with the protestors, and many took up the protest themselves.

As the movement grew it gained the sympathy and "support" of some politicians. President Obama declared that, "the most important thing we can do right now is those of us in leadership letting people know that we understand their struggles and we are on their side, and that we want to set up a system in which hard work, responsibility, doing what you’re supposed to do, is rewarded…And that people who are irresponsible, who are reckless, who don’t feel a sense of obligation to their communities and their companies and their workers that those folks aren’t rewarded.”

Even Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of Canada had words of praise for the movement.  He termed the demonstrations that took place on Oct. 15 in many cities across Canada as "entirely constructive”.

"I understand the frustration of many people, particularly in the United States," he said. "You've had increase in inequality because of ... globalization, because of technology. You've had a big increase in the ratio of CEO earnings to workers on the shop floor."

But aside from inspiring encouraging comments and good thoughts, what changes have been made to the way our economies work? What has been done to reduce inequality and the ever-growing gap between the 1 per cent and the other 99 per cent? Nothing, unfortunately.

And this is why the Occupy movement has reason to exist and still remains relevant. This is why I don’t think that the movement will disappear any time soon. I believe there is no choice left but to change strategies and work on popular mobilization and public education.

Slowly, concrete demands will be formulated and will be shaped. Whether it will be an increase of the minimum wages, or taxation of the 1 per cent, or the implementation of the Robin Hood tax on financial transactions, these demands will undoubtedly take the movement to another level. They will make of it a constructive --not that it was anarchist -- current within our society with its legitimate right to occupy our imagination and souls.

But if we think that the Occupy movement revolves solely around economic demands, we are wrong. It goes beyond. It is about Inequality in a large sense. And the movement’s key to success and longevity is to appeal to as many people as possible without being populist. Its strength is in representing as well as it can the pain and suffering of all the classes.

The Occupy movement  remains an attempt to switch from  a "managed democracy" as professor Sheldon S. Wolin, rightly describes it in his book Democracy Inc., or the "pseudo-democracy" we are living in, to a "real democracy", a system of governance run by people for the interests of the people.

Will the Occupy movement succeed in reshaping our democracy and creating a social debate among the population? The next few months will tell.

Monia Mazigh is an author and human rights activist. She lives in Ottawa. ■