FILIPINO radical activists in the 1970s used to say, “A single spark can start a prairie fire,” from Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book, to describe how a small protest action can trigger a big conflagration that can shake the Establishment to its very foundations. 

That Maoist maxim can very well describe what is happening now.

Since the Occupy Wall Street movement began right in the heart of capitalism, the US—New York City—the single spark has now spread to every corner of the world, including Manila.

By last Saturday, according to news accounts, the Occupy Wall Street movement that started a month ago had galvanized protest actions against corporate greed in a number of countries.

Protest organizers said they expected a global turnout in 950 cities in 82 countries, certainly a huge undertaking reflective of a rising tide of anger over corporate greed.

The Rome demonstration alone drew an estimated 100,000 people, with masked anarchists creating chaos in the center of the Italian capital. At least 70 people, including 30 police officers, were injured in the resulting melee.

In Spain hundreds of thousands turned out not just in Madrid but in 79 other cities across the country.

In Austria more than 1,000 marched through Vienna’s busiest shopping street, with smaller protests around the country.

“People not Profit,” read a poster in Frankfurt, where 5,000 protesters gathered at the European Central Bank amid Europe’s growing debt crisis.

In Berlin 5,000 people marched on the office of Chancellor Angela Merkel, police estimates said. An anti-globalization group claimed it had mustered 40,000 demonstrators.

In London protesters took part in “Occupy London Stock Exchange [LSX],” a collective action that gained the support of more than 15,000 Facebook users and some 5,000 confirmed attendees.

In Manila several dozen leftists expressing sympathy with the Occupy Wall Street movement began a protest against hunger and joblessness, massing in front of the Plaza Ferguson across from the US Embassy. They held placards saying, “PH is not for sale!”, “49 million Filipinos are poor,” and “11 million Filipinos are jobless.” Organizers said the protests would continue this week with farmers leading one in Manila on October 21.

Prior to last week’s massive protests, political unrest had been brewing in Greece and Spain over austerity measures and unemployment.

And of course, the Arab Spring protests across the Muslim world this year, though targeted at regime change, had economic issues at their core.

The overriding theme in the global protests has been income inequality. The protesters in the US claim they represent the 99 percent of the population that have to live with what they have, in contrast with the 1 percent that own from one-fourth to nearly half of the nation’s wealth.

What’s remarkable is that the protests have no visible leaders. Or at least, not at this point. Perhaps that’s part of the strategy, so that it draws as many people as possible. But a protest movement will have to have articulate and visible leaders or risk descending into anarchy and chaos.

It’s also not clear what the protest movement wants as an alternative. Is it a socialist future? Not likely. This looks like a spontaneous outpouring of anger. But communists and socialists—or what remains of them—will definitely view the protests as an indication that capitalism is in its death throes. But that’s what they have been saying since the first half of the last century.

It’s not clear at this point how the global wave of protest actions will play out. It is instructive to recall that meetings of the G-7 developed countries have been hounded over the years by protests calling on the government to address the gap between the rich and poor. Viewed from this perspective, the current protests are merely part of a long process that has been building up and gathering steam over the years.

Occupy Wall Street should be a wake-up call for leaders of both the rich and developing countries to narrow the yawning gap between the rich and the poor, and for the captains of industry to think of ways to achieve real and meaningful changes in the way they do business. Change will take time, but the first steps must be taken. Or else, the single spark can turn into a global conflagration, with the Philippines not spared from the fallout.