A Global Stage

It all started in the Middle East, where Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest his countries corruption, leading to an overthrow of Tunisia’s government. This air of change quickly spread, from Egypt to Libya, from Syria, to Yemen. Israel and Iran aren’t safe from unrest, and neither is Africa. Across Asia, people are questioning their way of life under governments that don’t fully represent them, as special interest groups and political scandals rock any sort of representative equality to the ground. In India, a man went on a twelve day hunger strike in order to enact anti0corruption measures in parliament, and eventually succeeded. And now in the west, revolts and riots in Europe over unemployment, discrimination, and overall despair for the future have shaken the status quo, as once-stable government are now dealing with a discontented population of youth. Even the US, the superpower once revered the world over, has fallen to economic woes, and the middle class has felt it heavily. With protests starting in the US as well, is this the age of revolution again. Are we now in another age of renewal? Just as democracy was the answer to monarchy and dictatorship, what will be the answer to democracy? 

Poster rallying for support of Middle Eastern uprisings.

 

The answer might actually depend on a few factors really. As reflected in the demonstrations, different cultures and regions are protesting in different manners. In the Middle East for example, protests take the form of massive, nonviolent gatherings to show their corrupt governments that they have no support anymore. The violence often only ensues after the government forces fire upon them. Many of these protests are about equality, a way to get their voice heard, they want a democracy. Sometimes they are able to do it peacefully, and other times not. They are questioning those in power, the elite few that control everything. And this is happening elsewhere too.

A London youth walks past a burnt-out car as looting continued in the UK.

In the UK for example, the riots in London and surrounding areas showed us a youthful population that had no hope for their future. They were discontent with their government and their opportunities, and retaliated against the society that gave that to them. By looting and rioting and destroying property, they fought against their materialistic society, which has led them into a whole of unemployment and poverty before they can even leave school. Britain has given no future to them, and they want one. 

Across the Arab revolutions, social media has become the strong point of organization and community among protestors.

All these revolutions have one thing in common: The Internet. Social media has made it easier than ever before to organize mass gatherings and protests. Organization can be done quickly and efficiently, across boundaries once impassable. Support through online banking sites like PayPal allow for instant unions of activists and all this has been and is being utilized right now in these demonstrations.  The internet has also spawned a communal culture, one where everyone looks out for each other and aids each other without question at one time, and viciously taking down those detrimental to the ideals at another. A sense of community and sharing-the-wealth has pervaded the web, and that sense of camaraderie has been reflected in the recent protests. What these protests will spawn in beyond prediction for now, but it looks as if a world-wide change is approaching in the ways governments and their people interact