They explode into rebellions, such as the recent tax on WhatsApp in Lebanon and the metro fare rise in Chile. In places where economic growth is stagnant, minor price increases are more than just irritants. The state of the world economy also plays a role. The United Nations, meanwhile, is floundering in its attempt to provide alternative leadership through a rules-based international system. The broader context of today’s upheavals also includes the uneven withdrawal of the US from international engagement, providing new opportunities for two authoritarian superpowers (Russia and China) driven by dreams of new empires. Protesters in Lebanon were initially angry over the crumbling economy and corruption, but have since called for an entirely new political system. In upheavals from Lebanon and Iraq to Zimbabwe and Chile, resentment is particularly focused on the evidence of widespread corruption as elites flout the basic norms of transparency and equity in siphoning government money into their pockets and those of their cronies. Indeed, there are some who claim that western liberalism has now failed).Įlsewhere, the anger is popular rather than populist. The Joker to Guy Fawkes: why protesters around the world are wearing the same masks One expression of this anger has been the rise of fearful xenophobia expertly captured by populist politicians, most famously in the case of Donald Trump, but including many others from Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil to Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and Victor Orbán in Hungary. This refers to public anger at the way the high-water mark of democratic reform around the globe in the 1990s – accompanied by the siren song of economic globalisation – has had such uneven social outcomes. Why is there so much anger?įundamental to an understanding of the rage so evident today is the “democratic deficit”. Revolutionary alliances collapsed rapidly into civil war (as in Libya) or failed to neutralise the armed forces (as in Egypt and Syria). The Arab Spring, for instance, held so much promise after blossoming in 2010, but with the possible exception of Tunisia, failed to lead to meaningful change. Mass protests also fail when they are unable to create unity around core objectives. For that reason, the Extinction Rebellion will likely only succeed with modest goals of pushing reluctant governments to do more about climate change, rather than its far more ambitious aspirations ofĪ national Citizen Assembly, populated by ordinary people chosen at random, to come up with a programme for change. The protests in Hong Kong and Catalonia fall into yet another category: they have limited aims for political sovereignty rather than more general objectives.Īll successful revolutions are characterised by broad alliances at the outset as the deep-seated grievances of a range of social groups coalesce around opposition to the existing regime. An example of this is the massive, violent and ultimately successful protests in Ecuador last month that forced the government to cancel an austerity package.Įcuadoreans began protesting in October when an executive decree came into effect that eliminated the subsidy on the price of gasoline. So, we need to distinguish between major revolutions that transform social and political structures, coups by armed elites and common forms of protest over particular issues. And rebellions rarely become revolutions. People grow angry far more often than they rebel. Is there hope for a Hong Kong revolution? We do not know how the extraordinary rebellion in Hong Kong will end, but it may be very telling that there does not seem to have been significant defection from the police or army to the protest movement. This indicates that any concessions to demonstrators will inevitably be regarded as inadequate. The most likely to become revolutionary is in Iraq, where the regime has shown a willingness to kill its own citizens ( more than 300 in October alone). This model indicates the upheavals in our contemporary world are not revolutionary – or not yet. Fazry Ismail/EPA Why today’s protests are not revolutionary Hong Kongers have been protesting for six months, seeking universal suffrage and an inquiry into alleged police brutality, among other demands.
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