Repeated Uprisings
Let us examine current events and relate them to historical events. Let us turn our attention to Egypt. Without assistance of outside agitation, the people of Egypt got their proverbial belly full. The fat cat sitting in office for decades has been skimming off the top for decades to the tunes of billions in personal wealth. During all of this, people have endured low paying situations, scurrying to make due.Last autumn Egypt held parliamentary elections, where the opposition was suppressed. Although the Muslim Brotherhood is a banned organization, it ran candidates as independents in 2005, and the Muslim Brotherhood won 88 out of 450 parliamentary seats. This time they received no seats. Did Mubarek suddenly gain all that popular favor? Were the people disappointed with the Muslim Brotherhood? No. Monitors reported widespread fraud in the election. Why was it rigged? Because disappointment and anti-government sentiment had grown even stronger? Because the elite was just going to replace Hosni Mubarak with Gamal Mubarak? These were the scenarios that were being discussed before the New Year. As we can see now, inner political/economic tensions and the example of the Tunisian uprising have led to the recent activity in Egypt. In Tunisia the uprisings were social and psychological in nature, while in Egypt they were a result of economic problems coupled with a deteriorating ruling elite.
Let us turn our attention to the events leading up to our own Revolutionary War. It is true, many of us were working and many of us were successful enough with our lives and professions, chosen or otherwise. But looming over all of us was King George III who could do, and pretty much did, anything, his agriculturally oriented heart desired. It was no secret that his desire to keep the Amercian colonies under his thumb was superseded only by his porphyria suffering.
Although loved by those with personal ties to British royalty and by those whose well being and wealth were directly attributable to the King’s grace, he was despised by those colonists where restraint of trade and onerous taxes dug heavily into their livelihood.
And so dissatisfaction grew to turmoil which grew to skirmishes which grew to revolution, attracting assistance from Spain and France. The result is the happy democratic experiment we currently enjoy. And so it was with France, whose people so despised their ruling elite that heads, literally rolled.
These revolutions do not always end so valiantly. So it was with Russia creating the Communist experiment. And so it was with the Shah of Iran whose despotism single handedly created the power of the reactionary theistic wing nutism of the Ayatollah Khomeni.
And now I am seeing rumblings of the past repeat themselves today.
There is an ever widening gap between the haves and the have nots. Unions, once the saving grace of otherwise downtrodden workers, are being summarily dismantled for purposes of political expedience by those holding sway within the halls of political and financial power. Secularism is being slowly pecked away by a loud and growing faction of the holier than thou clan, genuinely in belief that they have the whole thing figured and their piety gives them society’s guiding light; just like the Crusades and Al Qaeda.
From all appearances to me, it seems that this environment is laying the seeds for a harvest of grass roots uprising whose rage will indiscriminately wash away those who hold, or even appears to hold, any reins of authority.
When a government erodes the quality of life of its people, the government ultimately endangers itself.
posted by Marty Brounstein @ 2:13 PM
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