The way the protests spread from village to city, region to region, from one country to another, and eventually became an overall Pan-Arab uprising bears all the hallmarks of the Information Age and certain kinds of postmodern politics.
All the historic forms of opposition and mobilization known to modern societies-political parties, trade unions, the independent press, liberal liberties of various sorts were successfully suppressed or atleast compromised by all the dictatorial regimes that historic forms of revolt, such as a nation wide proletarian uprising led by seasoned party cadre, were simply not possible.
The great weapon of this uprising has been the Internet and the electronic media more generally. Much has happened because of the immediacy with which visual images of the latest events can circulate around the world through 24*7 news channels, YouTube, Al Jazeera and even cellphones.These powerful weapons for mobilisation of unarmed, angry masses. But it is also the case that their enemies have real weapons. Will this confrontation between revolt and repression get resolved in favour of the rebellious multitude and lead to fundamental change in the system? That is rather hard to imagine.
1 comments:
These protests should be started much earlier..!!
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