Reflections on a tumultous year

As the year 2011 slowly cements its place into history, this is an attempt on the part of this writer to analyze some of the most important moments and events of this tumultuous year.

A year of protests and revolutions

This has been a year of protests and revolutions. This year will probably be considered as the “year of misfortune and tumult” by establishments all over the World. People all over the World have risen up against their establishments. The question is why so many people have been so much angry against their establishments at the same time? Is it all because of the spread of social networks? Or is it the overbearing economic inequality that has enabled these protests? Or is it the early success of the protestors in Tunisia and Egypt that gave hope to the protestors in European capitals or the occupiers in the United States? One thing is certain here. The people who have been protesting on the streets whether they are in New York or Cairo do not trust those who are in power.

What is curious is that the distrust of the authorities on the part of their populations is somewhat of a universal nature. Whether it is the occupiers in the Wall Street or those protesting in Libya or those rioting on the streets of London, Athens and Rome have a striking similarity. None of them trust their establishments whether they are democratic or authoritarian in nature. Should all these be attributed to the economic disparities that are widely prevalent in both Europe, large parts of West, East and Southern Asia as well as in America?

Most of these protests that we have seen are from the urbanized populations. Although it does not mean that the rural populations have been happy with their establishments but what is clear here is that the urbanized people in most Western and Arab capitals have lost faith in the systems that nurture these economic inequalities.

Now historically people come on the street and protest in a spontaneous way like they have been doing throughout this year for two reasons. First of all, people would come to the streets when they have lost hope that the establishment, whether it is authoritarian or democratic in nature, can improve their condition. Secondly and this is the probably the most important reason of all , if the populations are assured that by going on to the streets and protesting will help them overthrow their establishments and change their futures , surely they will do so.

One pattern is also very much clear from these popular movements. Those movements who have specific goals and objectives and those movements which are carried out by decisive and organized parties, have got better chances to succeed. This is clear from the examples of Ennahda in Tunisia and Muslim brotherhood in Egypt. The reason behind this is that any popular movement which challenges a long-entrenched establishment is bound to generate chaos and instability in the process. Those movements, who are most organized and decisive and in clear mind about their goals, are the ones who have got better chances to succeed than others with questionable organization skills and lack of clear goals.

This is probably the reason that the occupy movements in the USA and those in Europe have not yielded much success so far compared to what the popular movements have achieved in North Africa.

Rise of the technocrats

The ongoing fiscal uncertainties that continue to darken the European horizon have also brought into light a clear pattern. Countries like Greece and Italy have seen tremendous public opposition to the economic austerity policies which were carried out by their popularly-elected governments at the encouragement of their powerful donors in international finance communities.

Now after the popularly-elected governments failed to implement the austerity packages as demanded from the European Union hierarchies, we saw popularly elected governments in both Greece and Italy resign under pressure and these governments being replaced by non-elected bureaucrats, who have been termed derisively as “technocrats” and “eurocrats”.

These are the governments which do not need to fear the ballot boxes. They are not accountable to the public wish.

This brings a serious question into place. What Greece and Italy show us is that in crisis situations, decisive and firm leaderships are more preferable to the establishments than the chaos and indecisiveness of democratic elections.

This is true since crisis situations sometimes demand unpopular decisions. Sometimes it is not safe to place those unpopular decisions at the mercy of popular will through the ballot boxes. After all not all men vote knowing exactly for what and why he is voting.

Now that does not bode well for democracy. If Europe, the cradle of democracy, while facing a crisis, decides to terminate popular mandates, in favor of authority, then surely no one can blame those in power in China and Russia, for taking similar steps.

Another important question that comes here is that are democracies as we know them are always “of the people, for the people, by the people”? Does all are really equal in a democratic set-up when it comes to influence and decision making? Say for example an urban unemployed young man and a banking tycoon are theoretically in the same league since both of them have got similar rights of vote but are they really equal in terms of influencing the system? The banking tycoon through his financial resources has got better chances to influence decision making at the highest level that the unemployed urban young man can never hope to do. The Banker also can influence the political decisions through lobbying and other efforts which are more or less allowed to him by modern Western democracies. Does that mean that democracies are naturally conducive to equality?

This is a question that needs serious thought, introspections and discussions. This is probably the biggest question that established democracies around the World will have to face in 2012. At this moment, they do not have any ready answers to this question.