A small gathering of discontented people in Tunisia sparked the fire which in turn has changed the entire Middle- East landscape in the form of protest movement (famously termed as Arab spring). Leaders, in fact, dictators like Zine El Abidine Ben Ali( Tunisia), Hosni Mubarak ( Egypt), Saleh ( Yemen) , Gaddafi (Libya) and many more either fled to other countries or killed by the mob out of sheer anger, total corruption, lack of employment, high-handedness of government officials, lack of freedom and more importantly lack of political participation of the people of the country.
It will be a folly to presume that these protests are limited to middle-East and totally violent, we have protest in developed countries like the USA (famous Occupy Wall Street protest) in Europe (by minorities like Muslims and protest against austerity derive), Even in emerging Countries like India (Anti- Corruption protest by Anna Hazare), Pro democracy protest in Wukan in China, mainly peaceful, occasionally violent due to police action.
Why people are coming to Street even when there is some form of democracy and representative governments except in Middle -East. One way to understand these protest movements is to view these movements as part of social change triggered by economic turmoil started after near recession like situation in the year 2008. There are, of course, some specific reasons which would be listed as below:
1. Economic hardship alongwith desire to have freedom in decision making.
2. International pressure by pro- democratic Western countries for regime change in Arabic countries which are still largely monarchic and lack general trust and political credibility.
3. Pro active role of media and social networking involving wide spread cascading effects through live coverage of police/army atrocity on say, peaceful protest which in turn instigate people to violently react.
4. Politically motivated, desire of army to take over power in their hand.
5. Last not the least, raising expectation of youth in terms of more job opportunity, economic freedom and failure of the State to provide the same.
Let us hope that common sense prevails and monarchy gives way to participative democracy in the Arab World.
It will be a folly to presume that these protests are limited to middle-East and totally violent, we have protest in developed countries like the USA (famous Occupy Wall Street protest) in Europe (by minorities like Muslims and protest against austerity derive), Even in emerging Countries like India (Anti- Corruption protest by Anna Hazare), Pro democracy protest in Wukan in China, mainly peaceful, occasionally violent due to police action.
Why people are coming to Street even when there is some form of democracy and representative governments except in Middle -East. One way to understand these protest movements is to view these movements as part of social change triggered by economic turmoil started after near recession like situation in the year 2008. There are, of course, some specific reasons which would be listed as below:
1. Economic hardship alongwith desire to have freedom in decision making.
2. International pressure by pro- democratic Western countries for regime change in Arabic countries which are still largely monarchic and lack general trust and political credibility.
3. Pro active role of media and social networking involving wide spread cascading effects through live coverage of police/army atrocity on say, peaceful protest which in turn instigate people to violently react.
4. Politically motivated, desire of army to take over power in their hand.
5. Last not the least, raising expectation of youth in terms of more job opportunity, economic freedom and failure of the State to provide the same.
Let us hope that common sense prevails and monarchy gives way to participative democracy in the Arab World.
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