Western governments around the world are in for a surprise. They think that the events in Tunisia are confined, if not to Tunisia, then to the Arab world. This is the democracy that the Arab world right? The problem is two issues:
1. Democracy has not been so appealing in the Western world
2. Democracy would merely be a form of moral or political relativism for Tunisia since we ought not be happy with it.
Western governments will not reflect on these events so critically. They will conclude that the events in Tunisia are compartmentalised; that there is no prospect of political instability in the West. There are reasons to think again:
1. Democracy is a fragile beast because it represses personal aspirations
2. Repression, incompetent government, farcical process, widespread injustice, extortion are all reasons to hold the current system and political parties in disdain
3. People who are repressed eventually break out of it - that is the oppression which makes their repression necessary. People repress for different reasons; but political coercion is the big one because it is systematised, and it also has the 'legitimacy' of being sanction by the majority...whatever that means.
4. People are inclined to get very angry when they realise that
5. In times like these politicians start to feel a little more vulnerable. In the USA, we had one near assassination of a US Senator, and more will likely come around the world. There is no need to assassinate people. Repudiates of contemporary politics need only stop paying taxes. Extortionists can only operate if they are funded and if they retain legitimacy. They can only place so many people in prisons. And to what effect if they are extorting wealth. What judge would enable government to do what is illegal under common law for all citizens. Someone merely has to render a good logical argument.
6. Western politicians will compromise of course. They will do a deal with the powers which emerge. The question is who will emerge.
This is the sad reality about revolutions and political upheaval. It tends to lead to socialist revolution. i.e. The socialist thugs in the unions who are supported by pseudo-intellectuals in academia, government and the 'all-to-common' bureaucracy' are the people who you have to fear most. Well, as in all revolutions, their modus operandi is to blame capitalism for all the irksome issues in the world. If you listen to their slogans, you would conclude that capitalists are selfish, self-serving pigs only interested in themselves, only interested in extorting wealth from the 'battler', 'hard working folk like you or I'. Most people are already morally and economically morally ambivalent. The problem is in times of crisis, people flock to the concrete-bound, men-of-action like the socialist brutes because they instill fear, they promise everything and account for nothing, and their rhetoric (which for years you considered delusional ideolism) suddenly looks compatible with the state of the world. In any respect, any group which proposes to extort wealth from the wealthy is going to have the majority's vote right (aka Western-style nationalism). We thought those things only happened in Venezuela, or Germany? Or what about America. In the 1990s there were the Rodney King riots in LA. This is a case of blacks breaking out of their repression.
The longer that people stay in a state of repression - the greater the release when they finally break out. The Rodney King riots were a very isolated or compartmentalised issue. In the era of the internet, those frustrations can spread globally very quickly. They might even be a compelling reason for 'emergency' legal provisions to shut down Julian Assange's WikiLeaks.
At this point I simply want to warm people that socialists are going to use any political stability to grab power. They will appeal to fear, they will appeal to your base vulnerabilities in order to win power. Sadly business offers a very weak intellectual argument. They have always relied on money to achieve what they want. Socialists are master manipulators. They are very good at associating themselves with every 'moral cause' and denouncing capitalism for everything that goes wrong. For instance, the Pike Creek disaster in NZ. They are the first to get in there to protest the greedy capitalists, etc. They are the first to raise money. It is all a public relations exercise. Most of what they say is utter smear; and a great deal is mere rhetoric. But they are more committed than most people. They are in there for the long term.
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Author
Andrew Sheldon
