2011 will be remembered perhaps above all for the extraordinary wave of revolutions across North Africa and the Middle East. They were triggered by the self-immolation a year ago this week of one man in Tunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi. It was an appalling act, but one of such devastating conviction that it inspired millions.
Our own politics has been in recent weeks illustrated by the banal spectacle of the Republican presidential debates. It could not offer a more hollow and passionless contrast. Whether the resemblance to The X-Factor is deliberate or subconscious, the public admission of the utter artificiality and boredom of contemporary politics could not be more conspicuous. The contest is dull because we already know who has the real power behind the scenes, and it's not us.
Like the "color" revolutions that overthrew repressive regimes in Ukraine and Georgia, the Arab Spring revolts had one goal: the removal of the oppressor, replacing autocracy with democracy. The object of the revolution was singular.
Those seeking fundamental change in western democracies face a different and more confusing situation. The lines of good and evil are not so clearly drawn, although they undoubtedly exist. We enjoy pluralism, freedom of speech, and democracy, at least in name and form, if not actual effect. The problems of today cannot be singularized, as dictatorship can. Mounting inequality, climate change, and the ultimate emptiness of much of modern life may be pernicious and potentially devastating problems, but they are also complex and resistant to simple remedy.
The causes of these ills are multiple but closely connected. The reckless pursuit of profit above all else is sustained by political institutions, and electoral process, that have been more or less completely, if often covertly, subverted by money and corporate influence. Remarkably, everyone seems to know this. We pretend to believe that our democracy works, even when we know that it doesn't.
The enemy that must be conquered is not a dictator, both easily identified and caricatured. It is both less blatant and more sophisticated. It is not one, but many. This means that a revolution to change things fundamentally for the better will not look like the Arab Spring. Protest alone will not dislodge the deeply entrenched forces that maintain an iniquitous status quo.
Indeed, protest in some ways helps legitimize this subtly but deeply unjust system, for it reinforces the pretense that the system is responsive to popular discontent. The bankers of Wall Street may secretly welcome "Occupy Wall Street" because one of its cultural effects is to remind the broader public that, unlike Egypt, America is, at least ostensibly, a free and democratic country. The subterranean reality however is that it is neither of these things, as the plutocrats are well aware. Both wealth and legislation are controlled by a tiny minority, and for their benefit.
This is a complex beast to fight, and it must be fought on many fronts and in many ways. This battle will not be won by marches on Washington, but by myriad small but substantive changes wrought by individuals and groups acting upon, as well as declaring, their convictions (for not only systemic change is needed, but also cultural). This revolution does not need a manifesto, or leaders. It can be, and perhaps needs to be, a leaderless revolution: a million acts of change, driven by individual conviction.
These acts might be to set up or give preference to new forms of economic organization, like cooperative companies that, owned by their workers, give weight to other values, social and environmental, as much as profit, but without sacrificing competitiveness. In one Occupy Wall Street working group we are seeking to establish a bank that by its very nature -- transparent, accessible, democratic -- will inject these values into the nervous system of the economy, and thus society (and offer better services than the for-profit banks, to boot).
But these multiple acts of change must also inhabit the simple choices of the everyday: what we buy and where we bank, and how we treat others -- celebrating the compassionate, shaming the greedy. And though simple, the decision to enact our beliefs in every circumstance is profound and liberating, not least because this is harder than it sounds. Dull, it is not.
The many steps towards a just and sustainable economy, and a truly inclusive democracy will be taken not by those we vote for, or petition. They will not emerge from the inevitable dialectic of history either. These steps require action and choices by us, individually, and then together. And here is one similarity of this revolution to the Arab Spring. Like the act of Mohamed Bouazizi, it can only start with one person, and that is us.
A former diplomat, Carne Ross is the author of The Leaderless Revolution: how ordinary people will take power and change politics in the 21st century, published by Blue Rider Press (Penguin), ebook now available, hardcover to be published in January 2012. For further information and videos explaining the book, visit www.theleaderlessrevolution.com. This is the second in a series of four posts.
Follow Carne Ross on Twitter: www.twitter.com/carneross
The rationale to develop and implement democracy presented by the Author is very strong.
Finally I have found like minded souls on this planet.
How to approach the task?
We invite the everyone to participate in the development of a conceptual plan (work in progress) in http://whyweneeddemocracy.blogspot.com/2011/12/democracy-for-tomorrow.html
Happy New Year to everyone!
As long as we enjoy goodies like the iPad, cheap jewelry, IHop food and a movie once in a while we will not, as a collective, rise up against the agents of our oppression. Until the tidbits of middle class are no longer within our grasp, we will continue to believe that the revolution is just for homeless Other and whiney college kids who don't want to pay their student loans.
Rumor is that Obama personnelly appointed the judge for Manning's trial from the Department of Obstruction of Justice and this judge has been busily obstructing justice by eliminating 43 witnesses for the defense.
It seems the possibility that Manning is mentally and emotionally unstable has been brought up in this court but anyone who has been tortured for a year and a half would display these symptoms, wouldn't they???!!!
This kangaroo military court trying Manning reminds me of other lowly military personnel being tried for human rights abuses that they committed that they were encouraged to commit at Guantanamo by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, the CIA and those other traitorous conspirators in the U.S. Government
who were never tried for these horrific war crimes and human rights abuses.
America must have an American Nuremberg trial that will bring to justice all those in America who have committed serious crimes while in power or in those financial markets during the last 12 years since without the rule of law a Republic is not possible.
Let's see who's agenda is forwarded.
...or perhapes just with a new oppressor more to the revolutionaries' liking: themselves.
I'm in my 60's, I remember when this county truely was great.
People of the last Depression made it that way.
I'll stand with them, I'll take what comes.
it will take more than a million simple acts to displace the status quo. they control the entire election system, congress, media, white house, economy, military complex, military, banking system, and most important the supreme court.
jefferson understood what it would take to replace the status quo when it no longer represented the majority of americans. and it aint one million simple acts.
"We pretend to believe that our democracy works, even when we know that it doesn't".
there is huge denial occurring in america as to the self destruction of the middle class due to a system that has been let loose without regulations called capitalism. plus americans love their capitalism more than their bibles while it takes most of them family by family to third world status.
but you nailed it as protests will not work. they are like window dressings on an out of control economic ideology that americans mistake for freedoms while it takes these freedoms away one by one with the help of the supreme court.
The problem is the represenitives should represent the voters of his or her districts or states but are influenced by individuals and entities that contributed to their elections or that will aid them either politically or financially in other ways.
Our power is the power of the vote but that vote has been circumvented by the influence peddlers. We talk about voting the bum’s out but the next set of bum’s are corrupted as fast as we can vote.
A solution is needed to stop the influence peddlers from being able to use money as a power of persuasion. Campaigns must be fundamentally changed where contributions are not needed or accepted from outsiders. This levels the playing field however it requires a new method of campaigning. The present method is corrupted and needs modification or replacement. There are models that have been tried and some of them work quite well. The problem is the politicians that are presently receiving the influence peddling are the representatives that would have to vote on such a change.
One of the first things we can do is educate ourselves. Do anything. Just read a few books. Learn some history.
Next, we can talk to people. Not Twitter, not Blog posts. But talk to your neighbors friends and co-workers. So many of us feel alone and powerless. The guy three cubicles down might have a lot of the same worries you do.
And lastly, young parents have tremendous power to shape the future. Children get most of their values from their parents. The media and advertising have power but not as much as parents do. I hope we can start raising some generations who aspire to more than merely money. I'm sure it's nice if your son grows up to be a rich marketing executive. But is that WHO your son really wants to be? Is that the most fulfilling career path? I don't know. But, in general, our values as a society haven't been the best in recent decades. We can (and must) do better.
We don't need to overthrow anything. We need to undermine it.
...any ideas on how to do it?