E-revolutions, my a**e!

Talk about the domino effect. Or peer pressure. Or maybe keeping up with the Joneses. Whatever you term it, there's no doubt that the booting out of Tunisia's president has resulted in copycat demonstrations in Egypt, Yemen, Algeria and now Bahrain and Libya. There were a few muted reports about the Jordanians wanting in on the party, but no one paid them any attention. So far, only in Tunisia and Egypt have the protesters achieved their immediate objective, the ouster of their ossified presidents. What happens next is anybody's guess.


Honestly, I'm a bit sceptical about these "revolutions". Sceptical about both cause and effect. In other words, why and how they took place, and what they have achieved or aim to achieve. Take the fact that the catalyst in these protests was the Internet - or, more precisely, Facebook, Twitter and the like. Now, I love the Net - Google is the closest thing to divinity I know (just think omnipresence) - but I'm deeply suspicious of what I see, hear or read on it - even more so than newspapers and TV. At least other forms of media are sometimes brought to book for their sensationalism, or have their outright lies exposed and their intimate relationships with powers that be brought to light.


Not so the Internet. Just take Wikipedia. It can be a source of reliable, accurate information if you want to know all about the history of weather-vanes, or the mating habits of Madagascan twits or anything without a shred of controversy attached. But the moment you touch on anything that people have differing opinions about - all that noncomittal impartiality goes out of the window, and you have some truly skewed pieces of writing on there. It's supposed to be reviewed by ordinary individuals - and that's the scary part. Not just Wikipedia, but the whole Internet. People like you and me, with all our prejudices, petty grudges, commenting and writing about things they are eminently unqualified to do and have no business doing. Just like this blog - you'd be a fool to form an opinion about anything based on my meanderings here - but this is just the sort of thing fuelling the protests.


But to go back to the happenings in the Middle East, what triggered them off? Damned if I know. Nor does anyone else, no matter how much the breathless BBC or other reporters say that the people's frustrations have been building over the years. Frustrations about what? Standards of living? Gaddafi, in Libya, ensured every adult Libyan had thir own home and car. And Bahrain? Ask the Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos who flock there in droves. The right to vote? Yeah, right. How many of you actually vote? I do, because my ballot papers are sent home for me to mark and put back in the post (postage paid). I've known plenty of people from countries that weren't democracies, and none of them were scarred by not participating in elections. In fact, the reverse is often true...


Here's a couple of facts about the people participating in the protests. They're all urban (usually, the only villagers in the whole mess were Bedouin tribesmen carted in by El Presidente's supporters). They're all young (look up the demographics for Arab countries - there's a huge bow wave of people in their teens and twenties). So what do you get when you have a young, urban population, starry-eyed and exposed to the internet? Jealousy, that's what. Of western lifestyles. Or their idea of it, at least. The average young Arab, like average young men everywhere, wants, deep down inside, a Ferrari and a blonde. Both of which are in short supply in Egypt, Tunisia and the others (note how the Gulf Arab states have not had a murmur of protests - both Ferraris and blondes are in ample evidence in those oil-drenched states).


Of course I'm being flippant, but you get the idea. Lots of young people with not much to do virtually guarantees some sort of unrest. China's leaders should pat themselves on the back for their one-child policy - more than their Great Firewall, that's why there's been not a peep out of there ever since Tiananmen. Another fact: all these protests are about the "next level" - that is, not about basic necessities like food, shelter and livelihoods, but about rights, lifestyles and choices. Don't let the fact that the trigger apparently was food prices fool you. Did any of those protesters on TV look like they were starving? That's all it was, just a trigger, an excuse. Real revolutions, like the ones in Russia (1917) and China (1949) were about far more basic needs. These ones are about greed, not need.


And what happens next? As I said before, no one has a clue, not even the protesters. Unlike the revolutionaries in Russia and China, or the freedom fighters in British India who had a specific agenda and an ideology they intended to govern by, these e-revolutionaries are the political equivalent of a flash mob - you know, one of those silly affairs where word is spread via Twitter or Facebook for people to assemble in a given spot at a given time, and then they all start to dance or something - completely aimless, unless it's a bit of publicity you want and have time on your hands. In Egypt, a rather bemused military has taken over, and seems to be looking for some direction ("Right, you've got rid of Hosni, but what exactly do you want now?"). I can take a few guesses as to what's next - the military continues to govern, while saying elections are to be held. When said elections are organised, the Muslim Brotherhood decides to contest - and due to the lack of experience, candidates, or organisation anywhere else, begins to look like a viable alternative - at which point the army puts its booted foot down and says that anything, even themselves, are better than the evil Brotherhood. And so it's back to square one (or should that be Tahrir Square?!) with an army strongman "reluctantly" taking the reins. Of course, I might be wrong, especially in the short term, but in the long term, wait and watch...