Thursday, January 27, 2011

Juan Cole on Tunisia

Prof. Cole points out that this is the first popular revolution since 1979, and is notable not just because of that, but because it's being spearheaded by labor unions, net activists, and rural farmers instead of Islamic fundamentalists:



It's spread to Egypt and, now, Yemen.

2 comments:

  1. This is a potentially awesome turning point in the Arab world. And who knows? It could inspire societies beyond that and spell trouble for oligarchs in the western world too. That's probably wishful thinking but popular movements against tyrannical dictatorships will spell trouble for elite U.S. economic interests too. Those tyrannical dictatorship are almost always cooperating with US business interests to some extent...business interests that benefit from the existing tyrannical conditions.

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  2. This is providing a powerful counterpoint to Davos, where the High 'n Mighty are suggesting that maybe, just maybe, having a handful of ultra-wealthy plutocrats running the show just might be a bad idea.

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