We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, January 27, 2012

Opportunists and the Revolution

Click here to access article by Gilbert Achcar from Al Akhbar. 
One of the most important achievements of the current Arab revolutions with regard to the image of the Arabs is that it shattered the caricature shaped by Western Orientalism about Arab submissiveness and Arab or Muslim cultural addiction to servility, as if Arabs hated freedom and loved tyranny.
This piece is infused with much wisdom about the irony of typical political change. The author focuses on this subject within the context of current Arab affairs, specifically in the way they are being played out in Tunisia and Egypt. 

Regardless of culture or geography until ordinary people see the necessity of taking control of their societies, there will be no social justice--only a change of personnel. A new political arrangement will have to be created to insure that no one or no class of people have any advantages or privileges over people in general. Such an arrangement will insure that everyone must assume responsibility for the social-economic conditions of their respective societies. Societies must be organized so that political power will be widely dispersed so that opportunities for individuals or classes of people to exert extraordinary control and assume special privileges will never occur again.