Deep Unrest: A crisis emerging in the fringe of the society globally

Well What can I say, this was a researched topic that I had first published in 2009 post 2008 global recession in NOWPUBLIC.com. A media publication portal which now seems defunct and closed.

The red shirt movement in Thailand that started in 2007 was the first sign then gradually that alerted the world on the overheated conditions of the societies across the globe and the pressure that was gradually altering the nature of the communities burdened by the disparity in the income and excessive expenditure. Inflation in essentials was almost a phenomenon across the globe mainly sparked by spiraling fuel prices having an adverse effect on the food market.

The red shirt movement primarily was an outcry of public opinion basically trying to voice against the military led Government for focus   the UDD organized counter demonstrations, which would sporadically result in injuries and deaths. After Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva took office, the UDD led major anti-government rallies in April 2009 and in March–May 2010, leading to violent clashes with military forces. And the burning down of part of the Central world shopping Mall as well as several other places by UDD (red shirt supporters). This was the eruption that sent tremors across the world. – A mob movement that went berserk with many casualties as an outbreak of suppressed anger in multiple forms

2008 and post the global recession witnessed a similar pattern in many other places , the US saw wide protests and people coming into the streets to protest the excesses of the Sub Prime Crisis, Small incidents were visible in swiss, Germany, France, Netherland, Italy, UK ,Cyprus etc. Greece and Ice land got into bankruptcy and collapsed whipping up severe tensions in the EU and NAFTA region on possible repercussion and spread of the same behavior of the mob.

That’s when I noticed some thing here. Though people were baffled on this new behaviourial infectious pattern of people taking to streets everywhere, communicating with each other on a completely different level altogether in mass hysteria and herd mindsets finding ways to vent out tremendous suppressed anger spewed out of inability to afford a decent home, buy food, unemployment, simmering tensions in communities, lack of freedom of speech, rising disparity in the “haves” and “haves not”. People at the grassroot level are drawn towards acts of violence communicated at a frequency of anger that might be just a slight provocation that might be out of the most trivial matter flashing the face of Medusa (greek demon with live venomous snakes as hair) causing innumerous destruction and shaping public opinion and mandate directly towards the system and establishments demanding their pound of flesh deprived due to marginalization.

To my surprise this in my revelation is not something new but a repeat of history from ages when suppressed emotions springing out of discontent, find ways to surface and alter the course of history. The most recent being the French revolution and the Russian revolution in the last 300 years altered tremendously The history of Humans.

If we carefully examine the reasons for this mainly is the model of the Advanced Industrialized Economies which constitutes to about just 5% of the global population yet it has mastered to control the remaining 95% through Capitalism and keeping them impoverished selling the BiG Capitalist Dreams. The resource across these 95% populations’ spaces goes towards meeting the demand of the 5% Economies. In the process the governments in these rich 5% economies over years were so busy building their assets and wealth that they forgot to see two critical factors

1) The desire to create wealth and obsession with careers actually mesmerized people to distance themselves from family ties driving them to delay marriages to post 30ies and 40ies. Thus families became the last priority and gave way for opting to be childless couples or single parents. The cohesion of the family bond being diluted, over the decade’s post the baby boomers generation gradually we have witnessed the fall in birth rate in these economies. To drive economies we need young healthy robust demography. The current reality is that these economies have now become pensioner’s paradise with old age folks heavy out numbering the dwindling number of youths

2) Modern Economies today operate as “welfare states” and there is a very interesting phenomenon here. The western world have bestowed on its people innumerable social entitlements where people thrive out on the benefits from the state. In the former no fiscal planning is required while the later is burdened with fiscal planning. A nation cannot by entitlement alone render welfare to its people. This is obviously by the way in the west in the last few years countries have gone burst as the entitlement cost soon over took its resources.

As welfare states the government has to take care of its citizens with Dole system, pension, healthcare infrastructures and services, education etc which eventually drains the exchequer and depletes the income of the govt while the income sources namely being taxes have to be balanced. When the population is more of pensioners the govt will be put under tremendous stress to provide welfare schemes with absence of incomes to substantiate thereby creating an ideal condition for economic crisis on the lines of Greece, Iceland and Cyprus. This is a Failed model that is evidently pointing out why the once advanced economies which were the envy in luxury and high life styles have now become unsustainable. In today’s context we have to have a market driven economy with primary focus on sustaining itself and not on welfare state.  Therefore a strong nation is one who allows sustainable growth and income at the basic family structure and emphasizes the sense of rights.

I had predicted in 2009 when this article was first published that the conditions elsewhere following the model of welfare state and Advancement the 95% of the population have started to follow the failed and irrelevant model of the exclusive 5% club which will lead to the acceleration of the same consequences. In this entire thing a very inherit feature that acted as a catalyst is the media and its reach which played the pivotal role of broadcasting public debates. It was evident that there is deep unrest in the fringe of the global society that is heading for an unprecedented upheaval in the human history globally born out of deep pain

I had forecasted the societies being very tense across all these marginalized sections and resenting was building up silently like a volcano and all it required was a trigger point to explode so that the established norms and irrelevant socio-economic eco systems to implode from within when the world will witness revolutions that will be driven by the people at the grassroots level with perhaps sometimes coming as death knell to the current paradigm on which a completely new one will be build mostly thriving in violence.

And then came the “JASMINE Revolution” true to my prediction it rose in Tunisia, it was an intensive campaign of civil resistance, including a series of street demonstrations taking place in Tunisia. The events began on 18 December 2010 and led to the ousting of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011. It then swept  the Arab world and its surroundings .It was an intensive campaign of civil resistance, including a series of street protests, demonstrations, media campaigns, protest marches While the wave of initial revolutions and protests faded by mid-2012, some started to refer to the succeeding and still ongoing large-scale discourse conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa as the Arab winter. The most radical discourse from Arab Spring into the still ongoing civil wars took place in Syria as early as the second half of 2011.

By the end of February 2012, rulers had been forced from power in Tunisia, Eygpt, Lybia, Yemen civil uprisings had erupted in Bahrain and Syria major protests had broken out in Algeria, Iraq ,Jodan, Kuwait, Morocco and Sudan  and minor protests had occurred in Mauritania, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Djibouti ,western Sahara and Palestine. Weapons and Tuerq fighters returning from the Libyan Civil War stoked a simmering conflict in Mali which has been described as “fallout” from the Arab Spring in North Africa

The protests shared some techniques of civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches, and rallies, as well as the effective use of Social Media like twitter and Face book which stroked the flames of this phenomenon so effectively that all barrier of nations were broken and people were communicating seamlessly across the ocean of humanity for a sometime dropping all differences to unite in the spirit of the revolution and CHANGE, Face Book played a pivotal means to organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and Internet censorship, most notably used by the youth members of the Arab population.

Many Arab Spring demonstrations were met with violent responses from authorities, as well as from pro-government militias and counter-demonstrators. These attacks were answered with violence from protestors in some cases A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is Ash-sha`b yurid  isqat an-nizamm (the people want to bring down the regime)

While this was not enough the sparks of the revolution arrived to the shores of China with pro-democracy supporters starting the protest and demonstrations which was dealt with iron fist and severe violent measures by the Chinese government.

In this entire espisode how could India, the world’s largest democracy remain isolated, the people were watching and with a bang this brought the civil society together on a stronger plain Anna Hazare suddenly emerging the face of anti corruption and messiah of Change  on 5^th April 2011. While the country administration watched in morbid fear as it occasionally projected anarchy and mob violence the movement gathered momentum as the voice of the marginalized sections of the society burdened with debts, unemployment, apathy of the administration, deep rooted corruption, rising food crisis, and most dangerous part was the unbridled and un channelized feelings of resentment, anger and frustration of the common masses exploding in the open.

However Indian context was a deviation from the Jasmine revolution where the intention was not bringing down the govt which (as feared by many) was already reeling with scams and corruption but to bring correction from within. The movement of Lokpal Bill  that went feverish led by anna hazare gave a shot in the arm for the civic society to wake up and transcend the barriers of political bastions, conformity , submissive behavior and stood up for the various causes that was hurting the common people. Thus AAP party was born which like a david challenged the goliaths namely BJP and Congress. Elsewhere in India the anger against the disconnect was vented on the congress govt and it was voted out in humiliation assuring sweeping victory for BJP led Govt by the now PM Narendra Modi and again the delhi elections in 2014-2015 was a remarkable story on the unknown , alienated population taking charge of the affairs of the govt through the victory of AAP where again BJP was humiliated.

What is all this indicating for India!!!!

Excessive globalization formulas and neglect of regional balanced growth and over congestion of the Metros which allures the “Capitalist Dreams” are waning its hold and people have started to question through activism and advocacy. The Change is evidently causing the iceberg of mental conditioning in the factory mentality approach to life and over emphasis to mainstreaming is now in the decline. People are moving towards “Glocalisation”- the strengthening of localization with the best practices of the globalization.

The society is transiting slowly and getting to shape itself with a new paradigm that is a blend between the new and the old relevant to the needs of the current times.

Creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship, critical thinking , non conformity and individuality is once more taking the central places and replacing the root system . this is visible in the swelling number of people shifting to home schooling and unschooling – trying self employment rather than be at the mercy of the job market.

While this is gradually happening again the regionalization and social disparity might push communities in becoming interdependent economies within a region specializing in commodities and might barter for sustainable co-existences than competition. The transportation and carbon foot print will start declining gradually as people start changing habits in consumption from local resources only.

Yet the fact remains that in time to come the embers of the disparity and poverty is too wide and the danger of the embers blowing up a big fire in regional conflicts can actually result in multiple revolutions that can be ugly , violent and dissipation of the simmering anger from within with virtually no explanation to the cause and effect as a spark is all that requires for an explosion among'st the angered masses.This can be flared up intolerance, hate campaigns, mob violence, community clashes, terror attacks, mistrust etc only proving the point that we are transiting in change and we are not able to understand the change so there is anger,insecurity, loss of sense of being and comfort zone.

A New World Order is certainly evident especially with India having the youngest and the most robust population on this planet in the coming years. She has to protect herself from her own citizens and hope that the revolution creates an explosion of energy that is channelized into Constructive and developmental efforts than Destruction and disintegration. Time will hold this in its womb if India truly can overcome this danger and result in the healing effect to the rest of the aging world

Kishor Jagirdar – a Strategic Change Management Specialist and Change Evangelist. This is a researched extract and the copyright (c) All rights reserved of the writer. Any reproduction or quoting, alteration, dissemination republishing this needs the consent of the writer.