Revolutions: Then and Now
By: Nigel Noriega
It was long ago in the 1700s that revolutions were violent and secretive uprising, designed to destroy aristocrats by brute force and overwhelming numbers. Revolutionaries and patriots of this sort have come extremely far since then. No longer is life-risking espionage needed to communicate within the revolutionary group, and indeed violence is now not as heavily relied upon at all. In fact, the youth is now taking over the revolution business as opposed to older veterans. A perfect example is the situation in Egypt and Tunisia. Ahmed Maher was a 30-year-old engineer who was a leading organizer of the April 6 Youth Movement. Younger people in the organization took to the internet and used blogging to raise support for labor strikes set off by government privatizations and rapid inflation in 2008. On April 6 a widespread and general strike took place and it was promoted primarily though Facebook. This influenced those in Tunisia to do some, and they also took to social networking to communicate their experiences and ideas to others. Not only have revolutionary acts become more intelligibly communicated and organized, but they are also non-violent as well.
An article in the New York Times states how Mr. Maher and his colleagues used the ideas of Gene Sharp who argues that "that nonviolence is a singularly effective way to undermine police states that might cite violent resistance to justify repression in the name of stability." Newer revolutions now use this type of thinking to achieve their goals as opposed to the outrageous atrocities committed in the past in the name of revolution, liberty, and freedom.
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