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Revolt of the Global Middle Class: Will the Current Global Wave of Revolutions and Protests Lead to a Total Surveillance Society?
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Maavak, Mathew |
| Copyright Year | 2011 |
| Abstract | The global economy, battered by the subprime-induced crashes of 2007 and 2008, was expected to maintain its sluggish recovery in 2011. Optimism was in the air. Hardly anyone suspected that the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor on December 17, 2010, had lit the spark for a tectonic political upheaval throughout the Middle East and beyond. Mohamed Bouazizi’s suicide led to the overthrow of several governments and will likely induce more regime changes in 2012. Tent cities sprang up in Israel; a paroxysm of violence engulfed the United Kingdom in August; and there is talk of an imminent “Jasmine Revolution” in China. Currently, an Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement is diffusing pandemonium into the citadels of democracy.1 An Arab Spring of hope has led to a Global Winter of discontent, and multi-seasonal uncertainties beyond. Social media tools like Facebook and Twitter were initially hailed as the new cyber-tipped spearheads against the barbed wires of tyranny. Perhaps, Francis Fukuyama was right after all. The post-Cold War system would inevitably lead to the “evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”2 By summer, those illusions were disabused. New ICT tools could democratize repressed societies; it could also unleash repressed atavism. The repressed began to cooperate across borders, under the rubric of One World, One Pain. Protestors in Cairo’s Tahrir Square began ordering pizzas for Wisconsin workers who were concurrently besieging the State Capitol. Governor Scott Walker contemplated resolution through a mobilized National Guard.3 The message was unmistakable: The global middle class was uniting in anger. |
| Starting Page | 5 |
| Ending Page | 17 |
| Page Count | 13 |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Volume Number | 3 |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://study.sagepub.com/sites/default/files/World%20Future%20Review-2011-Maavak-5-17.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | https://doi.org/10.1177/194675671100300402 |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
