The big news at the moment are the riots in the UK. Having now spent some time reading various articles on the topic and gauging the reactions from many different people I find it funny that nobody has as yet asked the question I keep asking myself. How did a peaceful protest erupt into a country wide riot?
First I think it is necessary for me to clarify that I am appalled at these riots... those that have now jumped on the bandwagon and have made a one night act of frustration into a prolonged glimpse into basic human behavior, have done purely for the opportunity to loot or vent some misplaced aggression. I also think that the situation might be over now ... but I might be eating my own words if this turns into a full blown civil-war (I highly doubt it but then one never knows).
So it is time to look at the why. Why did most likely some youths decide to turn violent and start the domino that would create such an escalation of events? And, why did the violence persist and why did it spread? Now a psychologist would boil it down to two non social issues which are: 1) the recent heat that made people more aggressive and 2) the fact that it is currently the summer vacations and many young people find themselves less occupied and so have the time to rebel against authority. And I believe that these are two crucial factors in why these riots happened and yet I would much rather like to look at the social factors that the rioters will hang out as their motives to act in the way they did.
As I am running out of time I will just quickly outline what my argument will be about and write a second part to this post tomorrow. Underlining to the outbreak of violence is the current financial situation of the UK, with a household deficit around 500%, continued spending cuts and a dis-enfranchised working class the signs of revolution are beginning to align themselves. And I fear that the government will act as it so often does (and this would have been the same with any party in power). The government will take action to appease the frightened middle and upper classes while giving those that might hope to have their voices of concern heard through this a dead end outlet. Ultimately not changing the status quo, trying to get back to the way the things used to be rather than attempting to find a new order where a larger fraction of the population might be happy.
Well to be continued...
And therefore:
Thank you for staying open-minded
Wednesday, 10 August 2011
Sunday, 7 August 2011
Hello World
SO here I am again attempting to start another blog in order to find an outlet for my thoughts. I have names this one 16-minutes, as you can see, and I have done so as I feel that my other blog was too ambitious in length. So I will now try and sit every other day for 16 minutes and write a blog of whatever I am thinking about that day. And should I run out of time I will attempt to continue the blog the following day. Anyway enough semantics and on to business.
The topic I want to write about today is one that I have been reading quite a lot about recently in the newspapers and always get annoyed that it is a topic of discussion at all. Can Islam coincide with Democracy? What annoys me the most is that the very question to me appears undemocratic. The very essence of democracy is that it includes everybody and that of majority rule. So a country that is predominantly Muslim, Islamist principles should prevail. So what I believe is that those people that doubt that these two can co-exist are more worried about how Islamic Democracy will look like rather than the failure of such a democracy.
It is needles to say that the democracy that will emerge from Egypt and Tunisia will be different to those in the Christian west. They will model their executive and legislative bodies on the democracies of the west, but I have no doubt that they will evolve into their very own and distinctive models. An one hopes that they could form the basis for other countries that might follow in the Arab spring could base their state body on these models. I therefore very firmly believe that this is not an situation where we should fear the outcome but rather should observe with anticipation how it will evolve into a new form of Democracy.
I am now way beyond my allotted 16 minutes so I will try and end this now with a thought that this topic made me have. And it is: Is it possible to have 'true' democracy only after a national revolution? I have thought about it and most true democracies (although with time the virtue of these democracies are now debatable) have come about after revolutions. So this is my question: is it only possible to establish a democracy 'for the people, by the people' after a revolution against a former oppressive regime? And in turn this begs to ask the question: Do once virtuous systems become corrupt and need to be 'cleansed' through revolution? I have once read this in a book about China, where the change in dynasties would always occur when the old had become corrupted and a new one was needed.
So there it is my first blog on this site. While I do not think anybody will read this and far more start debating the above posted questions (As I would very much like it to be). I have enjoyed putting my thoughts onto screen once again. And that just leaves me to say:
Thank you for staying open-minded
The topic I want to write about today is one that I have been reading quite a lot about recently in the newspapers and always get annoyed that it is a topic of discussion at all. Can Islam coincide with Democracy? What annoys me the most is that the very question to me appears undemocratic. The very essence of democracy is that it includes everybody and that of majority rule. So a country that is predominantly Muslim, Islamist principles should prevail. So what I believe is that those people that doubt that these two can co-exist are more worried about how Islamic Democracy will look like rather than the failure of such a democracy.
It is needles to say that the democracy that will emerge from Egypt and Tunisia will be different to those in the Christian west. They will model their executive and legislative bodies on the democracies of the west, but I have no doubt that they will evolve into their very own and distinctive models. An one hopes that they could form the basis for other countries that might follow in the Arab spring could base their state body on these models. I therefore very firmly believe that this is not an situation where we should fear the outcome but rather should observe with anticipation how it will evolve into a new form of Democracy.
I am now way beyond my allotted 16 minutes so I will try and end this now with a thought that this topic made me have. And it is: Is it possible to have 'true' democracy only after a national revolution? I have thought about it and most true democracies (although with time the virtue of these democracies are now debatable) have come about after revolutions. So this is my question: is it only possible to establish a democracy 'for the people, by the people' after a revolution against a former oppressive regime? And in turn this begs to ask the question: Do once virtuous systems become corrupt and need to be 'cleansed' through revolution? I have once read this in a book about China, where the change in dynasties would always occur when the old had become corrupted and a new one was needed.
So there it is my first blog on this site. While I do not think anybody will read this and far more start debating the above posted questions (As I would very much like it to be). I have enjoyed putting my thoughts onto screen once again. And that just leaves me to say:
Thank you for staying open-minded
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