What the fuck !!!

"Leave the cockiness to the cocks!!" A not so subtle message to a certain ex-officio IRS who is getting on everyone's nerves and believes in his "in-your-face" statements, to create an "Arab spring" like situation in India. 2011 has been rightly called the year of the protester. Even TIME magazine named the "Protester" as the person-of-the-year. If we study carefully, what started as a campaign against autocratic rule in Syria and Tunisia and later moved on to the non-monarchic Arab countries like wild fires taking down autocratic rulers one after another; some killed while others facing trials for their repressive regimes; we see a pattern. Hence its becomes imperative that 2011, which began with a revolution for democracy and should rightly end with the victory of democracy.



There are several takes on what made 2011 a year of revolutions. Of the several stories that are making rounds calling it a victory of people, few calling it victory of social networking sites and others calling it a impromptu uprising of the oppressed against the oppressor; a question that was never asked and never answered - WHY the ARAB COUNTRIES??? My humble submission on this is the true story about "Arab spring" may never be known. After all (forgive my mentioning) its not like all Arab countries have rich mineral and fuel reserves and its not like we know of specific countries who might go to any extent to gain uninhibited access to such huge reserves; .....or do we ?? Ummmm....well lets see, in most of these countries; namely, Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Yemen, the autocratic rule was in place for more than 35-40 years (give or take). So its not an of-late development that there has to be an uprising in 2011. All these countries had rulers who had mellowed down and were in the last lap of their lives. At one time, these rulers were tyrants and mostly eliminated any voice that stood against them. Today, after ruling their countries for several years and gaining acceptance of their people they were mellow and not repressive. Interesting........ so what exactly changed in 2011 and the only question WHY NOW ??



2011 brought in a year of gloom in the developed economies. Most of the developed nations were facing sovereign debt crises, rampant unemployment, rising fuel costs and economies that were on the path of recession. Few people know, that a specific section of Arab nations were no longer pliable to the will of the "greater nations" and were sticking to their demands on keeping the fuel export price at a higher levels to be able to afford the excessive trade imports (mainly food grains, vegetables etc.) into their countries. The "greater nations" humored the Arab countries for a while, almost 4 years. Come 2011, the economies of these "greater nations" were unravelling and it became imperative for them to have controlling voice on all forums to make most countries pliable to their diktat. The only problem was, these authoritarian Arab states had rulers who were beginning to get cocky and standing up to these nations was getting increasingly difficult. The utility of having these mineral and fuel rich nations to be run by autocrats was getting lesser day by day and so these "greater nations" thought, "ummm.. you know, we all stand for democracy, so maybe we can fight for democracy in these specific areas". Rest is history. Today, we can lay the credit to the doors of the people who stood up against tyranny; pat the backs of social networking sites for bringing revolution to our doorsteps but we cannot make the mistake of losing the trail behind two questions; WHY NOW?? and WHY HERE??



What started as "rise of Arab nations" against "autocratic rule" or Arab spring as we call it, later turned on the countries that sponsored the move. The so called democratic "greater nations" forgot that the fuel that can ignite fire in other countries can sooner, than later burn their own backyard. So we had the riots by local people, holding the erstwhile "kingdom, where the sun never sets" under siege. It struck them rather late that they had taken the lid off a cyclone that would soon engulf everyone. People got together on social networking sites and messenger groups and wilfully planned which neighbourhood to attack and how to destroy public and private property. It soon began to dawn on the "greater nations" that what they had started as "fight for democracy" using social network can soon bite them in uncomfortable places. The larger point that the "greater nations" overlooked was that social network has no boundaries and having a democracy is not the panacea; you need jobs and money too. After seeing the "sponsored" fight for democracy and benefits of social network, people began to express themselves more freely on social network and have began to think of this new found way to vent your frustrations as "freedom of speech". After the riots, we had the OCCUPY movements in 85 countries where it seemed democratic right to protest was the only right people were going to use in 2011 (right or wrongly) and what started as a movement to unseat dictators in Arab world was soon starting to have some casualties that were unaccounted for.



Meanwhile, closer to home, a self styled "Gandhian" had emerged from no where and had taken everyone's imagination by a storm. Most of us were going through difficult times because of the financial crises of sorts in the world economy and the opposition parties built a perfect or lets say "near perfect" campaign on the predicament most of us were facing. Firstly, the political parties, all of a sudden, began a demand that the grey economy was burgeoning and we needed measures to curb this and we needed newer laws to "bring back" these monies stashed in tax havens and use them for "nation building". We weren't facing a pinch in our pockets as yet, mostly people ignored the call and the campaign seemed dying its natural death. Meanwhile, the incumbent had started re-negotiating taxation agreements with a slew of countries, popularly referred to as "tax havens" to control the outflow of slush money. All of a sudden, the world economy started looking gloomy and several nations were close to bankruptcy. This coupled with rising prices of fuels and essentials was making the public restless and the incumbent seemed to have no solutions to curb this menace. At this crucial juncture, on the horizon arrives a "Gandhian" who has a magical wand to all the problems faced by people.



The "Gandhian" has a team of an ex-officio IRS, an ex-officio IPS and 3 legal eagles who walk upto the incumbent and give a demo of the powers of the 'magic wand' that will purge the problems of the masses. The incumbent feels the price is too high and refuses to buy the wand. Meanwhile, the dying campaign against slush money gets a saviour and they join forces with "Gandhian" and his team provided they promise to use the wand as a stick to beat the incumbent. Deal goes through and we begin to see a drama planned to the minute details. Firstly, people's support is invoked by stating the problems they are facing and then they are given a demo of the "magic wand" and how it has powers to alleviate their pains. Most people, bearing the brunt of the sliding economy and too many accusations upon the incumbent of misusing public money for "private good" which otherwise could be used for public good, were angry but did not know what could be done. With the advent of the "Gandhian
"' and his magic wand, they latched on to it hoping it will get them a better standard of life.



The "Gandhian" and his team played to the script and never deviated. They never engaged with politicians and that seemed to have increased their credibility in the eyes of the masses. Once they were sure that they had led the people far enough, they brought out the second act - selectively attacking the incumbent at the centre and carefully avoiding comments (even stray) on states ruled by opposition. The people found this credible too and soon, it seemed that all the things that went wrong in past 64 years we because of the mistakes of the present incumbent. Few people objected to these large strokes of brush while tainting the incumbent but much of these protests fell on deaf years. The incumbent, on its part, kept making false moves and adding to the credibility of the "Gandhian" and his team. There came a time, that the "Gandhian" and his team thought they were important enough that they would talk only to the incumbent chief-executive (lets call him PM) an no one else. People who had put all their faith in the story of the "magic wand" did not see anything wrong and almost propped them up to a parallel chief executive who could dictate to the incumbent like the PM never did.



The whole drama was based on one premise, the incumbent will keep making mistakes and would never call their bluff. In the final act, the incumbent actually embraced the magical wand and began to hard sell it to the other political parties. This was a move never imagined by the team. All of a sudden, the incumbent seemed more keen than "Gandhian" and his team to acquire the magic wand - no matter what the price was. Almost instantly, people who were blinded by the magic wand's powers began to see that the magic, if misused, can cause great damage. The wand which they swore by until recently started causing uneasiness amongst the political class and they spread misgivings among the people about its powers. Lo and behold, the entire opposition who had propped up the campaign began to fall under its weight. The cockiness of the ex-officio IRS and the ex-officio IPS did not help either. People began seeing the fault lines in the arguments placed in front of them by the "Gandhian" and his team and began questioning them. The team who had so far, gotten used to blind faith, didn't like the new change in equations. They began to call all those who questioned them as corrupt and this further reduced their credibility. Such was the power of the magic wand that it gave them protection until it stayed with them and was now giving the same protection to the incumbent. The spell of the magic wand was finally broken.



So, 2011 may be remembered for a slew of reasons, but it will be most remembered for the WTF moments. The moments where revolutions were being manifested by fanning certain genuine concerns of the masses and using them to ignite passions and cause an uprising. By the end of the year, the trends suggested that revolts cannot be sustained and soon boomerangs on the initiator. Social networking sites played their part by supporting "free speech". How much freedom is too much, this question my find answers in 2012. Meanwhile, wishing you all a very happy and prosperous 2012 and hope we don't repeat the mistakes of 2011.



So long.....