The Year Of Protest 2011

The Year of Protest- 2011
At the risk of writing history too early, 2011 may well be remembered as a year in which demands for honesty in public life popped up around the world like desert flowers after a rain.
2011 can easily be called the year of protest. The world saw many uprising and changes. The political landscape around the world has shifted and people across the globe are taking a stand, being influential in their nation's affairs, in all aspects and even overpowering dictatorship empires. The world has never seen revolution and protesting on a scale as high as it has in 2011.
We saw folks from all walks of life demonstrating and marching and occupying, all to challenge the broken governments that have ignored or oppressed them. This year, protesters, against seemingly impossible odds, managed to speak truth to power and, at times, got that power to listen. Whether it is Tahrir Square in downtown Cairo or Zuccotti Park in New York, the defining images of 2011 will be those of thousands of ordinary folks gathering to make their voices heard. From Athens to Madrid, from New Delhi to Moscow, people have been on the march and protests became the expression of choice against injustices, real or perceived.
Granted, causes haven`t been the same everywhere. The Arab world has seen an explosion of protests against autocratic rule. Breathtakingly, leaders in four major Arab nations were toppled this year – Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Movements to curb official corruption also shot up in Brazil, Russia, India and China – the BRIC countries. Occupation as a form of protest has become increasingly popular. Starting from the Occupy Wall street protest it spread to many towns and countries against inequality. These marches and occupations are clashes between individual freedoms and centralised control, either in the form of the military or perceived inhuman capitalism.
Protests in western democracies, by contrast, have not been so much about the absence of civil and political rights but rather than against economic mismanagement and deteriorating material conditions. India, too, presents different political conditions from the Arab world. In India, civil society protests have focused not so much on the absence of democracy but rather on the limited choice made available by political parties within the democratic space. With scam after scam unearthed this year, most parties, regardless of ideological inclination, looked indulgent on corrupt practices when it suited them. Matters are made worse by the fundamentally statist terms of economic policymaking, with no party offering any real alternative. The result is that the political class as a whole looks clueless in tackling the economic distress that the average Indian - squeezed between slowing growth and rising inflation - had to contend with this year.
The lack of political choice and frequent disruptions, few substantive debates taking place in Parliament - reinforces the notion that all parties, rather than coming to grips with the problems of 21st century governance, merely offer variations around a sub-theme in identity politics. Civil society protests against this political order have a radical and amorphous quality, as represented by the Anna Hazare-led anti-corruption movement. Running through it all is policy paralysis, a leadership deficit, and geriatric leadership, which remains out of touch with the needs of an emerging, aspirational, predominantly young India. As long as this fundamental disconnect continues, protests are unlikely to subside.
It’s been quite a year, a messy and confusing year, a year of a lot of false starts and inspiring firsts, lingering injustices but also bursts of heroism and beauty. I don't know what the future holds, but you can't say that we are in the same place at the end of 2011 as we were at its start. So it strikes me that another slogan from the light projection is a fitting epitaph for the year that was: “This is the Beginning of the Beginning.” .