Leaderless revolutions

There is one thing that is very fascinating that connects all these recent revolutions in Arabic world: they are all leaderless. Yes, in some of those countries there were opposition groups and leaders (especially in Egypt), but those leaders didn't start nor carry any of those uprisings. Now there are lot of things that pose problems when there are no leaders, but there is one thing that has huge advantage: When you don't have one person or few people who control things, there is nothing you can do to control the movement and compromise it! There is no one in particular that you can bribe or threaten and ultimately kill so that things could go where you want to go! You know what am I talking about, right?
Now, how long those movement can remain leaderless I don't know. Maybe after some time, someone in particular will emerge and become leader in those counties, and things would go the usual way..Maybe not. It seems that people are much more aware nowdays and not naive anymore, so I don't think that they would surrender their newly gained freedoms so easily... Libya is the newest case of leaderless revolution and it's really fascinating. It's almost unbelievable that nobody is leading them, like there is no some kind of hidden hand behind all of these happenings... Who knows, maybe there is, we cannot know, but right now it seems that it would be very hard to organize all those things and to move masses like that undetected. Especially when I see reaction of the Western world, which seems pretty confused and speechless.
Anyway, this kind of behavior seems like something completely new in human history and the main cause for this is Internet. I started thinking about it couple days ago when I saw influence of people congregating at this website (among others) in Ron Paul vs. Fox News case. It was revealing to me... Is this a beginning of something much bigger?

You are right, the technological revolution seems to be responsible for actual revolution... very interesting indeed.

Apparently, groups of students, in some cases with the help of "Anonymous" are able to bypass the state bans/limitations on the internet and communications in general to "organize" these movements. This is an amazing new tool giving much power to the citizenry.

Today, with a cell phone and access to social networks, anyone can organize a popular rally... now that is POWER!

As to the absence of leadership, I fear that it would not matter. Unfortunately, history has shown that the military's "officer class" will be taking over in all the cases of popular revolt. Hopefully, I will be proven wrong.

the Billmeister

reply to post by alomaha

Perhaps one should examine the tie of GOOG and FB to NSA.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

It took us 2000 years of mistakes, errors, compromises and sacrifices to get here.

Today, we are here. We are annonymous. And We are legion.

reply to post by alomaha


I'm not so sure leaderless is something new... the Luddite uprising (Industrial Northern Britain 1810s)) had a fictional leader called Captain Ludd, While the Swing Uprising (Rural Southern Britain 1830s) had a fictional leader called Captain Swing, both of these sought social and political reforms.. Which could be said to culminate in Chartist movement (late 1830s-1850) that aimed at the political and social reform of Britain.

I do find it fascinating that there are so many similarities between that period (1810-1850) and what is happening today.. especially in what we could call a leaderless pro democracy movement, but with todays tech the time frame for action is much more condensed..

Thanks for the thread.. very interesting to read other perspectives on this topic

Leaderless.

What a great concept, not just for a revolution but for a nation. I believe leaders are part of the problem. Even a good leader. We seem to need to be led, but why? I think it's curious that every nation has a leader. I think we can do things without a leader and I even think it could bring about good qualities to the people living in such a scenario. Do leaders bring about some degree of order? I think it's our behaviour that brings about order, and that we seem to choose to behave better if we know someone is in charge who we generally approve of or fear. It would be a good experiment at the least to try things without a ruling party or leader. Hopefully it would allow those people to decide important things together, and give them the responsibility to make the best choices they are able.

It's just an idea, maybe we will always need leaders.

Originally posted by thoughtsfull
reply to post by alomaha

 

I'm not so sure leaderless is something new... the Luddite uprising (Industrial Northern Britain 1810s)) had a fictional leader called Captain Ludd, While the Swing Uprising (Rural Southern Britain 1830s) had a fictional leader called Captain Swing, both of these sought social and political reforms.. Which could be said to culminate in Chartist movement (late 1830s-1850) that aimed at the political and social reform of Britain.

I do find it fascinating that there are so many similarities between that period (1810-1850) and what is happening today.. especially in what we could call a leaderless pro democracy movement, but with todays tech the time frame for action is much more condensed..

Thanks for the thread.. very interesting to read other perspectives on this topic

edit on 21/2/11 by thoughtsfull because: blooming spellchecker!

Interesting historical perspective. Yes, those uprisings were genuine popular attempts to make social changes and to bring more justice to the system. But unfortunately they all failed to make significant change in the society. This time is different. It's much stronger and we can see dramatic changes. But we can draw parallel to this time because that was also dawn of new age - industrial age. Maybe this is also dawn of a new age? I sure hope so. Although it's still dark to tell, there are some signs that something is brewing beneath the surface...

I've been considering just exactly what forces are behind these current revolutions and the one thing that comes across in technicolor is the internet. It seems that the youth of this planet have had enough of crooked politicians and criminal dictatorships. The current food crisis is the catalyst and seeing the fat cats gloating over higher profit-taking and downright theft has only exacerbated an untenable situation among civilian populations.

It's not only the Bilderberg group which is working toward a NWO, it is now the youth of this planet demanding change.

Certainly a case can be made that there are other influences at play in this, but it is also getting out of the alphabet company's control and spilling over onto the purposes of other globalists. For instance:

Therefore the AFL-CIO-Solidarity Center-NED axis, in conjunction with sundry necons, free marketeers, and Soros networks, recommends an ideological foundation for Egyptian labor based on incorporation into the global market rather than rejection in favor of economic sovereignty. Why do these supposed workers’ advocates recommend an Egyptian workers’ compact with US corporations, the US government, and NGOs which are for the most part creations of Freedom House, IRI, NED, etc.? The same game was played behind the facade of “human rights” in South Africa which ended up not with improved conditions for Black workers but with globalization and privatisation; likewise with the “liberation” of Kosovo which has opened up to international capital the immense mineral wealth of the region.

So... what are we to make of all this? Will there be revolution on a global scale, pitting youth against the pillars of economic and political power? Will this spread into Eastern Europe, Central Africa (i.e. Uganda) and outward?

I don't see this as stopping within Arab countries.

reply to post by alomaha


Leaderless revolutions leave vacuumes in its wake, effectively destroying the revolution.. the Egyptian revolution resulted in Martial Law, and its new leaders are a military council. Without that, the country would have fallen apart.

In Tunesia sitting politicians grabbed all the power to be had. No doubt the country is changed, but changed for the better? Who knows, it will take time.. but in a lawless stage of anarchy, there is much corruption to be had.

Also it is false to say these revolutions were entirely leaderless.. someone, somewhere, started and encouraged these revolts.. in Egypt it was a Google exec...... am I the only one who finds that suspicious? But anyways, annon posters to different sites set the dates and themes for the protest, and people followed.. the Google exec is the only one to come forward for starting one specific site.

It reeks of black ops to me..

reply to post by alomaha


Your right, it certainly was not as successfully as it could have been, but they did gain concessions.. incidents like the Peterloo Massacre did create some defining moments of the age as Tahrir square will be a defining moment today.

Then as now, I do wonder what tricks the establishment will try to pull to reign in the volume of change being demanded by the masses..

Order often comes from chaos, as long as societies are civilised.

There are systems in place that ensures order will come. There may be a vacuum, but it is only temporary, as every civilised societal structure will ensure someone takes the lead, both from the civilian and military authorities. No civilised society will want anarchies or chaos to reign perpetually.

With a constitution in place, with its usual 3 branches of gov, order will descend by those next in line to take charge, or the masses will only take to the streets once again without fear or favour, until one whom is suitable to lead steps up to make the necessary changes to the constitution to ensure a balanced society from the previous.

Humans are adaptable to changes, will be prepared to bite the bullet for tough times ahead after revolutions, but it does not mean they will readily accept slavehood or high level of corruptions that marginalizes the population should the new gov be found wanting.

We are the product of 5000 years of civilisational trial and error processes, with systems in place, thus we need not overly fear changes, for the only constant in life is change. Adroitness and adaptability along with perseverance is a natural human trait, if not for ourselves, it will be for the innocent next generations to come, to inherit a better world....

Originally posted by GoatwolfeWolfgoate
Leaderless.

What a great concept, not just for a revolution but for a nation. I believe leaders are part of the problem. Even a good leader. We seem to need to be led, but why? I think it's curious that every nation has a leader. I think we can do things without a leader and I even think it could bring about good qualities to the people living in such a scenario. Do leaders bring about some degree of order? I think it's our behaviour that brings about order, and that we seem to choose to behave better if we know someone is in charge who we generally approve of or fear. It would be a good experiment at the least to try things without a ruling party or leader. Hopefully it would allow those people to decide important things together, and give them the responsibility to make the best choices they are able.

It's just an idea, maybe we will always need leaders.

There is already a concept of society without government, and very old concept indeed. It's called anarchy. Now for most people when you mention anarchy they get horror pictures inside their heads of complete chaos and blood flowing down the streets, but that is not at all what that idea means. Quite the opposite. It's society with such high moral standards that there wouldn't be any need for police, courts, armies or government at all, because people would live in harmony. It sounds like sci-fi and maybe it is. If humanity is going to survive at all, that would be general direction, because world such as this cannot survive much longer. But are we as world ready for anything even close to that? I'm afraid I don't think so. It would be beautiful, but we are still far away from it. There is still too much greed, anger, hate etc. in this world...

"The People"are waking up to the fact that they have held the power all along.There are more of them.If the military won't stand with corrupt leaders then the people win.Only a matter of time until the people win. Without the military the corrupt leaders have no power.It has struck me that the people haven't turned on their former leaders and put them on trial for their crimes.I wonder what that means?

hope you don't mind related illustration

reply to post by Douriff


Ha ha, that's a good one!

reply to post by thoughtsfull

Interesting historical observation, an example that leaders are not that important. As a matter of fact, the whole concept of leadership is wrong. This is why replacing people in one government or cabinet makes no difference. The election system as such is run basically on propaganda and emotionalism, instead of thoroughly testing knowledge, capabilities, integrity, mental health and so on, of potential candidates.
This is why many ego driven individuals, with no actual qualities, other then manipulation skills can easily get their ways to important positions.
There are many arrogant even, insane characters, whose attitude for some reason appear highly credible. Months, even years can pass with this types in charge, while nobody is able to point a finger to a single mistake, until one day the nation realizes that everything was just an outright deception.


In any other trade or business, the wrongdoings of incapable individual are immediately obvious. Say doctors, lawyers, cooks, for example. Something what they do wrong and what they do consistently wrong will discredit them in that profession sooner or later, and people will stop using their services.
On the other hand, when politician is consistently stupid, no matter what mess is caused to entire nation, mechanisms of replacing such a people enables him or her to still enjoy privileges long enough to cause more damage.
The conclusion is that the system is too expensive, too big, too inert and therefore too dangerous. It should be more fluid and less driven by power and money.

I believe that there are concepts and models of governing less prone to corruption.

reply to post by Douriff


I think it is an important observation as I have been tracking the two time-frames, tho our timeframe is more condensed (due to speed of communications) there are a lot of similarities, not just the way the mass movements where leaderless, but also economic distress causing issues such as mass under-employment, the lack of democracy for the masses, and crappy winters all bled into those uprisings, very much in the same vein they are today.

I have a thing for the 1830s Swing Uprisings.. and find it a very fascinating period that gets hidden in some dark corner but really the same social change is rampant through the ME at the moment.. In the UK the Swing Uprisings are swept to one side due to their nature being very similar to that which is gripping the ME.. and I can only wonder what parts the History books will teach in the future of these events.

Personally I think the West, and the Governments of the ME are working furiously to try to prevent this spreading, but I said about a year ago in a thread on ATS that this would happen in 12 - 18 months.. for the same reasons I quoted above.. and yes I have been to the ME, worked their and many other places to make my own observations and come to these conclusions*

however as to answers.. I think that lay in the same path as it always has.. a constant battle for change with whatever establishment is in power to maintain progress towards real democracy.. one that support the worker rather that being kicked them in the teeth.

I just hope the Egyptians and Libyans can make progress quicker than we in Britain did in the 1800s.. but then where does that leave us in the West? this contagion is coming our way.. and it won't be long before we again reengage in our own battle for change.

As before, I stated my fear is that prior to this contagion hitting the West full on our own establishment will take us to war to redirect our angst from them onto some other "enemy" I hope this does not happen.. but fear it will.

sorry for the ramble... BTW, love the pic you put up

ETA
* I never said it would happen in the ME, I have always kept an open mind as to where the spark will be lit.. having been in the ME and North Africa.. I can say I am not surprised it was there.

reply to post by Douriff


Well we can actually compare governing systems of government and corporation. Actually they are similar. In corporation you have a board of directors as a governing body that is elected annually by shareholders. In so called ''democratic'' society you also have elections, but only once in four years. But that is not the main difference. The biggest difference is the media. The media is a kind of middle man between government and the people. Since governing the country is more complicated than running a company and since majority of people don't know how to interpret many of the government actions, media is there to ''explain'' to the people if government is doing a good job or not. It's all about interpreting of information. So who runs the media actually runs the show. what is even more important, without a support of media there is no way that anyone could be elected in the government. Because even if you are most talented and most virtuous person in the world, if you don't have media coverage you simply don't exist to the public...And how to get into media? Well, you have to sell yourself to those who control the media. That's the beauty of this "democratic"system we live in...

* I never said it would happen in the ME, I have always kept an open mind as to where the spark will be lit.. having been in the ME and North Africa.. I can say I am not surprised it was there.

My opinion is (hope this doesn't sound offending to the people from these countries) - In terms of industrial, and technological development, and the development of the society ME is probably in the same stage of UK's been in 19th century. When - from that point (industrial revolution) severe fights for democracy and human rights gradually shaped Europe into what we consider a modern society. Standards that are set through many mass protests, wars and revolutions in past 200 yrs may not be ideal, but at least we are becoming aware of what else should be improved. (Maybe this is the way how evolution of the species works)
At the same time there are countries (ME; Africa etc.) still having rather medieval social settings with religion playing very important role. In spite of the fact that they formally have modern types of governing, I think that they didn't pass the phase of really questioning authorities, till now.

However, as a humanity in general, we are all contributing to the process of becoming more advanced civilization, I hope , each of us on it's specific way. With ME rising the new historical cycle begins which is obviously similar to what you are referring.

As for leaderless revolution;
There is an interesting thing occurring here (Croatia) - 2000 people gathered yesterday in a peaceful and hilarious protest - without any plan or a leader. They were walking all around the city followed by the cordons of police with no need for coordinator of any kind, their actions were unison, so to speak. They were synchronized spontaneously in a quite complicated route.

I vaguely remember a notion in one Maria von Frantz book - about traditional masons (Burman?) who build complicated houses without the blueprint or measuring. She is referring to the ability of the group to act in a synchronized way by some paranormal means, providing they have the same goal.

[

reply to post by Douriff


Without meaning to sound mean either, I found myself reflecting on the "lot" of the people I worked with and saw in the ME, that was where the spark in my mind lit that they where like the 19th century people in my neck of the woods.. the similarity was striking, tho I never made that leap they would be embarking on the route they are.. but in hindsight I should have seen it since I was already making the comparison.

I have always found it interesting how these things are shaped.. in my neck of the woods (Sussex, Southern England) once the spark was lit the contagion spread like wildfire across the region.. but as you seem to imply the protesters all seemed to gather and behave in the same way across the whole of South Eastern England even tho people didn't really travel outside their village..

But I've always pondered how that happened, how it spread so quick, and how most protesters acted in the same way... if you dig into it, although they destroyed property, there was very very little in the way of actual violence.. how does that get communicated to a mass population?? I know the fingers today are pointed at facebook or twitter and yet.. and yet I still feel there is something much much deeper going on.. a transformation of sorts?? an urge that needs to be fullfilled? I really can not put my finger on it.. but there is a lot more to this than meets the eye.

And I really do not think we in the West will be immune to this.. it'll be interesting to see where we go from here..