Wednesday, January 12, 2011

When Kings fall like Clowns

First Egypt and then Libya. We do not know how long Colonel Gaddafi will be able to survive or eventually he might comes out victorious. But the writings on the wall are clear, the world is changing and the common man is asserting itself. The simmering under the skin can be felt in all states run by iron clad governments.
Why suddenly we have a deja vu around the world and a desire to assert the commonness of a common man. I see the future of world very bright from this point. Eventually we are moving to a system where governments are going to be more responsible and responsive. We would still find rulers with delusional behaviors, but they are going to be far limited in numbers and action.
The tendency to move towards democracy has strengthened not today but for the whole span of last century. It will be interesting to understand that, why this change in the world order where autocracy was dominant for the foreseeable history. I feel that if there is one differentiator that has brought all these ideas to fore, that I would put my bet on the education. From education, I just do not mean the booking knowledge but the knowledge that is gained by exchanging ideas and interacting with various philosophies. In the core of every individual there is a selfishness which rules all of us. Take me no wrong, as I do not mean the run of the mill word selfish. By selfishness, I mean the desire to live according to our philosophies and comfort zone. During centuries of autocracy, the philosophies and comfort zone of individuals were built around the notion of serving and dying for kings, who were presumed to be the children of god. As we moved into renaissance period, many people extended the envelop of thinking. The world started realizing that kings are like any humans, just a bit more lucky but no more than that. In fact, I feel every individual of this world is equal, it's a matter of luck (and I would emphasize this factor again). For a moment, reflect back. Imagine if you are not born to your parents, or in a particular country or not went for education under certain teachers where you would have been. Those who think that they have achieved because of the hardships, than think for a moment that those hardships were blessing in disguise. They made you stronger and make you more willed to fight. Coming back to our discussion, the notion that all are equal made the jobs of kings harder. This resulted in widespread democracy in Europe. Now Europeans, armed with this new sense of achievement started ruling the world. It took a while, but in the mid of last century, the colonies realized that they should not be serving anyone. Who brought this idea to these colonies? Natives of colonies studying in European universities. The new round of wave we are seeing towards democracy can be attributed to the Internet, which is helping people of countries like Libya to interact with individuals all around the world and understand the notion of democracy and the freedom that comes with it.

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