Every country I have visited, with the possible exception of Canada, has experienced a revolution, uprising, coup d'etat or other violent attempt to unseat a sitting government or prevent a new government from seating itself. In some of those countries, like Cambodia and Laos, people are still living with the aftermath--which is sometimes quite visible--of those uphevals. And, for a time, I lived in a country that had one of the most famous coups of all: The first time I walked around the Place de la Concorde in Paris, I tried to imagine it covered in blood spilled from the guillotines set up where the famous obelisks stand.
Now, I have participated in a few demonstrations in my time. We were agitating for change that, we felt, wasn't coming from elected leaders or institutions. But I never, at any time, threw my lot in with any person or group who tried to violently overthrow a duly-elected government or inflict harm on any person. I am, I guess, a product of a country where things haven't been done that way.
Until yesterday, that is. Most people, including the actual and self-appointed pundits in the media, believe that the mobs who stormed the Capitol won't succeed in their efforts to keep the results of the election from being ratified and President-elect Joe Biden from being inaugurated. My guess is that they're right, but I don't think we should see such an outcome as guaranteed.
The thing is, while their actions may have been an inevitable outcome of what President Trump and his supporters have done--and, worse, condoned--they weren't normal, at least in one sense. Most other uprisings and revolutions are a result of deprivation: as one of Bob Marley's reminds us in Them Belly Full , "A hungry mob is an angry mob." More precisely, the violence is a reaction to someone in power saying, whether with their words or actions, "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche."
One thing that makes yesterday's riot--and, more accurately, rioters--different is that they're not revolting against a government that's in power. They are trying to prevent a newly-elected government from taking power. At least, that's their ostensible purpose. But their real anger rages against what they perceive to be the real power: a left-liberal conspiracy in the media, academic world, governments and the world economy (globalism). And they see, however inaccurately, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as its proxies.
 |
| Photo by Erin Schaff, from The New York Times blog |
The other difference between them and earlier revolutionaries is that they're not hungry, at least not in the physical sense. At least, my guess is that most of them aren't: The really hungry people are too overworked or too beaten down to do what yesterday's protesters did. Rather, they are resentful (which, it can be argued, is a kind of spiritual starvation) of people who are blacker, browner, gayer or in any other way different--and therefore, in their eyes, the beneficiaries of unfairly acquired privilege. The guy won't wear a mask believes that his job is in jeopardy because of a woman in a hijab and that his safety is in danger from another woman who wrapped herself and her children in a shawl after a coyote left them in the desert night.
The assault in the Capitol is a developing story and I realize that by the time you read this, new details will have emerged and some parts of this post might be out of date. But I felt the need to say something about it because my cycling journeys have taken me to places that experienced what I never thought--until recently--would happen here in the US.
