What do you think 2011? It not even over yet but we have witnessed a sweeping social transformation across vast landscape unprecedented in scale and number. It is really a change season. I wouldn't have been able to grasp the real significant of these chain of events without real pondering it. First because of the distance from here and second because of the mechanics of their political culture that I am so foreign to. But I and I am sure you too agree these kind of social revolution, the yearning inside, is universal and basic. Think about the distant or the precursor to these modern popular uprising, the French revolution? or way back even to William the Orange?
Actually we did experience one in 1998, the people led by students toppled a powerful secular militarist regime who had reigned for 32 years, Suharto. He is more like a Mubarak-type (but without the cage thinggy). That one ended up quite well. It changed totally the atmosphere of the country and we now have one the most thriving democratic populations in the world even more vibrant than many of the developed nations. But it is a messy one. But that's ok, what is not in this world , right?
The next one near here was the one in Thailand a couple years ago. When exactly I forgot, but what's happening to it now? Did it bring a significant change?
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is, I am incredibly lucky to live in the year of 2011 to be a witness, albeit a detached one, from the social tsunamis going on in North Africa and the Middle East. They do have an impact. They do reverberate across the globe. In and through all darkness, we know hope will thrive, freedom will rise. Now let's watch Libya.