NEWS: Revolution in Northern Africa

Yesterday, I had a very interesting conversation with someone who, with much enthusiasm, claimed the "end of the world' predicted in 2012 is not a physical end but rather an end to the "old world". The ongoing revolution in Northern Africa is the second wave of cultural overthrow set in the islamic world - the first wave happened in the years after WWII in Europe focusing on the Western (Christian) countries and the reshaping of their place in the overal world in both religious and political terms.

I thought that was a most interesting way to put it.

That is indeed an interesting way to put it. Let´s hope it does happen then.

world_piece wrote:Oil prices rising
Grain prices rising
Cost of living rising
Wages plateauing
Employment rates dropping

It's actually quite scary what is going on. When people who have lived comfortably for so long are suddenly filled to the brim with adversity, they can snap and just imagining this on a large scale is terrifying.

Ok so it doesn't answer the OP question but I think it's quite indicative that we may destroy ourselves. It'll start on the economic scale and then spread. Murder-suicides among families will be the least of our worries. What we see in Libya may eventually spread to the more developed countries.

I thought i'd respond to WP's post on this thread as my answer suits this thread by far.
You're certainly right about the rising in prices, that's scary. The really interesting thing about what's going on is embedded in various philosophical and political theories.
The rise in prices might be the old Marxist theory of how the capitalist system is slowly destroying itself through the constant cycles of boom and bust, with major busts lowering the economic equality between classes and therefore increasing class conflict.

However the current unrest in the Arab nations could be pointing towards two different theories in my opinion. The first is Fukuyama's theory on "The End Of History" what Fukuyama means by the end of history is the victory of liberal democracy, and how it will become the only way to rule a country. This can be seen in a variety of factors the main one being discontent with totalitarian/autocratic/plutocratic regimes, this leads to a long build up of unrest until the people can take it no more and want to install a liberal democracy because they've seen the rest of the world in much better positions under this political structure.

Another possible theory is the classic Marxist school of thought on revolutions, i can't say i favour this one at the moment but it's not to be ignored. Marx said that the Proletariat are a revolutionary class, however in order to instigate a revolution certain conditions must be met, first of all class consciousness must take place, in other words they have to realise where their place is in society. This will lead to the lower end (or petite bourgeoisie) of the bourgeoisie joining the Proletariat and working together to over throw the oppressive forces.

Hopefully you can relate these theories to the present circumstances. The BBC have some really good articles on what's going on.
Overview: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12482311
Trends in Revolutions: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12431231