The protests are growing bigger, too, both in terms of sheer numbers and proportion of the broader population. Each year between 20, the number of mass protests increased annually by an average of 11.5 percent.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a center-right think tank, has attempted to nail down the phenomenon with a new report called “The Age of Mass Protests: Understanding a Global Trend.” The paper’s authors analyzed data from across the globe and found that the current period of mass protests dwarfs any that has come before in size and frequency.
Last year was not an aberration but an intensification, and we can all feel it even if we can’t put our finger on it. Maybe the reason 2019 has gotten short shrift is that we are living through an entire era of roiling mass demonstrations. Rachman hints at it, but doesn’t flesh it out, when he predicts that 2020 may be even more volatile than 2019. There is another possible explanation for the understated response to such an eventful year. “There has also been no single iconic moment - no fall of the Berlin Wall or storming of the Winter Palace to capture the drama.” Perhaps this is because they happened in places too disparate and dissimilar to give rise to a single narrative, Rachman speculates. All told, according to a separate analysis, mass demonstrations took place in 114 countries.īut despite the intensity and global spread of these protests, 2019 does not seem poised to develop the reputation it deserves. He enumerates the places where particularly significant protests broke out across the world: Hong Kong, India, Chile, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Spain, France, the Czech Republic, Russia, Malta, Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and Sudan. Mysteriously skipping over 2011, the year of the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, Rachman cautiously adds another year to this list: 2019. As the liberal columnist Gideon Rachman observed in the Financial Times, it’s the first in a string of years whose mere mention conjures vivid images of mass unrest: 1848, 1917, 1968, 1989. But despite their failure, the year 1848 did go down in history as a fateful year of protest. The revolts were crushed everywhere and followed by a period of severe repression. Everywhere the rule of the bourgeoisie will now come crashing down, or be dashed to pieces.” The flames of the Tuileries and the Palais Royal are the dawn of the proletariat. “Our age, the age of democracy, is breaking. Mass street protests had erupted in France, and a current of rebellion was coursing through Europe. “The year 1848 is working out well,” wrote a satisfied Friedrich Engels.
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