Libya - A harsh reality check.

[Dave A]

I've been watching with some interest as people celebrated the "rise of people power" in a few parts of Africa up North. I even read of some twit who claimed the recent Youth festival in SA had helped trigger the popular uprising in Egypt.

But harsh reality had to come sooner or later. It was only a matter of time before someone resorted to the traditional way of dealing with civil unrest. As the news of unrest in Libya came through, I thought "here it comes, this one isn't going to go smoothly."

And sure enough the blood has started to flow in earnest.

Rocking the boat in pseudo democracies is one thing - toppling dictators is a whole different story.

For those few countries in the world that actually do have a healthy democracy going, I hope you truly appreciate what you've got.

[ChrisNG53]

My feeling is that the world has changed forever. Because of the "emotional intelligence" of the younger generation, fueled by "live" information and social networking, maintaining "convenient lies" and suppressing "inconvenient truths" is gonna become quite impossible.
For governments, and societies, it does mean constant vigilance as regards this "lies/truth" issue, because it is gonna catch up with them sooner rather than later.
That is why I am such a pain in the butt about AA and BEE. If and when some "brown or white kid" blows the place up, on account of feeling "alienated", everyone is gonna be ever so surprised ... but it will be too late. What happened when the White kid went and gratuitously shot up Blacks is a portend ....

Most dangerous is the current socio-economic model where the "happy cabal" of government and big business must dish out jobs to the "unhappy majority", simply as an insurance against social unrest ... as opposed to a genuine "transformational" model where "self employment (and true dignity)" is the preoccupation.