Since February, we’ve seen one Dictator in the Arab world after another fall because of the collective actions of citizens on the ground. Most of those actions have been bloody. Regimes of the powerful do not give over power easily. Witness what is happening in Syria with President Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown on the struggling rebellion. Not all countries will have regime changes, nor even changes in the basic “might makes right” philosophy which is culturally embedded and may flourish under a new moniker.
Today it appears that Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi’s time in Libya may soon come to a close. The cascade of unrest illustrates more movement happening in a region where Young Soul dictators, often employing the strictures of Baby Soul dogmas, the Koran and Islam, are being challenged by a much more Mature Soul concept: Democracy. Collective action is a fundamental requirement of this paradigm. Wisconsin displayed it earlier this year. Moving the mountain of other entrenched power centers will require much of the same fervor and intensity at work in the Arab world. Currently, the Tea Party Movement is at the forefront of the American movement to undercut the power of existing government. Or at least, it thinks it is.
Understand that a paradigm shift makes its first emergence through the negative pole, which in this case is dissence. Not knowing what to ally to, it is simpler to reject what is while not really knowing what a viable alternative is. Though, ideas like “going back to the good ole’ days” are notions which act as a simple catch-all substitute. One might say that the Tea Party movement, with its Mature Soul fuel, is still pervaded with “us and them”. The question that must be answered for anyone trying to peek their head above the water of this needless divisiveness is to actually identify, not the who, but the what. In the Arab world, they are attempting to challenge the mind set of top-down ruler-ship and obedience. In America, it is an attempt to come to terms with the impotence and complacency caused by the embellishments of convenience.
Be careful of overly simplistic solutions like: “stop government taxation” or “let the free market handle it.” When these slogans move thoughtful people to the sidelines in favor of loud shouting zealots, the game may soon be over. But not because someone actually won the game; because the field of play was taken over and the freedom to engage has been suspended.
To be a Mature Soul is not the point. It is a label and can be an equally simplistic slogan. No, to be a mature adult means you know what you are rejecting and why, but you also offer a mechanism for forming a new vision…and not just speaking about those good old days. They were never here in the first place.
Our best days are ahead of us. If we choose to make them so.
Carpe insurrectum!
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