A good portion of the globe has been rocked these past few weeks with civic unrest, demonstrations and riots in North Africa and the Middle East.
When a young fruit peddler in Tunisia set himself on fire in front of a small city government office because a corrupt police officer had confiscated his market scale, holding it for blackmail payments and eliminating the vendor's only source of income, the victim purchased some kerosene and made his painful point. He had enough of the unfairness of his life. He died about a week later.
But that set off a miniature frenzy of social network messages since traditional news sources had been banned from that area for years. Those triggered more massive demonstration.
Riots ensued in Tunisia and spread out to Egypt and those were finally covered by the large news gathering agencies and the dictator Hosni Mubarak was disposed and sent packing as was Tunisia's dictator.
More demonstrations, prompted by social networking, broke out in Yemen, Libya, Bahrain, Morocco and other places where democracy had been squelched by evil dictators who had held uneven control of their countries for decades, keeping the public under their iron-fisted rule while they gathered billions in undeserved money that was dished out mainly to themselves, their immediate family and a few friends.
Those who had had enough turned out to demonstrate, rioting for change and in two instances, they got it with the dictators disappearing under the cover of night and a third one just about to.
At the same time as the social networks in Africa and Middle East were calling on the young people to gather and rally for their cause, the same network was being deployed in Ottawa - only in this case - the rallying cry was for students to gather on or near the Rideau Canal to dance. The flash crowd call attracted over 400 students, mainly from nearby Carleton University. They danced to the music, giggled a lot and then went home to cozy dorms and apartments.
The Middle East and African demonstrators got beaten and shot. Hundreds of them died. But they rallied support to rid their countries of evil leadership and set the stage for democratic elections.
In Ottawa, the students who were rallying, got cold cheeks and hot chocolate. Nobody got beaten or shot. They went home to study, watch television or do a little more social networking or games playing on their computers or app devices.
What I find ironic is the fact that statistics indicate that when it comes time to vote again, 80 per cent of those 400 Canadian students will totally ignore the opportunity to exercise their democratic privilege. They'll gather in droves to dance and party, but can't be bothered to vote.
Over in Africa and the Middle East, their counterparts were literally dying to gain that same privilege.
Nuff said.
