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1 year away? It looks like we _are_ in a period of global riots: Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen. The sectarian violence in Iraq. Anarchy in Somali
by ajays 14y ago
1 year away? It looks like we _are_ in a period of global riots: Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Yemen. The sectarian violence in Iraq. Anarchy in Somalia, South Sudan. I don't think we've ever seen so many independent conflict areas.
- nvmc 14y agoNo we're not. Countries that have (or had) long standing dictatorships are rioting. The closest the first world has had to a riot is when Canada lost that hockey game.
- te_chris 14y agoLet's just forget the mass protests all over the western world recently then.
- kamaal 14y agoProtests are very different than riots. Riots are when masses 'give up' and resort to something else. Needless to say the entire western world is very far away from it.
- grecy 14y agoWhat about the Occupy Protests in LA?
- mbell 14y agoThe irony is that no where near 99% showed up, it was actually far closer to 1%.
- lifeguard 14y agoI would not even call the Black Bloc rioters. They use guerrilla tactics, hit and run. Occupy protests are not riots despite all the police in riot suits standing around sweating.
- lifeguard 14y agoFeds on hackernews, rad!
- nvmc 14y agoThose were barely riots. A whole lot of college students killed some grass on some public parks. For a noble cause.
- FrankBooth 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots
- nvmc 14y agoMy mistake. I didn't think of those ones until ten seconds after my comment.
- killerdark 14y agoAnd we had a couple more around Paris a few years back as well.
- ajays 14y agoDon't forget Greece.
- ekianjo 14y agoThere has always been regions or unrest all around the world at the same time. It is not because you do not hear it in the news that it does not happen. Somalia, Nigeria, Rwanda, India, Pakistan, China (China itself has thousands of riots every year in the countryside that noone talks about), and I am sure there are probably a lot more that I am not aware of. You just see the tip of the iceberg. Just open any newspaper from 20-30-40 years ago, you will see a picture of a world full of conflicts and disorder everywhere. This being said, I do believe there are "triggers" that may help people to riot, and the price of food may be one. By the way, food pricing and "hunger" are two different things. Noone was suffering from Hunger in Egypt when they rioted. Let's call a cat a cat. I love when people write about "Hunger" while they live in a world where noone around them have experienced hunger once in their lives. Don't USE words you do NOT understand. And this article is BS anyway, since the author throws some global warming salt together with some "evil speculators" pepper. Making a link between drought and global warming, maybe, without any clear explanation ? Droughts have ALWAYS happened in History, even when we did not produce carbon. Strange huh ?
- gregsq 14y agoWell, I have to say that your analysis of Egypt is quite wrong. The last time I was in the poorer parts of Egypt, in 2008, extreme food poverty was easy to find. Men in sack cloth queued at huts waiting for unleavened flat bread. One method used by Mubarak to contain dissent was in providing food aid to the poor, and wealth disparity in Egypt had fostered a festering hatred of the government. The intensity of the Egyptian riots is very much connected to general poverty and food scarcity in large parts of Egypt, though not uniformaly. Cairo is a different circumstance. None the less, your point is incorrect.
- ars 14y agoThere were economic riots in the West Bank today. Although those were more due to corruption. However the thing people complained about was high prices.