The world in revolt
From Hong Kong, to Iraq, to Chile, protesters around the world have taken to the streets to rally against their governments in recent months. These are the key figures driving the anger.
Lebanon: $0.20
With his announced resignation last week, Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri met one of the core demands of protesters who have paralysed the country for almost two weeks.
But the move is unlikely to calm tensions between protesters and a political elite that critics argue is corrupt and responsible for mismanagement, economic woes and environmental issues.
Whereas Lebanon’s problems appear to range widely – from high levels of air pollution, to a garbage crisis that pollutes the Mediterranean Sea, to fears of an economic collapse – protesters see a common thread among them. One factor is the country’s power-sharing system, which is rooted in French colonial rule and distributes parliamentary seats along sectarian lines. The speaker of parliament is always a Shiite Muslim. The president is a Maronite Christian. The prime minister is a Sunni Muslim.
Supporters of that system say the setup prevents one sect from taking control and throwing the country into turmoil. Critics argue that the groups’ differing interests in parliament make it impossible to reach consensus. The Iran-backed Hezbollah group – a political party in Lebanon supported by many Shiites – posed a particular obstacle to Hariri’s more pro-Western stance. Hezbollah is expected to remain a problem for future efforts to form a new government.
How long could that take? Nobody knows, but don’t hold your breath. It took the Lebanese parliament 12 years to pass a budget. It was finally approved this January, because Western lenders made it a requirement for promised loans.
But parliamentary approval may have come too late, as Lebanon’s debt crisis has continued to worsen throughout the year.
Amid deeply rooted discontent with the state of continuous paralysis, tensions boiled over in mid-October when Hariri’s government proposed a 20-cent-a-day fee on internet voice calls. Though almost negligible compared with Lebanon’s broader problems, the proposal appeared to encapsulate a broken political system that has made the average Lebanese poorer, and the wealthiest richer.
Iraq: 168/180
Protests also rocked Iraq last month, as Iraqis voice their anger about issues that appear similar to those in Lebanon: corruption, poor infrastructure and unemployment, among others.
Although Iraq is relatively oil-rich, about 50 per cent of its revenue goes to pay government workers who, in the words of
Washington Post contributor Max Boot, ‘‘do little work’’. Many officials are suspected of using the country’s coffers to enrich themselves and their political patrons.
This perceived level of graft placed Iraq among the most corrupt countries in the world in 2018, according to Transparency International. The group ranked Iraq near the bottom of the global pack, at 168th out of 180.
As in Lebanon, government critics have a broad agenda, with many demanding a revamping of Iraq’s political system.
More than 200 people have been killed since the beginning of last month, including at least 83 people since Friday, after government soldiers opened gunfire against protesters, according to human rights groups.
Hong Kong: 800km
Hong Kong’s protest movement, now in its fifth month, shows no signs of fading away. To some, the longevity of the mass demonstrations – which still draw hundreds of thousands of people on a regular basis – is rooted in a fear that their freedoms to express discontent with the government in Beijing could soon be further curtailed. Long before this year’s mass protests, sceptics began to doubt that China would stick to its principle that had helped unite the former British colony and mainland China: ‘‘One country, two systems’’ – an agreement that had always included the justice system.
Optimists maintained that economic realism would preserve Hong Kong’s semiautonomous status as China was gradually lifting its massive population out of poverty and Hong Kong was drawing profitable businesses. But in recent years, the Chinese economic transformation rapidly gained momentum, and so did pessimism over the future of Hong Kong as a semi-autonomous territory. Ever since Britain handed over control in 1997, pessimists have worried that Beijing would only temporarily tolerate the territory’s unique degree of political and economic freedom. They worried that Beijing was looking for an opening to rein it in.
One such opening came in February 2018, about 800 kilometres away from Hong Kong in northern Taiwan. A pregnant woman on vacation in Taiwan with her boyfriend was murdered and her body stuffed into a suitcase. Her boyfriend, Chan Tong-Kai – a Hong Kong resident – later admitted the crime. But he could not be returned to face charges because Hong Kong does not have an extradition treaty with Taiwan.
The case provided an opportunity for Hong Kong’s chief executive, Carrie Lam, to blur the separation between mainland China and Hong Kong further, her critics say. Months later, she proposed amendments to the territory’s extradition law that would make it easier for suspects to be moved across borders – including that between Hong Kong and mainland China.
Critics of Lam, who already feared she was a puppet of Beijing, said the extradition bill was simply a ploy to allow China more control over Hong Kong and its people.
Human rights activists, business owners and others feared they would no longer be able to rely on Hong Kong’s rule of law if the amendments were passed. Even though the extradition law has been withdrawn, critics fear it is only a matter of time until more restrictions are imposed, especially because the Hong Kong legislature is packed with pro-Beijing loyalists.
Chile: $0.04
As in Lebanon, Chile’s protests were – at least partially – triggered by changes that on the surface appear insignificant but amounted to the last straw.
In Chile, that last straw was a 4-cent hike in subway fares, which unleashed protesters’ anger over what they say are shortcomings in public services and dangerous levels of inequality.
Chile was long considered to be an economic success story in South America. But it came at a cost: younger Chileans, especially, say they have not benefited from what, on paper, has looked like progress.
Healthcare and education, for instance, have been massively privatised. Pensions are vastly insufficient.
Chile is the most unequal country of all Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) member states.
Some protesters have blamed the military dictatorship constitution from 1980, which has enabled subsequent governments to abandon social welfare measures and instead adopt a radically pro-markets stance.
President Sebastian Pinera, in office since last year, has been singled out by protesters for embodying the root of the crisis. The billionaire pursued a similar privatisation drive as president between 2010 and 2014.