Global frustration fuels protests
BEIRUT — In Hong Kong, it was a complicated extradition dispute involving a murder suspect. In Beirut, it was a proposed tax on the popular Whatsapp messenger service. In Chile, it was a 4-cent hike in subway fares.
Recent weeks have seen mass protests and clashes erupt in far-flung places triggered by seemingly minor actions that each came to be seen as the final straw. The demonstrations are fueled by local grievances but reflect worldwide frustration at growing inequality, corrupt elites and broken promises.
Where past waves of protests, like the 2011 Arab Spring or the rallies that accelerated the breakup of the Soviet Union, took aim at dictatorships, the latest demonstrations are rattling elected governments. The unrest on three continents, coupled with the toxic dysfunction in Washington and London, raises fresh concerns over whether the liberal international order, with free elections and free markets, can still deliver on its promises.
People still want fall of regime
Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese poured into the streets after the government floated a new tax on Whatsapp on the heels of an austerity package that came in response to an increasingly severe fiscal crisis.
The protests rapidly escalated into an indictment of the entire post-civil war order, in which a sectarian powersharing arrangement has transformed former warlords and other elites into a permanent political class. In the three decades since the war ended, the same leaders have used patronage networks to get themselves reelected again and again even as the government has failed to reliably provide basic services like electricity, water and trash collection.
A similar story has unfolded in Iraq since the 2003 U.s.-led invasion, where a government that distributes power and top offices among Shiites and minority Sunnis and Kurds has calcified into a corrupt stasis, with parties haggling over ministries as services and infrastructure fall into further ruin despite the country’s considerable oil wealth.
“Thieves! Thieves!” protesters in both countries chanted this week.
The protests in both countries target governments that are close to Iran and backed by its heavily armed local allies, raising fears of a violent backlash. Nearly 200 Iraqis have been killed — 49 in the past two days — in recent clashes with security forces, and supporters of the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group have brawled with protesters in Beirut.
“There is no magical bullet or easy answer to the severe crisis of governance in Arab lands,” said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. “The struggle will be fierce and long and costly, but there is no turning back.”
Rising up against a rising China
Hong Kong’s protests erupted in early June after the semiautonomous city passed an extradition bill that put residents at risk of being sent to China’s judicial system. At one point, protesters said they had brought 2 million people into the streets.
Authorities were forced to drop the extradition proposal. But by then, the movement had snowballed to include demands for full democracy in the form of direct elections for the city’s top leader.
Since China took control of Hong Kong from Britain in 1997, the city’s leaders have been selected by an elite committee made up mostly of pro-beijing tycoons. Local councillors and half of the Asian financial center’s legislature are directly elected, but those in the other half are chosen by representatives from the finance, tourism, catering, accounting and other industries, which adds to the public discontent over stifled promises of democracy.
Underlying the Hong Kong protest movement are rising fears about China’s tightening grip and worries that Beijing is reneging on promises not to meddle with Hong Kong’s Western-style civil liberties, such as freedom of speech and an independent judiciary.
Protesters also fear China’s technology-powered authoritarianism. Wearing masks to conceal their identities, they have cut down “smart lampposts” and smashed surveillance cameras. They worry about artificial intelligencepowered facial recognition surveillance systems capturing their biometric data and sending it for processing by Chinese technology giants to track and identify them.
Unrest in wealthy, democratic Chile
On Friday, an estimated 1 million Chileans filled the streets of the capital Santiago, more than ever took to the streets during the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet or the democratic governments that came after him.
The protests were sparked by the subway fare hike but soon morphed into a mass movement against inequality in one of Latin America’s wealthiest countries. At least 19 people have been killed as protesters have clashed with police in recent days.
“There is a failure of the system of political parties in its ability to represent society,” said Marta Lagos, head of Latinobarometro, a nonprofit survey group in Chile.
Struggling to contain the strife, President Sebastian Pinera’s administration announced increases in the minimum wage, raised minimum pensions by 20% and rolled back the subway fare increase. He also put a 9.2% increase in electricity prices on hold, but with analysts predicting his resignation and fresh elections, the consequences of that move could fall to his successor.
Catalan protests take violent turn
For years, Catalan separatists have held peaceful, festive marches, but the movement took a violent turn this month when protests erupted over the imprisonment of nine leaders who led a bid for independence from Spain in 2017.
That failed attempt left the separatist movement rudderless, with 12 of its leaders arrested and most of the rest fleeing the country.
New activist collectives have emerged, including one calling itself the Tsunami Democratic, which uses its own app and encrypted messages to call for “civil disobedience.”
But one of its first calls to protest turned into a massive siege of Barcelona’s international airport, with rioters clashing with police late into the night.