Britain, Italy, Russia & Greece paralyzed as 2011 shapes up to be year of mass civil disobedience
- The fallout from last week’s violent student fees demonstrations in London continues to reverberate as authorities prepare to introduce water cannons as a means of forcibly subduing protesters and banning protests altogether.
- Rome has been paralyzed by the worst rioting in 30 years as anti-Berlusconi protesters fought running street battles with police in some of the busiest tourist areas of the Italian capital.
“Rome was defiled like it hadn’t been since 1977 during the terrible Years of Lead,” when Italy was rocked by violent political militancy, said the Corriere della Sera daily.
- Anti-austerity riots in Athens have sent Christmas shoppers “fleeing in panic” as Greeks demonstrated against a fresh round of public sector pay cuts.
In one incident, MP Kostis Hatzidakis was left bloodied and bruised after being chased and beaten by dozens of protesters.
- In Russia, anti-government protesters demonstrated at two separate rallies in Moscow, calling for the resignation of Vladimir Putin and greater rights for minorities and the disenfranchised.
This fresh round of civil unrest follows riots that crippled France in October and other violent clashes around Europe. Although the riots are not all specifically related to the same issue, they are feeding into a general mood of mass resentment against the ruling elite. Indeed, it seems that America is one of the few major countries not to have been hit by mass rioting.
With financial experts predicting more riots for 2011, our June prediction that the
coming years will become known as the “age of rage”
is unfortunately coming to fruition. As the austerity measures start to bite, as unemployment creeps up, as public services are cut, as crime rises, as taxes skyrocket, more and more people will take to the streets.
As historian Simon Schama, himself an establishment figure, has noted, such scenes will prompt the ruling elite to take an even more brutally authoritarian turn in a bid to quell mass unrest.
We are witnessing the beginnings of a new class warfare now that the “population…can no longer be cajoled into believing sacrifices to further enrich the über-rich are in the best interest of their nation,” according to Gerald Celente.
As economic conditions continue to deteriorate in Europe and the U.S., the uprisings will grow larger, more frequent, more organized and more ferocious. In response, government crackdowns will be harsher and more violent. As the New Year unfolds, the stage is set for incendiary acts that will be committed by one side or the other, escalating the conflict into prolonged battles.
Governments will declare that hooligans, anarchists, militants and foreign agents are responsible for the unrest, and the press will swear to it. What will be painted as assaults on capitalism and the free enterprise system could more accurately be described as acts of self defense; a battle between the growing number of “have nots” vs. the “haves” that keep taking even more than they had before.
2011 will be characterized even more so than 2010 as a year of tension and unrest. With governments now openly mulling whether to ban protests altogether, and in doing so declaring de facto martial law, flashpoints will be plentiful and the masses will only become more enraged as not only their money but also their political freedoms are swiped from under their noses.
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