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Reasons why what happened in Tunisia and Egypt wouldn't happen in America
by Joseph Ernest January 31, 2011
Newscast Media HOUSTON, TX--The uprising we saw in Tunisia and what we currently see in Egypt are happening because third world and developing countries tend to have collectivist cultures. In Africa there is a saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." In other words, in a collectivist culture, people are encouraged to work in groups. It is one for all, all for one. It is a lot easier to mobilize and organize revolutionary events in collectivist cultures than it is in an individualistic culture.
America is an individualistic nation. An individualistic culture places more emphasis on personal achievement at the expense of group goals, resulting in a strong sense of competition, that's the reason people have no problem abandoning their families and children just to pursue careers. It's also the same reason why people in an individualistic culture have no problem dumping their parents in nursing homes at a certain age because the parents are then looked upon as inconveniences. You never see Asians, Latin American natives, African natives or even American Indians doing that to their parents. It's because they come from collectivist cultures.
Since the American society is individualistic, the self-important "It’s all about me" attitude would cripple any effort to hold mass demonstrations that we see happening in third world countries. People in the US are more concerned about how they benefit personally, than how a group benefits collectively. As long as a person in an individualistic culture has a job, why should he or she care if a neighbor doesn't have a job? Your boss can fire you anytime, yet you need to give your boss two weeks' notice before switching careers. It is possible to live in a neighborhood without having contact with neighbors for two or three years in an individualistic culture. That would never happen in a collectivist society.
In an individualistic culture when a person is invited for a job interview, the boss or supervisor on the other side of the desk is looking at the interviewee wondering, "I wonder how much work I can get out of this individual for the least amount of money?" The interviewee on the other hand is looking at the prospective employer wondering, "I wonder how money I can get out of this employer for the least amount of work?" It's never about how a culture or community can mutually benefit from each other's fruits of labor.
However, in Tunisia and Egypt, people closed their businesses and offices. They realized the youth who graduated couldn't get jobs and were setting themselves ablaze to make statements. Nobody, not even the governments were listening to them. They collectively decided to join the youth and started a revolution. Even after the government cut off their Internet service and other means of communication, these freedom fighters continued collectively as a single impenetrable unit. That's where their strength resided.
In America, if the government threatened to shut off the Internet and phone services, it would be enough to disperse crowds. We live in a society where people are addicted to BlackBerrys, iPhones, Social networks and television, so depriving the average American from the above-mentioned services would be too much to bear. The society we live in is very superficial and pretentious. There is a general lack of depth and substance in conversations. Relationships are shallow and seem contrived. More often than not when people approach you, they are trying to sell you something. To them you are more of a business transaction than a human being. Anything that challenges or stimulates the intellect is frowned upon. I would venture to say that in some communities you are even reviled or despised for being educated because intelligence is perceived as being "uncool."
In colleges very few professors teach because teaching is their personal calling in this life. Most are there because they checked out of the corporate world and saw teaching as something to fall back on. These teachers, professors and instructors aren't even passionate about their craft or students. They wouldn't hesitate to flunk a student who held a different worldview or political opinion than they did. They forget that college is a place for debate and exchange of ideas. They don't think about how their actions could affect an entire community or generation, because they think individualistically. In a collectivist society the success of the student is directly proportional to how a teacher rates his or her success. Your successes become theirs, even when you out-do them.
Revolutions like the ones happening in North Africa occur when people are in one accord. In the West when a girl is dating a man and tells her parents about it, the first thing the parents ask is: "What does he do?" In third world countries especially Africa, when a girl tells her parents she has a boyfriend the parents ask: "Whose son is he?" The difference between the two responses is that one culture places more value on how much money a person makes or whom that person works for, whereas another culture places more emphasis on the person's upbringing.
One might ask, what's wrong with people putting value on what a person does for a living? Isn't it honorable to work for a living? There is nothing wrong with that as long as one can separate oneself from one's job, but in an individualistic society it is almost impossible to do so. That's the reason why it is not unusual for people in America to fall into deep depressions or to commit suicide once they lose their jobs. In other cases, they simply become jaded and self-destruct.
Somehow these people have failed to realize that you are not your job or job title. You are not the company you work for. You are not the car the you drive, and you are not the neighborhood you live in or Country Club you belong to. Strip the average person in an individualistic culture of a job title, car, house, membership clubs, and cell phone, you'll have someone walking on the road to ruin. Ask the average person to spend a week without watching television, they'll look at you with a confused look on their face, like Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke at a Congressional hearing, when asked: "Where did the money go?"
The only group of people that can come close to having a revolution are Mexicans. We saw it on May 1, 2006 when they collectively had the largest immigration protest march in the nation.
It is rare nowadays to meet authentic individuals with raw passion because all the status we think we have, is merely status quo. Add Comments>>
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