The (un)known rebel

For as long as there has been urbanization in a planned and organized manner, do civilizations have recourse to some central square or main avenue in their principal cities.  Whether designed or used for market trading or military parading, the political mandate to architects will always have been that the square shall be a central meeting ground for the people.

Times change, certainly much quicker than inner cities do and in the last three years we have learned and seen the names like Habib Bourgiba, Tahrir, the Pearl roundabout, Syntagma, Taksim, Praça dos Três Poderes, Avenida Paulista and of course the Avenida Presidente Vargas in Rio, the city where "liberte, égalité, fraternité was called much before any French revolution, all principal places in major cities over four continents which were temporarily turned into hotspots by civilian crowds  taking their stand against some government (in)action.

Whether a city, country or a nation feels it practises democracy, or not, it is a population's fair right to exercise usufruct of a public property, even if this involves some form of organisation under some specific motive.     Large gatherings do attract and inevitably come to include individuals that do not align with the crowd's beliefs and may threaten the overall good intent.  Then again, is that not equally true for the party politicians generally targetted in the demonstrations ?

On the other hand, a gathering of 1 million people within a country that populates 65, 85 or even 150 million inhabitants does imply that the far majority has other interests and activities and makes one wonder whether who has access to (mobile) internet claims power over who does not. 

Remember Tianamen in 1989?   No internet or widespread use of handheld phones there and then and only in the years beyond did we came to discover what had been gradually driving the student demonstrations and how they organized themselves before and after the then violent crackdown by militar in Bejing while protests spread to other cities in China.  The man that came to be known as the tankman, individually putting a row of 50 invading tanks to a halt, was included in Time Magazine's top 100 of the 20th century most influential people.

So maybe smartphone technology is just a mere instrument to pursue very old aims and perhaps politicians should step up in truly applying the same channels, with genuine and quality two way communciation, so that we can all visibly agree where we disagree.