Resentment against dictatorial government

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利比亚为何再现革命?


Many Arab countries have been dominated by military strongmen for a long time; resentment has been simmering for a long time against these dictators, and it took only a spark in the form of a Tunisian peddler's self-immolation to trigger anti-government protests. Starting in Tunisia, there was a domino effect across the region. Egypt fell, and now the focus is on Libya, which has a government more authoritarian that than of either Tunisia or Egypt. It seems that Gadhafi is going to lose control of the country, but the resolution might not be as satisfactory as in Tunisia or Egypt. Libya is more tribal than either of the prior countries, and Gadhafi has dominated for over 40 years; therefore, there is nobody who is seen as capable of reuniting Libya under a single government. Meanwhile, other protests are taking place in Morocco, Algeria, Iran, Yemen, and Bahrain. The protests in Bahrain are particularly relevant with respect to what may occur in China; like China, Bahrain is a country with an expanding middle class and relative economic freedom, but social authoritarianism. This indicates that the Chinese Communist Party's gamble that the people would accept economic freedom in exchange for social restraints might fail; a new revolution in China would almost certainly be bloody, and it may succeed due to the advent of social technologies that did not exist during the Tiananmen protests.