RevolutionDr. John BarrySchool of Politics, International Studies and PhilosophyQueen’s University Belfast

Talkin’ bout a revolution…

Change, dramatic change ….

“all is changed, changed utterly

A terrible beauty is born”, WB Yeats

Types of revolution – political, cultural, ‘paradigm-shift’, violent or non-violent, economic (the industrial revolution), or technological (internet, communications)

Causes of political revolution – injustice, repression, inequality, technological changes, new norms and expectations, unfulfilled expectations, anger, deliberate manipulation

Threat of revolution (bad cop) and radical change as necessary for reform (good cop) and more modest change

From ancient slave revolts to the Arab spring…to potential of ‘anti-austerity’

revolt throughout Europe?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution

inevitable”, John F. Kennedy.Revolution: Progressive or regressive? ‘Velvet revolution’ in Czechoslovakia versus Pol Pot

Revolution in an apolitical age?

The revolution is only a t-shirt away…

New sources of revolt?Triple crunch of

1. Financial /economic crisis and ‘politics of austerity’

2. Climate change

3. Peak oil and energy insecurity

Anti-capitalist revolt….

Occupy movements – the West’s ‘Arab Spring’?...

Concluding thoughts…

“Periodic revolution, at least once every 20 years, [is] a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.’ Thomas Jefferson

“Activism is the rent I pay for living on this planet”, Alice Walker

Revolution as necessary and inevitable for social and political progress…key issue is ensuring it is as non-violent as possible….but…

“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

Frederick Douglass