The Revolt of the Middle Class

The Ukraine. Venezuela. Thailand. Egypt. Turkey. The list seems to grow by the day. The world is afire with revolt, but a new kind of revolt, befitting our young century: The revolt of the middle class.

While their complaints are all different, the specifics only magnify what they have in common: All of these protests and rebellions are being led by comparatively well educated, affluent citizens upset about their government’s violation of liberal principles and the rule of law. In all these countries, the nascent revolutionaries either lost or probably would lose a free election, as they don’t represent a clear majority of their societies.

Their protests underscore the first requirement of a successful, stable democracy: A modern nation must find accommodation for the concerns of the minorities in their midst, be they ethnic, cultural, or socioeconomic. And, as we are seeing in places like the Ukraine, Thailand, and Venezuela, there is no more dangerous minority to offend than the aspiring middle class.

I understand at least a little of what it must be like to live in a nation state with little regard for the rule of law. After all, I live in Chicagoland, which is about as close as you can get to living in a banana republic or under the heel of a Eurasian potentate without using your passport.

The corruption of Chicago pols is legendary, of course. But the hijinks of Rod Blagojevich and Jesse Jackson Jr. only scratch at the surface. I live in a small town of around 20,000 citizens in eastern DuPage County, about 10 miles from the Chicago border. There is a guy who lives in an unremarkable house on the north side of town. His name is Joseph C., but he goes by the name of Joey Chicago. He takes several trips a year down to unnamed Caribbean islands, purportedly as part of the local mafia’s money laundering operation. That may or may not be true, but what is a fact is that Joey Chicago has bankrolled a number of corrupt local politicians and crooked cops. Bribes, shakedowns, racially and politically motivated beatdowns: It all goes on within our little town.

Or take my stint in the Chicago Public School system, where I witnessed our principal skim money from the vendors, stack the local school council with personal cronies, and cajole sexual favors from the school’s career staffers. The assistant principal was also a real piece of work, a neurotic neat freak who brushed his teeth obsessively in the faculty washroom and had direct connections with the Gangster Disciples. Our football coach was a young man from the community, well liked by his players but who dealt crack on the side and was found dead one night in a back alley.

Multiply this by the hundreds of other government organizations and taxing bodies scattered across northeast Illinois, and you get an idea of the scale of corruption. This is a city where it is considered a civic virtue to protect your parking spot on a public street after a snowstorm with a chair and then slash the tires of your neighbor if he dares try parking in your spot. Dibs is what they call it. In any other place, it could be called criminal destruction of property.

So I know the face of the enemy. It is the public official who hands out favors to friends and favored constituencies. It is the fat dude down the block driving the Escalade with special state license plates. It is the politician who has his own security detail and puts his kids through private school. It is the demagogue who uses class and race to disguise his own power grab. It is the police captain or union boss who uses muscle to shut folks up.  

Let’s not get starry eyed. The Ukrainian rebels do not want economic democracy; they want free trade with the West and an end to their government’s cronyism. The Venezuelan students protesting on the streets have been on the losing side of several elections. The secular protesters in Turkey do not represent that nation’s Muslim majority.  But that doesn’t make their demands for free speech and a free press any less valid, nor can it dim their dreams for personal freedom.

The world has learned that the desires of the middle class are universal, transcending cultural and religious norms. Bring people up from ignorance and poverty, and they demand the same three things from their government: freedom of expression, access to a quality education, and the rule of law. And I stand with them in all three regards.

It is interesting to note which revolutions survive, and which are crushed. In the darkest moments of the protests in Kiev, when special forces were targeting their front line with high-powered rifles, the protesters responded by running toward the guys with the guns who were shooting them down. The protesters refused to be cowed. Contrast their response with the demonstrations against the Iranian ayatollahs or the student protesters at Tiananmen Square, as both movements withered when confronted with the violence of the state and its henchmen.

The fate of the 20^th Century was largely dictated by blood and iron, as Bismarck famously predicted. We imagine that we live in a new, more enlightened era, but our fate will be decided by similar means, except this time it will be blood and silicon chips that hold the day. Peace is overrated. It may be true that the meek will inherit the earth, but in the meantime, the world is being made by those willing to get their hands a little dirty in the struggle. If there is one thing that living with the petty tyrants of Chicagoland over the past 25 years has taught me, it’s that you won’t get a seat at the table if you can’t bloody a nose.

So I stand with my brothers and sisters protesting the brutality of the tyrant, whether it be in Venezuela, in Turkey, or the Ukraine. These protesters may not represent all the people, and the consequences of their victory may not be clear.  But, whatever its periodic regressions, history bends toward freedom and the rule of law. In the digital age, our willingness to defend these freedoms may be the highest calling of all.