Algeria Here is one of the reasons that the Algerian protest movement is unable to carry out a revolution: The protesters "call for" and "demand" . That is not what the history of revolutions inform us about how to "remove a ruling elite." Here are some conditions: A regime has to face a mounting pressure that makes it implode from inside. A revolutionary movement that paralyses the economic machine through a general strike. A split in the military/winning of a significant section of the armed forces. The regional and foreign intervention is weak or unable to prolong or co-opt the revolutionary movement. On the contrary, favourable international conditions have to exist. That is absent today. The movement has a strong mass support because the majority/at least a coalition of social strata, including a section of the middle classs, not only desire change, but also believe in the viability and achievability of an alternative. The movement p...
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51