Celebrating the return of the human spirit in Iran

What is the human spirit made of? That is a really huge question isn’t it. There have been some recent shows of courage that have made me wonder whether the ordinary people were getting back into power.

You might object to that statement and think that the power has always been with the little folk. Not so in my view. Although I must say there haven’t been that many centuries that I can think of where the people had the power.

They had it every now and then for a short while such as the French Revolution, although whether the crowds weren’t just manipulated for political purpose is a question that I have had. However, I’m not a great historian. In fact I’m no historian. I can only reflect on the last hundred or so years.

Especially the last forty or so years, that I have been following world politics it has been very obvious that politicians on the whole are maneuvered into powerful positions by the people behind the throne.

It’s so bad, people in the developed world hardly go to the polls anymore. The turnout for the EU elections were pathetic. Nobody cares because they know their vote makes no difference to the outcome. A rare exception has been the last US election with Obama.

Even in the UK with Labour falling apart, supposedly the people’s party, people are wondering what the least harmful option beside Labour could be and the Tories don’t come up as first choice.

People are powerless in more than just their civic rights. The average person earns peanuts while the top echelon of big companies take home huge pay packages, even during the recession.

But it’s more the political arena where there have been some shifts and where there seems to be a reawakening of the people power. As an example of this the uprising in Iran has been a very strong indicator.

Whether this will achieve the results hoped for is another question entirely. What is surely promising though is that Obama has been quiet on the issue. Possibly a wait and see approach. Or maybe for once the US is not going to interfere and allow the people of Iran their voice.

I had had hopes that Burma’s Buddhist monks might have started a greater stand for political rights in 2007. But regrettably the people did not take hold of their human spirit sufficiently to make a difference.

Whether the people of Iran can is another question. Let’s hope that if the elections were rigged, and one doesn’t know this for sure, and the people gather to dispute this, that the human spirit will have shown itself in its true colours and the outcome will celebrates this.