Power To The People
The People Power Revolution of 1986 was a series of nonviolent and prayerful mass street demonstrations in the Philippines that occurred in 1986. It was the inspiration for subsequent non-violent demonstrations around the world including those that ended communist rule in Eastern Europe. It is sometimes referred to as the Yellow Revolution due to the presence of yellow ribbons during the arrival of Ninoy Aquino. These protests were the culmination of a long resistance by the people against the 20-year running authoritarian regime of then president Ferdinand Marcos and made news headlines as "the revolution that surprised the world."
For a while the mighty Chinese government was held accountable by the student population in Beijing in 1989 and many of us can remember the picture of one lonely student , known subsequently as Tank man, standing before the Chinese tank challenging it with non-violent protest.
It was also the pressure of the common people in Czechoslovakia that ended Communist rule in that land. It became known as the Velvet or Gentle Revolution. On the 17th November, 1989, a Friday, riot police suppressed a peaceful student demonstration in Prague. That event sparked a series of popular demonstrations from November 19 to late December. By November 20 the number of peaceful protesters assembled in Prague had swollen from 200,000 the previous day to an estimated half-million. A two-hour general strike, involving all citizens of Czechoslovakia, was held on November 27.
Pressure from ordinary people led to the collapse of other Communist governments and increasing street protests, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia announced on November 28 that it would relinquish power and dismantle the single-party state. Alexander Dubcek was elected speaker of the federal parliament on December 28 and Václav Havel the President on December 29, 1989.
Earlier this year the first Black president of the USA had his inauguration in Washington, something which marked the great strides made in the US by ordinary people in a relatively short time. These and other examples show how the apparently powerful can be forced into exchanging places with those who are apparently weak and powerless. With the recent squabbles between the coalition partners in Stormont it would seem that we need our own revolution from the bottom to the top. It would seem that we will never see the improvement in community relations until we see that desire coming from the streets to the corridors of power. Maybe the time has come for us to stop making our political masters the scapegoat for a lack of progress. Maybe it is time for the ordinary people to say that we want to learn about how to share that common space we hear about, how to share power in a meaningful way: that we want our politicians to work together in courageous and creative leadership.
Christians speak of the power of the gospel and the power to change that comes from knowing God personally. We ourselves have little power but the bible tells us that it when we are weak that we are really strong and it’s when we are poor that we are really strong. We need a New Ireland based upon the principles of the only kingdom that matters: the kingdom of God. |
