Individualism and change

With president Barack obama's presidential campaign the word change and the phrase "Yes we can" became very famous worldwide. The whole world was expecting big changes and the impacts of those changes on the whole world. But we really saw major changes. I was looking for reasons that despite a great desire for change all over the world we do not see the changes.

During my quest I saw a strage contrast between the West and East in the people's response to events. Large demostrations and massive participation of people in huge demonstrations in East, especailly in Middle East and South Asia is eye catching. You may think that people are politically aware, responsible and active but the rsult is nil. Why?

On other hand, it is really hard tast to pull people togather and much difficult to pull them out on the street in the West. In conference rooms only tens of people and with some success hundreds but if you call these people on the street, even lesser people. You may think, people are politically unaware, irresponsible and inactive. But it is not true. Perhaps people don't want change. It is not true either.

The real difference between massive demonstrations in East and far less participation of people in the rellies in West is due the socail structures. In East people are more social and the population is well divided on the ethnic, lingual and religious basis. Identities have deeply embedded into lives of people so a call for demonstration get more response than in West where neighbors are strangers and people live thier individualistic lives. Pulling people on the street requires a tremendous efforts and appeals to people.

But both these issues and differences are not much related to change. Change comes from intellectuals. In both East and West the layers of intellectuals who have desires, willingness to appeal and lead the change is missing. Without presence of this layer in a society the demostration of people is no more than a mob and slogans of the change is nothing more than business of poiltics.