In 2007, Time magazine made Vladimir Putin, then in his last year as Russia's president before becoming prime minister and planning to come back to the throne again, Person of the Year.2007 Time Person of the Year
This year, 2011, Time chose "The Protester" as person of the Year.
2011 Time Person of the Year
The protests in Moscow over the rigged December elections continue and as outlined by Foreign Policy Russian correspondent Julia Ioffe in a series of articles, the Times in Russia May be a Changing. The series gives good insight into the goings on on the ground in Moscow that will help you when we study Russia next semester. Interesting not only to read the articles, but the opposition comments posted. One needs to be reminded, it is one-thing to be a government-critiquing journalist in a liberal democracy, quite another to be one in still Putin's Russia.
Kreminology 2012
9 comments:
One of the articles really lauded Alexey Navalny for accomplishing a lot, like gaining widespread support for the movement via his blog and busting corrupt corporations. It's good to see a protest movement produce some concrete results, something which all protest groups should try to do. But another article voiced concern over his radical nationalist views. I wonder if he can lead the opposition well if he is excludes certain groups. It seems like Russia faces a choice between Putin's "party of crooks and thieves" and Navalny's questionable ideology.
I'm not very surprised when Time selected "protesters" as person of the year. Seeing their role in events such as Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, their impact for political and social change was hard to ignore. The magazine every year has a unique person or group as person for the year. I remember in 2006 when they selected "you" which meant web created content such as YouTube and MySpace made the biggest impact in society over the course of the year.
Amid occurrences like the the Arab Spring and the Occupy Wall Street Movement, Time's 2011 "Person of the Year" designation is very unsurprising. The "Person of the Year" distinction is an extremely unique and curious designation; it is not given to honor individuals as role models or benefactors to the world, but rather individuals who are responsible for a severe and lasting shift in the status-quo of areas of the globe or the world as a whole. As such, it makes total sense to bestow the title upon both Vladimir Putin and Protesters (which includes the protesters in Moscow) within a four-year period.
I think the shift in person of the year shows just how quickly the global political scene can change. 4 years ago Putin was lauded for bringing stability, and now the protesters of Russia are the ones in the spotlight. If the past year has shown anything, I think it has shown that people will take suppression for only so long until they fight back. It seems pretty unclear whether anything will change in Russia but the sheer fact that there are protests shows movement towards a more open system of government.
The differences between protests in different places in the TIME Protester article really struck me. Even though, like the article mentions, Americans at the Occupy Wall Street protests are not putting their lives on the line through their protests, they're just as important as the protesters in Tunisia, Egypt, and Moscow. They're still fighting against corruption and people and laws that lower the living standards of people, albeit not as drastically as in other countries. Another thing that stood out to me was that in other countries, it's not just the lower or middle class people who are protesting - it's MBAs, physicians, and filmmakers. I think until people who are relatively wealthier than the average American and maybe well-known public figures start protesting in the U.S. (and a common agenda is decided upon), things won't necessarily change like they did in other countries.
The Protesters makes sense. Actually, it seems like the cool thing to do nowadays is to rebel against something.
The thing that caught my attention more was actually the fact that Putin was voted Man of the Year back then. I know that Times does not always hand out this award to the nicest, as demonstrated by the winner in 1938, but it still surprised me. As I am currently reading Putin's Russia, it seems as if this man has not done many good things. Military abuse, media silence, and ,in general, all come to mind.
But still, The Protester is a nice touch. Americans sure do love the feeling that these revolutions (if i may call them such) are spreading across the globe in order to spread Democracy and peace. (rebellion = peace?) It will be interesting to see what the situation is a few years from now. Will all of this protesting be remembered?
While this clearly illustrates the volatility of the world, spanning from Putin to the Protester, one thing has always bothered me. When time is saying a person of the year, this does not mean a group or an entity. While I completely understand that the protester may have been the most important global force on a macro level, Time should change the name to force of the year or something of that nature.
I think that, in short, this is remarkable. Over the past year's time, there has been a resurgence of importance assigned to the voice of the individual, of movement of collective voices. If nothing else, this designates a victory for democracy. I mean, of course I could reference the protests in the Middle East, the various dysfunctional regimes that were taken down by the power of freedom. Maybe that sounds like a glittering generality, but you catch the drift. I think that this is significant for protesters across the board. Throughout recent American history, there have been various unrelated movements, all to assert the voice of the individual against the corporation, against the plutocracy. There`s no reason to believe that the mats protests in the Midwest against Republican governors and Republican legislators and laws stripping union rights led to the Occupy movement. But they're still related in general purpose, certainly.
It is amazing to think that a seemingly insignificant even such as a fruit vendor setting himself on fire can spark rebellions that extended to Egypt, Libya, and Syria. The event truly communicates both the power of a single person and the interconnectedness of the world. of the globe "The protester" truly symbolizes the year, while the continually improving technology of the year gave the world a vector to observe the events that have transpired.
Post a Comment