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Is a Global Spring now unstoppable?

REUTERS / PAULO SANTOS

Hot on the heels of #OccupyGezi in Istanbul, Brazil bursts onto the global revolutionary scene with its own signature heat. Between 200,000 to 400,000 people have flooded the streets in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and in other major cities across the country, protesting whilst waving Brazilian flags, dancing and jubilantly singing slogans such as “The People have awakened” and “Pardon the inconvenience, Brazil is changing.”

This massive uproar was triggered by a 20 cent increase for bus fare in São Paulo several weeks ago. This seemingly small detail was the straw that broke the camel’s back, breaking open the status-quo of Brazil and causing the whole situation across the country to explode. In Istanbul, the final straw was a few trees in Gezi park that were about to be bulldozed over for a Western-style development project. And now the rest of our world seems poised – with every country near and far harboring its own Achilles’ heel; its own tender, exposed nerve of geopolitical vulnerability…

Counting it all since the Greek austerity riots, the Spanish Indignados, Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, there are now over fifteen countries with pissed off, unemployed youth ready to rumble. What will be the final straw for Australia, the UK, Canada? For India… China?

It’s not a question of the possibility of global revolution, but how long it will take for the inevitable to happen – a truly Global Spring!

Could Istanbul and São Paulo signal the beginning of a chain reaction of refusal against consumer-corpo-capitalism? An unstoppable wave of revulsion against business as usual that culminates in a global revolution?

All it would take now is a 1,000 point drop in the Dow Jones tomorrow morning… get ready!

Adbusters’ Creative Director Pedro Inoue just sent in these reflections live from São Paulo:

This feels like the end of something and the beginning of another … all over Brazil people are waking up. Personally it feels like the meme wars have finally started here.

Problem mainly is that Brazil isn’t typically a protest culture. This is new for us. The usual reaction is to shrug shoulders and say: this is why the country doesn’t evolve. The police, the politicians, the institutions are all corrupt so what’s the point in protesting? Now, connected youth, organic, horizontal and angry are flipping this scenario – the old way feels obsolete and they are starting to shake things up.

This might just be the beginning of a big change in Brazil in tune with the rest of the world.

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