Commentary . . . "As I say in the headline of my article for the September issue of COMMENTARY, “Yes, This Is a Revolution.” What we’re witnessing, day after day, is revolutionary violence—and it is tearing up the country at a furious pace. It destroys businesses, livelihoods, and neighborhoods. It has also resulted in numerous deaths.
"In my article, I go through some of the reasons that we, as a nation, are not taking the revolution as seriously as we should. Most of these reasons come down to our inaccurate understanding of what revolutions actually look like. Americans in the 21st century tend to think that what’s happening here is tamer or less serious than what’s gone on in revolutions past. But it’s not. One example, not addressed in the piece, is the relative youth of the revolutionaries. You can see from video footage of the incidents above that the perpetrators of this violence look like teenagers and young adults. And many of the most violent moments of this revolution have involved gangs that could easily pass for teenagers. This makes it easy for some to dismiss the revolutionary violence as just another mode of the senseless destruction often found among young people in groups.
"Well, that’s a historical mistake. The Red Guard of Mao’s Cultural revolution wasn’t made up of seasoned military men or lifelong ideologues; it consisted of high-school and university students. They flocked to the revolutionary cause and repurposed their young lives in its service. The fact that they were teenagers didn’t stop them from killing thousands of Chinese and ruining the lives of a great many more. In fact, the viciousness of these young terrorists became a particular problem for Mao once the revolution was established and he found a remedy in shipping them out to the countryside to live with peasants." . . .
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| Tony Branco |
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