Posted at 06/23/2013 10:37 AM | Updated as of 06/23/2013 10:37 AM
It all started inauspiciously.
In Turkey, it was the conversion of a park into a mall. In Brazil, it was the equivalent of a 4-peso increase in bus fares. In Indonesia, it was relatively more grave, the withdrawal of a government subsidy on gas prices. Yet these seemingly inconsequential events triggered riots threatening the stability of government and frightening foreign investors.
While disparate –the protests spanned three nations in three continents with distinct religions and cultures- the riots had commonalities. Unlike in then Eastern Europe and North Africa, the swells were not a reaction to totalitarian regimes. On the contrary, they happened in democratically elected governments with a recent history of improving governance and prospering economies. Brazil and Turkey are investment grade credits.
Under then President Lula and his chosen successor, Dilma Rousseff, Brazil has emerged from years of corrupt and military government to become one of the leading lights in South America. Brazil is to host the World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016.
Turkey is an icon of Islamic secular society, a model for the Arab spring. President Erdogan has instituted social and economic reforms in a nation now recognized as the power broker in the Middle East. Indonesia has instituted better governance to fight corruption.
The authorities were therefore surprised by the vigor and depth of the protests or why they happened at all. They failed to recognize the simmering public discontent whose core was the widening gap in incomes triggered by the very economic progress they were so proud of (The World Bank lists Brazil as the world’s 7th largest economy but in the bottom 10% in income equality). The riots were the emerging market version of last year’s Occupy Wall St. movement in the U.S. and other G-8 nations; whose genesis was also the growing disparity in wealth between the 1% and the 99%. Glaring inequality is not just a Third World phenomenon. We just react to it more violently.
The events in Brazil, Turkey and Indonesia are worth noting because the Philippines bears all the same symptoms. Like them, we have a democratically elected Government, a reformist leadership and a statistically buoyant economy. Unfortunately, like them we also have growing inequality in wealth, corruption and social injustice. Like them our urban centers are increasingly congested and uninhabitable. The Turks were angered by the conversion of a public parc, Filipinos are angered by the overbuilding, traffic and flooding in our cities. Can the riots of Istambul, Sao Paulo and Jakarta become the riots of Manila?
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