Revolution is my name

All of a sudden, this weekend, when there was an item about the Ukrainian parliamentary elections an odd thing occurred to me. It seems people start revolutions and revolt against dictatorial regimes around the world a go-go, but people do not have any patience to genuinely effectuate these revolutions.

I will not pretend I know many-a thing about Ukraine and its regimes pre and post Orange Revolution, but still I think it is but logic when you bring a revolution on your country through elections – as opposed to through a coup – it is way harder to really cut the ties with the old system. You simply cannot sack every civil servant because they worked for the past regime, everyone has their use, and quite possibly when you pick out a piece of the puzzle, your bureaucracy will fall down like a house of cards. You won’t have anything left to rely on, and starting from zero is a slow and harsh process.

Sure, it will take some time to reform the systems, and most probably you will hardly see any result the first couple of years, but when you tear everything down it’ll take even longer, the suffering will be harder, you will have to actually hurt your people.

The question then obviously is why people do not have any patience left? Also here – in Flanders – people ceased to have patience with their politicians. Elections every other year make sure there’s a constant change of people in charge, swinging voters can’t decide which side to pick and thus risk of destabilising a proven system. Politics are turning into consumer’s goods.

Sure, I’m not conservative, I try to think forward, I don’t want parties to be in charge just because they always were, but then what is the alternative. It is just impossible to keep bringing new people to the front. Experience is well-needed too, especially with delicate things like leading a nation.

So, what’s this story about? Have your revolutions – please do – but keep in mind your leaders - wherever you live - need time to actually change things!