Gelbwesten: Kein europäischer Frühling

But that doesn't mean any comparison between the Arab spring and the yellow vests should be abandoned. For it's precisely in the obvious contrast between them, that we can differentiate between uprisings of objective progress, such as the Arab Spring, and movements such as the yellow vests, that are inherently regressive.

The Arab Spring was about establishing egalitarianism in a region of the world where cartels of tyranny have ruled for over a century.

To paraphrase Aesop, you may discern the measure of a person by the company they keep.   

Here in the UK, it's no surprise that those donning the now infamous fluorescent high visibility vests as a form of protest are also those who comprise the most extreme wing of the Brexit movement, drawn largely from the British far-right.  

Most recently, the yellow vest UK protesters have been targeting anti-Brexit MPs with threats and abuse. In reaction to several complaints from anti-Brexit MPs about harassment by the yellow vest mob, House speaker John Bercow called their behaviour 'a type of fascism'. (...)

For the left, liberal democracy is simply a mirage projected to serve the capitalist elite, while for the right, liberal democracy is a means through which elites and immigrants prosper at the expense of the disenfranchised ethnocultural majority.  

The yellow vests, on the other hand, are merely the street wing of a movement whose goals have more in common with counter-revolution.

What both envision is the undermining and destruction of the institutions of liberal democracy, whether it's the free press (the hated 'mainstream media) or parliamentary democracy (the hated 'rigged system').

What both have in common is the mythos of the disenfranchised majority. This is what the hi-vis vest represents: the everyman.   

In Trumpspeak it's the disenfranchised blue collar worker in the 'rust belt', while for the Brexiteer, it's the marginalised working class.  

The reality is that poorest and most socially oppressed Americans voted for Clinton, while the same demographics in the UK voted to Remain. The yellow vests is not a revolt of the poor, as some would suggest, but a diverse movement that has little engagement with France's most marginalised populations.   

But none of this is about reality. It's about self-justification and the skewing of reality to fit dogma.  

It's about the excesses of populations who have spent years exposed to discourse saturated with fake news, disinformation and anti-democratic narratives that transform their privileged sense of entitlement into a hatred of the society that provides such entitlements.   

The huge numbers who rose up to fight for justice and liberty against ingrained and actual tyranny in the Arab Spring did so because they had no political representation or democratic institutions - no advanced welfare states.  

The Arab Spring was about establishing egalitarianism in a region of the world where cartels of tyranny have ruled for over a century. The yellow vests are a complex reaction to a world that is ever more rejecting egalitarianism.

The yellow vests, on the other hand, are merely the street wing of a movement whose goals have more in common with counter-revolution, than they do with the Arab revolutionaries.