Nation-states on trial

The bigger issue which hovers over the Egyptian revolution is the history of nation-states. Just in Egypt's history, Nasser's takeover in the 50s is just another Egyptian example of how nation-states have been controlling the lives of the world's population, but this sort of thing has happened all over the world for a long, long time. Nasser's rise to power was due to prior nation-state interventions and strategies of the most powerful nation-states to control the direction of the weaker states. Because Nasser was then a threat to the economic interests of Britain and France, they formed a secret plan with Israel to stage an Israeli invasion of Egypt which Britain and France would then enter to bring "stability", in other words, control. When Washington DC discovered the plot, they forced Britain's hand to remove forces, and in the meantime Russia was flexing its muscles as the protector of Egypt, although while all this was going on, Russia had crushed Hungary. This is just a brief overview of one incident to show how nation-states have manipulated, formed alliances, jockyed for power, repressed and in general fought for control and power, either widespread control and power or regional influence or brokered agreeements to share power. The people of the world have been at the mercy of the leaders of nation-state with little say regarding what they want.

In the Information Age, for better or for worse, we might be seeing the unraveling of nation-state control of the world's population. What will replace the nation-state control is unknown. What is also unknown is whether nation-states will feel threatened causing a word-wide crack down on rebellion and information flow. The most powerful nation-states have power and control to lose, and the weaker nation-states have protection and aid to lose.