Kyrgystan's flash mobs...?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/04/24/AR2010042402411_pf.html

Interesting snippet from a Washington Post article chronicling the Kyrgystani protests that pushed the government out of power:

"By midday, the demonstrators were on the march toward the city center. Their ranks swelled as people called friends and relatives to join them, jamming mobile phone networks. Djumanaev said as many as 50,000 filled the streets."

Essentially, the police were unable to organize and mass as quickly as the protestors so the more violent their response to the protests were, the larger the opposition they faced. 

Also interesting: Kyrgyz authorities initially arrested leaders of the political opposition in an effort to stop the protest early. The result?

"The night before the uprising, protesters briefly seized control of a state building in the city of Talas and badly beat Bakiyev's interior minister. Bakiyev responded by arresting about a dozen of his most prominent critics. The roundup decapitated the opposition on the eve of protests scheduled across the country but also provoked a backlash and left young crowds without elders who usually restrained them.

"We had always been accused of cowardice because we never let people storm government buildings," said Omurbek Tekebayev, one of those arrested. "But this time, all the opposition leaders were in jail, so there was no one in the streets to stop them."

...probably NOT what the government had in mind. As it turned out, the self-organizing grassroots mob was far more of a threat to the government than the opposition was when its leaders had more control over their followers' actions.  

Posted via email from Team Frosick