Question of the Week: What if...different political revolutions had taken different turns?

I like to read the Op-Eds from the New York Times quite often. The various opinion columnists often provide some really interesting ideas or points of view. Earlier this month, Roger Cohen, ran an Op-Ed entitled "The Hinge of History" found here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/opinion/03iht-edcohen.html

It is a very provocative piece asking what would have happened if the protests over the Iranian election last summer had succeeded in reforming the Iranian government. Cohen sets the situation in Iran against the revolutionary events of 1989 where we saw both the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen Square protests. To which, he asks:

"What if they had wheeled and borne down on the fissured heart of power in the instant of its disarray? What if this had been Iran’s “lucky moment?” I have no answer to my “what if?” but 1989 suggests this: One day the dam must break when a repressive regime and the society it rules march in opposite directions."

I'm not taking a political stand here. Iran has a long and complicated history and I will confess to a limited knowledge of Middle Eastern history. That said, I've always been intrigued by the "What if...?" scenario in human history. Imagine: What if...different political revolutions had taken different turns?

United States, France, Poland, Russia (1917), Soviet Union (1989), China, Ukraine, Cuba, England (1641), etc.


Or even, societal revolutions... the Industrial Revolution, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Sexual Revolution, etc.

Alternative histories has been a compelling subgenre of fiction and popular culture from Philip Roth's "The Plot Against America" to Marvel Comics "What if?" series to the Sliders television series. I'm not sure if its because of the innate human instinct to regret lost opportunities, but we seem to so often revel in these compelling plot twists.

Consider how things might be different if we ask "What if...?"

Stay inspired!

Cheers,
Maurice
www.voiceone.fi