Human beings are intensely symbolic organisms. Symbols, such as flags and currencies and mascots and other images draw a great deal of meaning from what they represent. When someone burns a flag, it is an assault on the dignity of what that flag represents. Sometimes symbols deeply divide people, as the sight of the logo of a hated sports rival can cause otherwise mature people to foam incoherently in a rage. Likewise, some people can view a flag as the symbol of their worth and legitimacy as a people, while others view the same symbol as a hated sign of oppression and tyranny. It is not the fault of the image itself, but the meaning which is imbued in that symbol.
Because symbols have such power, insecure and incompetent regimes often try to boost the power of certain symbols. Whether it is some kind of border crisis with neighbors [1] [2] [3], or whether it is trying to coerce someone into giving away some symbolic land where a propaganda-intended good deed was done two decades ago [4], insecure regimes seek the find symbols to unify their people so that the insecurities of leaders can be calmed down and so everyone can resume the shadowplay of feigned concern for the people on the part of selfish and corrupt elites and feigned respect for such elites and leaders on the part of the ordinary people.
Unfortunately, the pageantry does not always go as planned. All too often, it is an exercise in self-deception, to soothe the troubles of leaders with empty rituals that have no meaning and that grant the appearance of legitimacy without the reality. After all, if people are rising in the streets, voting for neo-Nazi third parties, burning flags, and the like, they have probably lost genuine respect for those in power. Often, those in power deserve the loss of respect, given that all governments exist with either an open or a tacit social contract where one’s hold of offices is dependent on the extent to which one’s tenure in office brings success to the common people. It is not fair to place such messianic expectations on rather power-hungry and incompetent men and women, but when the state takes on divine attributes to itself, the common people can hardly be blamed for holding their governments to the standards those states have chosen for themselves. If you want to be a god, you have to keep creation in balance and bring peace and prosperity to your people. If not, some other false messiah will be given the chance at the task.
Of course, most of the would-be scoundrels and power hungry elite aspirants either try to whip up the populace into some kind of hatred of one group of people or another (minorities, Jews, conspiracies, or privileged elites are common targets, even if the leaders of such protests aspire to elite status themselves) or promise more than they can deliver to seek the adoration of the masses without concern for how those promises will be met. It is those who pointedly and honestly, but without any kind of selfish ambition themselves, point out that the emperor has no clothes that often bear the brunt of attacks from insecure officeholders. After all, it is easy to corrupt those who desire position and power, as they are easy to co-opt into supporting the existing regime. It is far more dangerous when someone sees clearly the lack of legitimacy in a society and instead of desiring to exploit it merely decides to tell everyone else of the nakedness and poverty of the land. That is a far more dangerous place to be.
When people start rising up, either verbally or in an uprising, against their leadership, that ought to be a sign to a leader that something is seriously wrong. It signifies that a given governing elite has not done the minimum task of providing for the hopes and aspirations of the ordinary people to remain in its position of authority without question or conflict. A government can attempt to enshrine empty symbols without meaning to vainly try to prove that it is necessary for the well-being of the people, it can try to bribe leaders of insurgent movements to co-opt them into the elite fold, or it can try to crush insurgent political movements with military force, but when people are willing to speak out openly, much less kill and die, against a regime rather than participate in the sham dramas of legitimacy that institutions are so skilled at producing, then the emperor has no clothes, whether he admits it or not. The only question that remains is what is to be done about it. Most leaders don’t have a clue, seeing as they often don’t really know care about the well being of the ordinary people in the first place. Of course, even if they did care, it remains to do something about it, and there are few ways to do that when one is concerned about one’s own power and position first and foremost. Oh, that it were otherwise, for if so this world would be far less troubling and unpleasant.
[3] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/border-conflicts-on-the-asean-conference/
[4] http://thaipoliticalprisoners.wordpress.com/2012/05/13/royalist-terror-in-the-fields/
Edge Induced Cohesion 