Part One. Revolution of the Heart. Chapter 1: A New World

The worldwide unrest of 2011 irreversibly changed the world. Millions of people took to the streets in numerous countries on every continent, from the Arab Spring through Occupy Wall Street. Wherever the “social storm” hit, the demands for social justice and equality resonated through the crowds (with understandable variations among countries and cultures). People began to demand solutions to their problems; they wanted change. Often, people could not quite formulate their demands in words, but a deep sensation that they were being mistreated prompted them to act, to go out to the streets and protest, sometimes at the risk of their lives. Why did these protests occur? Why did they occur at this point in time? Why did they happen with such synchrony, seeming to fuel one another?..

The connection among people throughout the world has grown much closer in the last few decades. Globalization has created a flow of goods, services, information, and people from place to place, effectively “shrinking” the world into a global village. Ian Goldin, Director of Oxford Martin School at the University of Oxford, and former Vice President of the World Bank stated in a lecture: “Globalization is getting more complex, and this change is getting more rapid. The future will be more unpredictable. ...What happens in one place very quickly affects everything else. This is a systemic risk”...