Tick, tick ... boom

IN hindsight, revolutions are easy to predict. Years, decades and even centuries after such events, scholars will write volumes explaining how prevailing conditions made such violent action inevitable, with the most common preconditions being extreme economic inequality and injustice along with an oppressive state which is not only prone to overreaction but is also so wedded to using force that it has forgotten all other means of conflict reduction and resolution. What is next to impossible to predict is the single spark that sets off the explosion, the final straw that breaks the back of the ancient regime. And all too often, that spark is so small as to be insignificant and the straw is…