2011 is the game-changing year that I have been waiting for?

With every passing day my blog entry from November 2009 seems to be even more profound than I had thought--noting the regularity of game-changers, I wrote then that "it is then tempting to worry that the next event is round the corner."

Turns out it is the authoritarian and dictatorial regimes all over that have do to the worrying in this fantastic year that 2011 is turning out to be!
Al Jazeera + Twitter + Facebook = Revolutions.  Who would've thunk it!!!

The enchanting smells of the Jasmine Revolution are waking up the Chinese too:

Skittish domestic security officials responded with a mass show of force across China on Sunday after anonymous calls for protesters to stage a Chinese “Jasmine Revolution” went out over social media and microblogging outlets. 

I wonder if it has spread all the way to Xinjiang?  The Economist's correspondent doesn't think the Chinese need to worry, right now, about the Uighurs launching a democratic revolution:

In Xinjiang  however the authorities might worry that Muslim Uighurs can identify more readily with their democracy-seeking co-religionists in the Middle East and Africa. Many of Kashgar's Uighurs do have much to complain about, from discrimination to unemployment to a makeover of their old city which has forced thousands of them from their homes into soulless new apartment buildings. Soon after my arrival on February 18th I noticed I was being followed by a black Volkswagen. It remained on my tail until I left the city 48 hours later. When I proceeded on foot, one of its occupants would get out of his car to lurk behind me. Kashgar's police have a reputation for intimidating foreign correspondents in this way.

They probably have little to fear, however, from any popular uprising in support of democracy. Xinjiang's troubles tend to be related to ethnic tensions rather than democratic yearnings (though some activists might hope that ending rule by the Han-dominated Communist Party might pave the way for democracy).

Here is to hoping that they would rise up, "Nur" (you know who you are!)

More on the Uighur issues