The French Revolution was a liberal revolution that came to change the foundation of society for both Europe and the rest of the world.
On July 14 this year the old Bastille in Paris was taken over by a mob, for the purpose of looting it for weapons that was said to be kept there, and the "leaders" of the mob followed, pretending to be "leading". At some later point history was rewritten (as usual) to claim that the real objective was to free the prisoners that was kept at the Bastille.
The actual takeover was in fact a rather modest achievement. The number of soldiers at the Bastille was around 10 to 12 with a questionable level of motivation. Prisoners at the time is said to have been a total of six or seven.
King Louie XVI wrote a laconic »rien» (nothing) in his hunting log book on that day. Some historians wants to see that comment as the kings reflection of the Bastille event to be nothing to comment on, but it may just as well have been that he marked just this day, as day without hunting results, we just can't know which at this point.
People both here and there where protesting about this and that in these days, so this little incident did not look that much different in fact. Anyway, just this incident was different in its nature, as that very same king would find out a few years later when he ended up one head shorter.
What happened in Paris some 200+ years ago, was new and truly remarkable. It came to redraw the political map of Europe, make kingdoms and governments fall and paved the way to bring Europe into a new era. One can have different views on the final result, but there are no doubts about the historical process here.
We all know what came to happen with the French Revolution. It found it self being a victim of power hungry people, leading to a Terror Regime among other things, but still it left possibilities open for new thoughts and ideas that opened a new way for humanity. People like François Marie Arouet de Voltaire and George Washington where two great contributors to that.
So what's coming up next?
Do we need yet another Revolution?
The answer is »Yes Of Course» and naturally some people may want to argue about in what form it needs to appear next time. I say »Forget that» a true Revolution comes as a result of forces yet unknown, from the common people, who are far from being as easily manipulated in the long run as those now in various levels of power seems to think.
On the traditional political scale, we will see uprisings among people that are now governed by full or semi dictatorships. But later on, even democratic political systems will find that they are up for questioning, and this is where the traditions of political liberalism comes in as a leading star for how to move on into a better future.
Any future Revolution will definitely display a period of revolutionary progress that goes Boink, the ones that has already passed has so far, not failed to end up in that situation. No one coming in the future will fail to pass through that status either.
Still, if the net result of a future Revolution is that the effects of human greed can be set back in favour of common sense, so that more people will find it worthwhile to try their best to live a good life, raise their families into new responsible human beings, allowing every one else to speak his free mind and to see that this has a positive effect in reality . . .
. . . then the ideas of how to create a true liberal human being will have gotten one step closer to fulfillment, even if the Revolution came out to be very painful before the positive effects became visible.