"PROTESTER" NAMED PERSON OF THE YEAR

　　From the Arab Spring to the Occupy Wall Street movement, "The Protester" is Time magazine's 2011 Person of the Year.

　　This year has seen an almost unprecedented rise in both peaceful and sometimes violent unrest, on almost every continent. Time International Editor, Jim Frederick, explained the choice of the global protester. Jim Frederick: "And then suddenly, almost out of nowhere, all across the globe, you have global, mass market protests that, we're two regimes down and counting, whether it's in Russia and London, Wall Street and all across the Middle East, suddenly the protest has become one of the ways people are actually taking back political power.

　　" Time magazine defines the Person of the Year as someone who, for better or for worse, influences the events of the year. Jim Frederick: "The Occupy Wall Street protesters, or in London or right now probably even in Russia, what's at stake for them, including life and limb, is not even close to what's happening in most of the Middle Eastern countries, where Egypt and Libya and Tunisia and where they're trying to take down governments against oppressive regimes. They're putting their life and limb at risk every day."

　　Protesters in an expanding list of countries have linked their actions to the popular revolutions that have shaken up the Middle East. But will the protester stay? Frederick says the protester is a force to be reckoned with and one that will be around for a while.

　　Jim Frederick: "Because of the success of the protests this year, at least for the time being, governments and people in power are going to have to pay very serious attention to public protesters in a way, that for the past couple of decades, they had been irrelevant or marginalized.

　　I think that the concept of mass, mobilized protester is a very potent political force and will be now for several years at least." (Marie-Claire Fennessy, Reuters)

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