Is political change around the corner?

IT HAS been suggested that if you travelled on a time machine to England in the 19th century and informed workers there that they were living through the "Industrial Revolution", they would probably express astonishment. "Say what? What revolution?"

Indeed, it took a generation or two before the revolutionary effects of the Industrial, yes, Revolution were recognised in Britain, and before developments that not so long ago would have sounded like wild fantasies (such as the establishment of labour unions, and eventually even a Labour Party) did happen and transform the country's politics and economics.

From that perspective, and contrary to what many people imagine, the American Civil War and later the civil rights protests of the 1960s did not bury the scourge of racism in America. For example, interracial marriages were outlawed in many American states until the US Supreme Court ruled in 1972 that race-based restrictions on marriages violated the country's Constitution.