Revolutions have not been as frequent recently as they had been in the past. This page highlights the two currently developing revolutions.
Crisis in Ukraine
Revolutions might seem like a thing of the past, but the truth is there are many happening today. One of the most well known modern revolutions is the Ukrainian revolution. It began in November of 2013, and is still developing today. President Yanukovych sparked the fighting when he broke an agreement with the European Union in order to forge closer ties with Russia, in hopes of joining and becoming a part of their nation ("Ukraine in Maps: How the Crisis Spread"). Protests soon broke out in the capital city of Kiev, Ukraine. Ukraine has been split east-west since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and Yanukovych contributed to the problem; now the two sides actually have something to fight about - whether Russia is going to annex Ukraine or not. The national division is evident in voting patterns, as you can see from the map of the 2010 election results, when Yanukovych was first voted into office. . The problem is the eastern side identifies themselves as ethnic Russians, the majority of whom speak Russian as their first language, and therefore support annexation ("Ukraine in Maps: How the Crisis Spread"). This would be fine, if the westerners shared the same sentiments. Instead, the western side has made it clear that they do not want to join with Russia. Because of the conflict between the sides, the pro-Russian separatists tried to do just that - separate. On May 11th, the leaders of the eastern rebellion declared independence from the westerns side of the country. As you can imagine, the western half refused to acknowledge the declaration, which caused more fighting and protests. On September 5th, a ceasefire was called between the two sides, which almost collapsed only four days later ("Ukraine in Maps: How the Crisis Spread") . It did not fall apart but has been violated many times. Because of all of these issues an election was called for October 26th to form a new parliament. As a result of this election the pro-west side of the country won, but as it turns out, the pro-Russians had boycotted the polls and held their own election on November 2nd ("Ukraine in Map: How the Crisis Spread"). In the end two pro-Russian leaders were elected. Since then, various deals have been made and broken, but because this is an ongoing issue, there is not a definite outcome. This is a wonderful interactive timeline that is updated daily if you would like to keep up with developing news.
War in Syria/Middle-Eastern Wars
There is another current revolution to be discussed; the war in Syria. First off, some people might not agree that the war in Syria is in fact a revolution, but if you refer to Merriam-Webster, a revolution is "A fundamental change in political organization especially the overthrow of renunciation of one government or ruler and the substitution of another by the governed". This correlates with what is going on in Syria because the Syrian people are trying to change their government to a true democracy. The fighting began in March of 2011 when the the majority of Syrian people decided that they didn't like how Presidential dictator Bashar al-Assad was ruling the country. In March of 2011, pro-democracy protests began in Syria, and by July thousands of people were taking to the streets all over the country (Rodgers). The growing unrest and protests soon transformed into a full-scale civil war. By June of 2013 the UN reported that 90,000 people had been killed as a result of the civil war (Rodgers). By this time the war has taken on more dimensions than just the issue of Assad's rule - there was the added matter of jihadist groups, including ISIS, showing themselves. Another big contributor to the fighting is the war crimes the two opposing sides are allegedly carrying out against each other. As of March of 2011 the UN believed that both sides had committed various war crimes against the other, and estimated that 3,000 people had been killed (Rodgers). There has also been use of a chemical weapon called sarin, which is a nerve agent. All of the forces blame the other ones - the rebels blamed the government, and the government and its allies blamed the rebels. Because of these attacks hundreds of people in the targeted agricultural districts were killed (Rodgers). After years of fighting, peace talks finally began in January of 2014 in Switzerland. The talks failed after only a month, because the parties involved were not working to solve the problem. As this is also a developing situation, there is not yet a winning side. If you want to keep up with new events, as always there is an excellent timeline here for you to view.