We are too quick to focus on the sizzle, rather than the steak.
"The sizzle" is those distinguishing factors, be it shared grievance (powerless peasants vs entitled landholders in Asia and virtually every place colonized by Spain); or some characteristic such as race, tribe or sect that has served to determine who is in power and who is out of power.
"The Steak" is the real issue: Governance and Power. When governance is not equitable and when no effective legal means within the context of the culture of the people involved exists to address inequities, or illegitimacies, or flat out abuses of power - Revolutionary energy will build and teams will form along the lines that divide the issue.
Power. When such conditions exist all manner of opportunists will arise to exploit that popular energy to coerce change upon the offending system of governance. Sometimes these are honorable leaders who represent the greater interests of the people. Washington, Ghandi, King to name three. Usually these are individuals and organizations who are either self-serving or seek to advance some darker purpose. If you build it, they will come. Governance builds these conditions, and they always come eventually. They always come.
And governance (and many of those paid experts who advise governance) almost always blames it on the sizzle. This is why so many Kings who ignore these conditions end up with their heads in baskets or on pikes. This is also why these conditions of instability tend to keep coming back even when some insurgent is "defeated." The insurgent is not the insurgency.
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