... when popular cries went up around the world for change last year–beginning in Tunisia and echoing from Africa to Europe to the Americas–in many ways the underlying urges were the same everywhere. In doing research for From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices of the Global Spring, the collection of essays from the protesters of 2011 that I edited with Anya Schiffrin and which will be published this May, I have come to believe that the clamor that rose from every country whose streets filled with protesters last year was essentially a common cry for dignity in a global system that has increasingly denied it.

But I also realize that claiming the global protests are a common movement is difficult. And the more you know about each country, the more difficult it becomes. As I have sought out the voices of protesters and sympathizers–both those whose essays were featured in From Cairo to Wall Street and elsewhere–I have listened hard for shared themes and often found that while Tunisia and Egypt were near universal sources of inspiration, the relationships between other groups of protesters have ranged from support to skepticism to mistrust.

Nevertheless, I’m still prepared to argue that we are in the midst of a historic shift in the way that governments relate to their citizens, and citizens to each other, which is founded on the common yearnings of a new generation that has discovered the power of its voice, and is using it to pursue ends that are congruent, if far from identical. What they seek lies on the border of the material and the intangible: equity, fairness, security, and an equal right to the road.