Etiology of Colour-Labellings of Political Revolutions in the Eastern Europe

Some of the republics of the former Soviet Union in the Eastern Europe and part of Central Asia are pervaded with spree of revolutions beginning in the 20th to 21st century by the revolutionary movements that forced a change of political leadership through strategic non-violence protests in each of the republics. The revolutions have been labelled “Colour Revolutions”. Why are the revolutions named after colours? The name – Colour Revolution- is an oxymoron that sparks cognitive crisis deriving from the complexity of their symbolic incoherence. Though the causes of the revolutions have become a popular knowledge and an area of research interest in the existing literature, the origination of the term “Colour” and its relevance to revolution, a phenomenon that is presumed to be chaotic, has however remained a complex question that remained yet unanswered to many people. Thus, this paper is undertaken to bring to knowledge the scenarios that evoked the coinage of the term and their symbolism to the revolutions. The paper is qualitative research that employed etiological paradigm. The research presupposed that the name emerged from the climatic scenario, the instruments of fights and ideologies that the revolutionary movements represented.