I think there's a fair bit of romanticisation associated with rebellions as well. I mean, the number of rebellions that have occurred and been brutally crushed far far outnumber the successful revolutions. The odds of a given rebellion succeeding are, well, I don't actually know, so I'll go with "one in a very large number." And yet they keep happening, and people flock to them even though they must realise there's a high likelihood they'll come to a sticky end, and the rebellions do tend to get romanticised.

Now, a lot of this myth-making probably occurs long after the troublemakers have been safely executed and some form of order has been restored, but there's a huge mythology around Mary Queen of Scots, The Old Pretender, William Wallace, Les Miserables, Louis Riel and the Red River Rebellion, the Civil War American South, etc. etc. I'm focusing mostly on British history because my parents are both English, but those are just examples I came up with off the top of my head. I'm sure I could think of more, and with a much wider cultural spread, if I gave it a few minutes.

Now, some of that could be cult of personality stuff (particularly around would-be revolutionaries who die and thus have no opportunity to disappoint people by actually governing), but there's definitely a tendency to get stirred up emotionally about rebellions. Which could account for their strange continued popularity as a form of political protest. Strange because statistically speaking, very bad idea.

I know within my own family, there is huge pride at allegedly being descended from the leaders of a small, woefully unsuccessful rebellion against Edward VI, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kett's_Rebellion) (Henry VIII's son). To the point where my extended family, who are generally slightly to the right of Margaret Thatcher, had to rewrite history such that they could partake in the glamour of being descended from rebels. The version I always heard as a child was that the Kett brothers were devout Catholics who objected to Edward VI's official Protestantism. Wasn't until I looked it up in a history book that I realised it was actually a peasants' rebellion against the enclosures (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure) which were causing widespread economic distress.

Sorry, not trying to hijack the thread to be all about my bizarre family history. Which is white, anyway, and thus just perpetuating the problem oyceter brought up in th e first place. But I do genuinely think there's an attraction to rebellions, successful or otherwise. And said attraction is only confirmed by the intellectual contortions of certain relatives who adore the idea of having excitingly rebellious ancestors, even though they'd definitely have been on the other side if they'd lived back then.