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Category Archives: Democracy

“After getting rid of Morsi, next is the army” by Nkwazi Mhango

15 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by asabagna in African Politics, AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Democracy, Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, Nkwazi Mhango

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What transpired in Egypt recently tells a tall story of the future of the country. However, many wrongly thought that the deposed president Mohammed Morsi with his Islamic outfit was Egypt’s major problem. True, Egypt’s problem is bigger than Morsi and Muslim Brotherhood.

If we face it, chances are that soon Egypt will experience more unrests and chaos than it has ever evidenced throughout its history. Those who bother to muse on what causes people to be disgruntled and pull down a democratically elected government will agree with us that the problem is more economic than political. Egypt’s such humongous population that it cannot handle. If anything, this is the real and major problem. Thus, to save the country from itself, population control must be the first priority. Egypt has the population of 82.5 million that is cobbled on an arable land along River Nile and its delta. These areas are among the world highly densely populated with the average of 3,820 persons per square kilometers. Out of 1,000,000 square kilometers Egypt occupies only 2.87% is arable land.

Egypt’s a high educated and vibrant young population. Nobody can harmonize Egypt without addressing the whole issue of the population and unemployment which was 12.5 according to CIA Fact book, as of 2012. And the number surges even higher as days go by. This is the keg awaiting the army to foil. Will it foil it? The army, after being bundled out of power, waited for any opportunity to lord it over whoever that stands on its way. Indeed, Morsi was standing on its way, especially when he fired its former chief and king maker Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, who presided over the government after his mentor, former strong man, Hosni Mubarak was bundled out.

Military takeover after revolution did not sink well with either opposition or the citizenry. Due to high demand to kick the army out of power, Egyptians voted Muslim Brotherhood en masse without knowing that it was another anathema. The situation at this moment was like making a choice between a rock and a hard place. Facing two evils, Egyptians opted for Muslim Brotherhood which later proved to be a liability as the army was.

Now that the army is in a bigger picture once again, what’d we expect? Should we expect anti-Morsi opposition to ascend to power and be kicked out due to the fact that it doesn’t have the edge to return Egypt to calmness? Will anti-Morsi-fragmented opposition stand without the support of the army? If the army stands with anti-Morsi to form a government, will it be able to rule amidst chaos perpetrated by pro-Morsi forces, that have proved to be hell-bent to see to it that Egypt is becoming ungovernable? With all these difference plus economic tanking, will Egypt remain the same or forge ahead really?

Although the international community has refrained from becoming players in Egypt’s fate, chances are that we must brace ourselves for evidencing another Iraq, even Syria in Egypt soon. As it seems, there’s no way any of the major players, namely the citizenry, weak opposition, Muslim Brotherhood and Army, can let go or be compromised. The army, on its side, will try to flex its muscles as a short time solution. But as the look of things is, tells a different story. There’s no way a hungry population will give in. How can they give in while what they need is food on the table? To calm Egypt down is enable everybody to bring food on the table. Where will food come from amid chaos and unrests?

UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, through his spokesperson, Farhan Haq, was quoted by BBC as saying, “The Secretary-General believes strongly that this is a critical juncture in which it is imperative for Egyptians to work together to chart a peaceful return to civilian control, constitutional order, and democratic governance.” Again, looking at lip services the international community has offered, Moon’s advice does not hold water. How will Egyptians work together while they don’t pull together? Is working together the solution if at all a democratic government can be easily toppled?

One thing many ignore is the fact that Egyptians are desperate after being ruled by corrupt and inept dictators for long. Such hungry population has lost commonsense. What it needs is food, regardless whether it is brought by devil or angel. And nobody can sufficiently supply food to such huge population facing economic and political upheavals.

Although the Muslim Brotherhood was accused of secretly trying to install a theocracy, it’s a sound mechanism with which to rule. When it comes to fragmented and weak opposition that desperately went to bed with the army to overthrow Morsi, it offers neither hope nor alternative. This being the real situation, the truth is: Egypt’s a long way to go. What we’re witnessing is but the beginning of a long, rough and complicated road ahead. Again, who’ll save Egypt from itself? Will the international community chip in or just stay aside and look as it is currently? Who wants to be blamed for somebody else’s mess in the first place?

When Morsi was toppled, many thought that the ‘fathers’ of democracy would stand with him and demand that he be reinstated. But nay, nobody dared to step in knowing how deeper, protracted and complicated Egypt’s situation is.

In a nutshell, however, the army in conjunction with revenging judiciary and confused opposition overthrew Morsi… this is not the end of the story. Soon the trio will find themselves in tug of war so as to start scheming against each other. Surely, after deposing Morsi, the army will follow next any soon from now.

Nkwazi Mhango is a Tanzanian living in Canada. He writes regularly for “The African Executive” and also has a blog entitled “Free Thinking Unabii”. He is a regular contributor to AfroSpear.

“False Claims of Voter Suppression‏” by Demetrius Minor

29 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by asabagna in AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Black Republicans, Critical Thinking, Demetrius Minor, Democracy, Project 21, U.S. Politics, Voter Suppression

≈ 5 Comments

Op-ed submission by Project 21

Benjamin Jealous, the president and CEO of the NAACP, heartily embraces the absurd assertion of the left that asking someone to simply prove their identity in order to participate in the sacred honor of casting a ballot is thinly-veiled voter suppression and an assault on civil rights.

At the NAACP’s recent annual convention, the 39-year-old Jealous likened the opposition to popular and democratically-enacted voter ID laws to the civil rights movement when he referenced “Selma and Montgomery times.”

Such rhetoric is nothing but divisive.

I’m sure Mr. Jealous attempted this analogy to create an emotional response about that momentous time in history. What he neglected to inform the assembly of the oldest civil rights organization in the nation was that voter ID combats voter fraud, which currently serves as the biggest hindrance to voting.

It’s time to rebuke the racial oratory meant to compel people into thinking that voter ID has a race-driven agenda. Efforts to prevent voter fraud are not meant to suppress minorities.

What must be rejected is the notion that minorities are too simple-minded or naïve to obtain a government-issued ID. Liberals and leftists claim to defend minorities, students, the elderly and the poor, but they are really just insulting people’s intelligence by saying that obtaining valid ID is beyond those people’s ability.

It’s odd that the left is adamant about a woman being responsible for decisions about her own body (at least when it comes to abortion), yet they are apparently willing to allow for an ignorance for the need for proper identification in our modern world.

Those who labored in the civil rights movement would likely be insulted by these attacks on commonsense protections. Voter ID is not designed to benefit a particular party or a candidate. It is for all Americans. It transcends ideology to want to protect the outcome of elections from being marred by miscreants.

But the issue of racism was unfortunately elevated to an even higher level when embattled Attorney General Eric Holder addressed the NAACP in July. During his speech, Holder compared voter ID to Jim Crow-era poll taxes:

Many of those without IDs would have to travel great distances to get them, and some would struggle to pay for the documents they might need to obtain them. We call those poll taxes.

Ironically, Holder’s office required members of the media who wished to cover his speech to first present two forms of photo ID.

The hypocritical stance of the left is amusing, yet saddening, to witness because it shows a continuing and genuine disconnect from reality.

Leftists are turning the need to protect voters against identity theft into a weapon in their larger class warfare strategy. They are willing to put the integrity of our electoral process at risk to excite and reinvigorate their political base. They continue to sing the known chorus of racial bigotry because they fear that minorities and seniors will start turning a deaf ear to their policies and that their influence among these voting groups will diminish as a result.

Opposition to voter ID safeguards seems to be all about power and dominion. In all of the bluster over people possibly not having proper ID on Election Day, it seems those worried souls have done little — or maybe even nothing — to work with the laws and get ID to those who lack it. At the same time, they would be working to include these people in the modern world instead of pushing baseless rhetoric that only divides Americans.

The NAACP, Attorney General Eric Holder and any others standing against voter ID laws put our election process and everything that’s been done to expand its access at risk. It’s not complicated. One can either be an ambassador for fairness and justice in voting, or be seen as tolerant of corruption for the sake of political power.

Demetrius Minor is a member of the national advisory council of the Project 21 black leadership network and co-host of the BlogTalkRadio show “He Said, She Said” with Project 21 member Stacy Washington.

“Gadaffi, Dictators and faint memory if any” by Nkwazi Mhango

28 Sunday Aug 2011

Posted by asabagna in Africa, African Politics, African Union, AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Corruption, Democracy, Leadership, Liberation, Libya, Muammar Gaddafi, Nkwazi Mhango, Revolution

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On 30thDecember 2006, the world witnessed humiliating hanging of Saddam Hussein, former Iraq’s tyrant, after being arrested bolted in a spider hole. Many thought other dictators would make a note of the sudden and unceremoniously demise and downfall of Saddam. Go figure. They didn’t because of arrogance and faint memories.

In essence, dictators are like goats. When you shout at a goat to stop damaging your garden it thinks this was long time ago. When you shout again, the goat thinks this was yesterday. But when you pick a stone and land it on it, that’s when the goat realizes it is today. This was five years down the line. Just recently in February 2011, two strong men in Egypt and Tunisia were pulled down, not to mention Laurent Gbagbo in the Ivory Coast. Again, other dictators like Col. Muamar Gadaffi who followed six months thereafter, did not take any note, save to ridicule the wave and wind of change.

When Gadaffi, a self-made-king of kings of Africa was asked his views and how domino effects in Egypt and the impact they would have on his country, he dismissively retorted saying that Libya was not Egypt. Therefore, such a thing would not happen to his regime. Little did he know it would happen just within six months!

Now that Libya’s tyrant Gadaffi has fallen from grace quickly and unceremoniously, many would think other waiting potentates would take a note. Their mindsets make them blind and thus do not to see the impending danger that always hovers over their nasty regimes. Are the seating spared of this hallucination and blindness? Nay!

Just like allied forces did to Saddam, Gadaffi was brought down after international forces struck him, especially NATO, that broke the backbone of his regime. Now that Gadaffi’s rule is history, will he and his sons face the same fate Saddam an his stupid kids faced? Will the waiting dictators make a note of what transpired in Libya really? Methinks, nay. If anything, African dictators will not miss Gadaffi, but the petrodollars he stole from his poor people and used to throw at them so as to buy their leverage.

If dictators had any memory, Africa South of Saharan dictators would make a note that what they regard as powerful regimes they man, are but houses of cards. They will crumble just easily shall the hoi polloi decided to take on them. Again, will they take a note? Nay, they won’t. Why? Because most if not all are but megalomaniac, full of myopia and hallucination to put it simple. Unfortunately, dictators think they are smart while in actual fact are but dolts. Take it from me. Many dictators still wrongly think like Gadaffi used to think, that what happened in Libya cannot happen in their countries.

What happened in Libya though leaves one question, when will people in SSA take on their dictators? This is very important. For there are many of Gadaffi like in SSA in countries like Uganda, Rwanda, DRC, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Senegal, Ethiopia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, The Gambia, Gabon, Togo and Sudan. So too, in the same Maghreb, are countries such as Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania and Syria in the north. Will those dictators ruining those countries take a heed? To know how actually goof, look at how Yemeni Dictator Abdullah Saleh was badly injured and yet still wants to return in office despite all noises of Saleh go.

Just like other dictators in the Sub Saharan Africa, Saleh still thinks that, despite the writings on the wall, his regime will not crumble just like Gadaffi’s. Those in the south still goof saying what happened in Maghreb are for Arabs not Africans. In simple terms, dictators in the south, like fallen Gadaffi, are authoring their own demise and exit. Will the wave and wind of change sweep across Sahara?

Why did Gadaffi repressive regime crumble easily in the first place? Firstly, it had two cracks within. One was the fact that power was within the hands of a family and a few congliore. Secondly, NATO’s ferocious attacks. Though NATO played a decisive role in suffocating Gadaffi, looking at what happened in Egypt and Tunisia. Cracks within the regimes are the major cause of their demise so to speak.

There are some lessons from the fall of Gadaffi and other dictators. First of all, many weapons dictators pile up to defend themselves, are the best capital when citizenry decide to take on them.

Secondly, the vacuums and vaingloriousness dictators create is another nugget when it comes to topple them. For when faced with threats of being toppled, the system that depends on one person, finds itself overwhelmed with the burden of decision making at the time of emergency. The shape and scope of the system is basically determined by one person.

Thirdly, apart from being delusional, dictators are like barking dog that does not bite. They use all types of threats whilst at hearts they know how bogus and coward they are.

Fourthly, almost all dictators are cowards that hide their weakness behind immense powers they command.

Fifthly, all dictators live in the state of hallucination and phantasmagoria, believing they won’t fall at any circumstance, hence become myopic about their fates and plights. So too, even though their regimes are the most hated, dictators daydream that they are loved. It is even sad to find dictators like Yoweri Museveni who toppled other dictators live just like them.

Sixth, African Union has proved to be as useless as never before. For when the crisises in Libya, Egypt and Tunisia started, it was left out, thereby the Arab League taking over the role it would have played. Also it must be noted, AU was openly supporting dictators thanks to being comprised of many member countries ruled by dictators.

In sum, though Gadaffi is going down as one of the most autocratic ruler, he’ll be remembered for his support to liberation movements in good and bad light. A last killer fact is that Gadaffi despite all his extravagance, different from other African fallen dictators who left their countries in abject poverty, left billions of dollars the west froze and unfreeze for the new regime to begin with. This is the good side of the fallen tyrant.

Nkwazi Mhango is a Tanzanian living in Canada. He writes regularly for “The African Executive” and also has a blog entitled “Free Thinking Unabii”. He is a regular contributor to AfroSpear.

“Ralph Nader Is Tired of Running for President” by Chris Hedges

05 Tuesday Jul 2011

Posted by asabagna in AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Capitalism, Chris Hedges, Corruption, Critical Thinking, Democracy, Exploitation, Leadership, Ralph Nader, U.S. Politics

≈ 2 Comments

Click on image for article

Report from Detroit for AfroSpear: Porn Shows at the Reconstrueists’ Ball

16 Thursday Jun 2011

Posted by Rayfield A. Waller in Art, Black History, Critical Thinking, Democracy, Economics, Leadership, Liberalism, Media, Politics, White Supremacy Ideology

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Tags

Democracy, Detroit, Detroit News, Gentriication, John Berger, mass media, Media, Miami, Politics, United States, Urban Blight

“Democracy is a proposal (rarely realised) about decision-making; it has little to do with election campaigns. Its promise is that political decisions be made after, and in the light of, consultation with the governed. This is dependent upon the governed being adequately informed about the issues in question, and upon the decision makers having the capacity and will to listen and take account of what they have heard. Democracy should not be confused with the “freedom” of binary choices, the publication of opinion polls or the crowding of people into statistics. These are its pretense. Today the fundamental decisions, which effect the unnecessary pain increasingly suffered across the planet, have been and are taken unilaterally without any open consultation or participation.” ~ John Berger

I. Dance, reconstrueism [rek-kun-stroó-ism], dance!

My impulse used to be to dismiss it. But nearly six years after returning here to my hometown of Detroit after my decade living in Miami, it has become more and more difficult to go on living and working in a post modern, post industrial, casebook ‘capitalist endtime’ city like Detroit, ignoring the hyper-reality and the hype of American rust belt era gentrification and post gentrification; to go on ignoring the post industrial situation: the poverty, loss, and disintegration in weird concert with the outlandishly enthusiastic, intrusive media junkets that spin across the dance floor in disco mode even though the music is a mournful dirge.

While local Detroit’s news media have steadfastly ignored for two decades now the steadily growing din of community protest and outrage, the gulf between politicians and the governed, between the suburbs and the city, between the haves and the never-will-haves again, between official public media and real life has grown into an ocean; and the two continents are drifting. Citizen outrage over both a political establishment’s and media establishment’s practice of treating community voices and groups as if they were invisible, is as the feeble complaints of Hebrews in the work pits of ancient Egypt, cutting stones for pyramids they will never see the end of. The same newspapers, radio broadcasts, and so-called ‘alternative’ media that have steadfastly ignored post-civil rights, post-nationalist, and post mass culture complaints of racism and abandonment lodged by the mostly Black, mostly poor populace, are peculiarly attentive now to the interests, ideologies, and the dogmas of the forces of Republican triumphalism. They are likewise quick to lick the hand of the interests of ‘urban renovation’ politics, and of what I call ‘settler chic’.

‘Settlers’– the slowly increasing trickle of returnees from suburbs, and new arrivals from other cities (of which I was one, six years ago) are a new dispensation, but all these forces and interests make up ‘the media junket’: journalism at its worst. Nothing covered by American Journalism, or rather, nothing that is blipped, blurbed, byted, and blurted, is presented with adequate depth, meaning, or critical content. The two major city newspapers, The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press, cover the city either sensationally through a blanket fascination with crime and petty corruption (as opposed to deeper, more far-reaching corporate corruption), or else in so diffident a way (emphasis upon what Miami cultural critic Dr. James Nadell sarcastically calls ‘that local media life-giving, all important, precious sports coverage’) that all the city’s greater complexity is flattened out into purely entertaining, descriptive, lurid and titillating ‘copy’ for creation of a salable commodity by a media that abhor political, economic, cultural, and ethnic diversity and legitimacy. Thus, the rot, the collapse, the poverty, the slow

The Rot

disintegration of a city center and of its neighborhoods, is the daily commodity that turns the profit motive. With a few human interest and ‘poor folk make good’ stories sprinkled in for plausible deniability’s sake, pathos, suffering, and rot are the papers’ real bread and butter, and crime is the spice. News is wrapped like liver and sold slightly bloody with little meaningful, ongoing attention to the past and its economic and political causality. In Detroit, ‘if it bleeds, it leads’, and that motto controls the daily fare (‘crime reporting’ being a perfect avatar for it all) of TV, radio, and print journalism. It’s a corporate standard, a nationally pervasive style of media coverage of cities that is shallow in focus, stereotyped, smug, and presumptuous–not just because it leaves citizens uninformed, which it does, but because it leaves citizens altogether: it has fled us; or it floats above our heads, unconcerned with our real, material lives as it arbitrarily selects what it chooses to spill down upon us–information as scat. If this is what has become of ‘the watchdog of democracy’ then Detroit has what is more accurately described as a cadaver dog of complacency. The media, conglomerated by Gannett (newspapers), Clear Channel (radio and satellite access), and New Times Corp (‘alternative publication weeklies), and their subsidiaries, have long ago broken democracy’s leash, to root through the details of the dead, the unburied casualties, with no concern for or memory of democracy as John Berger defines it, and even less concern for democracy’s discontents (sudden gun battles at police precincts notwithstanding).

Jeffries Projects Demolition

Lately in fact, a characteristic of inappropriate playfulness, even of exuberance, is being displayed by the current incarnation of those junkets ridden by suburban settlers touring the inner city, assessing property values, and planning renovation. These excursions are peopled by ‘creative class’ types [see Richard Florida further down this page]. The tone of their safaris has veered, nauseatingly, over toward the extreme of what some call ‘ruins porn’ (a growing fascination, nationally, with American cities’ shattered, disintegrating architecture and that dying architectures ‘antique’ quality; fascination with the even more fetishistic practice of doing ecstatic and politically mute photographic ‘studies’ of urban wreckage shots offered as aesthetic objects and as visual commodities).

Typical Detroit 'Ruins Porn' Shot

The corporate ghouls–the land developers, real estate vampires, expensive condo prospectors, and strip mall developers, are only some of the many junketeers who have for years now been descending upon modern dying cities. However, when a city that has lost its industrial basis and its economic base begins to die, and also happens to have a high percentage of people-of-color, of Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Arabs, or members of the working poor, the ghouls are double in number and strength, and even more easily can they buy access, authority, and fiat from easily bought-off, corruptible local public and elected officials who fail to protect constituents from these revelers at The Ball. Their claim, the caption that scrolls across their faces calls them ‘rescuers’ of dying urban space. Continue reading →

Cornel West on Aljazeera

03 Sunday Apr 2011

Posted by asabagna in AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Aljazeera English, Barack Obama, Cornel West, Critical Thinking, Democracy, Geopolitics, Globalization, Imperialism, Justice, Leadership, Racism, U.S. Politics, Wall Street, White Supremacy Ideology, YouTube

≈ 2 Comments

Blackout of humanitarian crisis in Cote d’Ivoire

27 Sunday Mar 2011

Posted by asabagna in Africa, African Elections, African Politics, AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Alassana Ouattara, Aljazeera English, Cote d’Ivoire, Crimes Against Humanity, Democracy, Genocide, Jasmine Revolution, Laurent Gbagbo, Leadership, News, Revolution

≈ 12 Comments

In the wake of the enormous media coverage of the uprisings and so-defined “revolutions” in North Africa and the Middle East, I am hard pressed to find any media coverage of the escalating atrocities and impending civil war in Cote d’Ivoire. The “blackout” of this media coverage I am referring to is not within the mainstream media… which is understandable… it’s within the AfroSphere itself. One can read more on Chris Brown… even on Charlie Sheen… on blogs, news sites and webzines within the Black/African blogosphere, than on Cote d’Ivoire. 

The sad thing about this is that in this age of the power of social media within the creation of communities of interest, the recent histories of Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Kenya are being repeated today in Cote d’Ivoire (here)… and we don’t care. It’s an indictment on all of us, from President Obama… “a son of Africa”… to those of African descent within the continent, the Diaspora and the AfroSphere. We do nothing, then we get pissed and question the motives and sincerity of the Bono’s, George Clooney’s and Mia Farrow’s of the (white) world when they take up the causes of African people. 

In saying all this however, I must acknowledge and give props to Patrick-Bernard at Cry Me An Onion for his post “The Ivory Coast Saga” in December 2010. He is one of a handful within the AfroSphere with a global perspective and understanding on the importance and significance of these issues on those of African descent regardless of where we reside. 

Henceforth, the first step to do something… anything… about this is awareness. Below are some resources on Cote d’Ivoire that bring knowledge and perspective to what is happening there now:

  1. Aljazeera: An Ivorian Miracle?
  2. Crossed Crocodiles: Ivory Coast – What Happened? What Next? (excellent background and references on current situation)
  3. The African Executive: The Ivory Coast: Unlocking the Impasse
  4. Pambazuka News: Cote d’Ivoire: Forces behind the crisis and what’s at stake

Post something on your blog or webzine to bring attention to this crisis. Hundreds have been and thousands will be massacred. Atrocities such as mass murders and rapes, other crimes against humanity including genocide is forthcoming. Obama and the European allies argued that they had to intervene in Lybia to prevent a humanitarian crisis… what about Cote d’Ivoire?

Enlighten those during discussions about the so-called “Jasmine Revolutions” as well as debates surrounding military intervention in Lybia, about the fight for democracy and the current humanitarian crisis in Cote d’Ivoire. This should be our primary concern.  

The mainstream media may ignore the plight of the people in Cote d’Ivoire… that’s expected… our blackout of this event… is self-imposed. The guilt will be ours.

“Revolution and the Muslim World” by George Friedman

26 Saturday Feb 2011

Posted by asabagna in AfroSpear, AfroSphere, Democracy, Geopolitics, News, Revolution, Stratfor

≈ 3 Comments

Article from STRATFOR

The Muslim world, from North Africa to Iran, has experienced a wave of instability in the last few weeks. No regimes have been overthrown yet, although as of this writing, Libya was teetering on the brink.

There have been moments in history where revolution spread in a region or around the world as if it were a wildfire. These moments do not come often. Those that come to mind include 1848, where a rising in France engulfed Europe. There was also 1968, where the demonstrations of what we might call the New Left swept the world: Mexico City, Paris, New York and hundreds of other towns saw anti-war revolutions staged by Marxists and other radicals. Prague saw the Soviets smash a New Leftist government. Even China’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution could, by a stretch, be included. In 1989, a wave of unrest, triggered by East Germans wanting to get to the West, generated an uprising in Eastern Europe that overthrew Soviet rule.

Each had a basic theme. The 1848 uprisings attempted to establish liberal democracies in nations that had been submerged in the reaction to Napoleon. 1968 was about radical reform in capitalist society. 1989 was about the overthrow of communism. They were all more complex than that, varying from country to country. But in the end, the reasons behind them could reasonably be condensed into a sentence or two.

Some of these revolutions had great impact. 1989 changed the global balance of power. 1848 ended in failure at the time — France reverted to a monarchy within four years — but set the stage for later political changes. 1968 produced little that was lasting. The key is that in each country where they took place, there were significant differences in the details — but they shared core principles at a time when other countries were open to those principles, at least to some extent.

The Current Rising in Context

In looking at the current rising, the geographic area is clear: The Muslim countries of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula have been the prime focus of these risings, and in particular North Africa where Egypt, Tunisia and now Libya have had profound crises. Of course, many other Muslim countries also had revolutionary events that have not, at least until now, escalated into events that threaten regimes or even ruling personalities. There have been hints of such events elsewhere. There were small demonstrations in China, and of course Wisconsin is in turmoil over budget cuts. But these don’t really connect to what is happening in the Middle East. The first was small and the second is not taking inspiration from Cairo. So what we have is a rising in the Arab world that has not spread beyond there for the time being.

The key principle that appears to be driving the risings is a feeling that the regimes, or a group of individuals within the regimes, has deprived the public of political and, more important, economic rights — in short, that they enriched themselves beyond what good taste permitted. This has expressed itself in different ways. In Bahrain, for example, the rising was of the primarily Shiite population against a predominantly Sunni royal family. In Egypt, it was against the person of Hosni Mubarak. In Libya, it is against the regime and person of Moammar Gadhafi and his family, and is driven by tribal hostility.

Why has it come together now? One reason is that there was a tremendous amount of regime change in the region from the 1950s through the early 1970s, as the Muslim countries created regimes to replace foreign imperial powers and were buffeted by the Cold War. Since the early 1970s, the region has, with the exception of Iran in 1979, been fairly stable in the sense that the regimes — and even the personalities who rose up in the unstable phase — stabilized their countries and imposed regimes that could not easily be moved. Gadhafi, for example, overthrew the Libyan monarchy in 1969 and has governed continually for 42 years since then.

Any regime dominated by a small group of people over time will see that group use their position to enrich themselves. There are few who can resist for 40 years. It is important to recognize that Gadhafi, for example, was once a genuine, pro-Soviet revolutionary. But over time, revolutionary zeal declines and avarice emerges along with the arrogance of extended power. And in the areas of the region where there had not been regime changes since after World War I, this principle stays true as well, although interestingly, over time, the regimes seem to learn to spread the wealth a bit.

Thus, what emerged throughout the region were regimes and individuals who were classic kleptocrats. More than anything, if we want to define this wave of unrest, particularly in North Africa, it is a rising against regimes — and particularly individuals — who have been in place for extraordinarily long periods of time. And we can add to this that they are people who were planning to maintain family power and money by installing sons as their political heirs. The same process, with variations, is under way in the Arabian Peninsula. This is a rising against the revolutionaries of previous generations.

The revolutions have been coming for a long time. The rising in Tunisia, particularly when it proved successful, caused it to spread. As in 1848, 1968 and 1989, similar social and cultural conditions generate similar events and are triggered by the example of one country and then spread more broadly. That has happened in 2011 and is continuing.

A Uniquely Sensitive Region

It is, however, happening in a region that is uniquely sensitive at the moment. The U.S.-jihadist war means that, as with previous revolutionary waves, there are broader potential geopolitical implications. 1989 meant the end of the Soviet empire, for example. In this case, the question of greatest importance is not why these revolutions are taking place, but who will take advantage of them. We do not see these revolutions as a vast conspiracy by radical Islamists to take control of the region. A conspiracy that vast is easily detected, and the security forces of the individual countries would have destroyed the conspiracies quickly. No one organized the previous waves, although there have been conspiracy theories about them as well. They arose from certain conditions, following the example of one incident. But particular groups certainly tried, with greater and lesser success, to take advantage of them.

In this case, whatever the cause of the risings, there is no question that radical Islamists will attempt to take advantage and control of them. Why wouldn’t they? It is a rational and logical course for them. Whether they will be able to do so is a more complex and important question, but that they would want to and are trying to do so is obvious. They are a broad, transnational and disparate group brought up in conspiratorial methods. This is their opportunity to create a broad international coalition. Thus, as with traditional communists and the New Left in the 1960s, they did not create the rising but they would be fools not to try to take advantage of it. I would add that there is little question but that the United States and other Western countries are trying to influence the direction of the uprisings. For both sides, this is a difficult game to play, but it is particularly difficult for the United States as outsiders to play this game compared to native Islamists who know their country.

But while there is no question that Islamists would like to take control of the revolution, that does not mean that they will, nor does it mean that these revolutions will be successful. Recall that 1848 and 1968 were failures and those who tried to take advantage of them had no vehicle to ride. Also recall that taking control of a revolution is no easy thing. But as we saw in Russia in 1917, it is not necessarily the more popular group that wins, but the best organized. And you frequently don’t find out who is best organized until afterwards.

Democratic revolutions have two phases. The first is the establishment of democracy. The second is the election of governments. The example of Hitler is useful as a caution on what kind of governments a young democracy can produce, since he came to power through democratic and constitutional means — and then abolished democracy to cheering crowds. So there are three crosscurrents here. The first is the reaction against corrupt regimes. The second is the election itself. And the third? The United States needs to remember, as it applauds the rise of democracy, that the elected government may not be what one expected.

In any event, the real issue is whether these revolutions will succeed in replacing existing regimes. Let’s consider the process of revolution for the moment, beginning by distinguishing a demonstration from an uprising. A demonstration is merely the massing of people making speeches. This can unsettle the regime and set the stage for more serious events, but by itself, it is not significant. Unless the demonstrations are large enough to paralyze a city, they are symbolic events. There have been many demonstrations in the Muslim world that have led nowhere; consider Iran.

It is interesting here to note that the young frequently dominate revolutions like 1848, 1969 and 1989 at first. This is normal. Adults with families and maturity rarely go out on the streets to face guns and tanks. It takes young people to have the courage or lack of judgment to risk their lives in what might be a hopeless cause. However, to succeed, it is vital that at some point other classes of society join them. In Iran, one of the key moments of the 1979 revolution was when the shopkeepers joined young people in the street. A revolution only of the young, as we saw in 1968 for example, rarely succeeds. A revolution requires a broader base than that, and it must go beyond demonstrations. The moment it goes beyond the demonstration is when it confronts troops and police. If the demonstrators disperse, there is no revolution. If they confront the troops and police, and if they carry on even after they are fired on, then you are in a revolutionary phase. Thus, pictures of peaceful demonstrators are not nearly as significant as the media will have you believe, but pictures of demonstrators continuing to hold their ground after being fired on is very significant.

A Revolution’s Key Event

This leads to the key event in the revolution. The revolutionaries cannot defeat armed men. But if those armed men, in whole or part, come over to the revolutionary side, victory is possible. And this is the key event. In Bahrain, the troops fired on demonstrators and killed some. The demonstrators dispersed and then were allowed to demonstrate — with memories of the gunfire fresh. This was a revolution contained. In Egypt, the military and police opposed each other and the military sided with the demonstrators, for complex reasons obviously. Personnel change, if not regime change, was inevitable. In Libya, the military has split wide open.

When that happens, you have reached a branch in the road. If the split in the military is roughly equal and deep, this could lead to civil war. Indeed, one way for a revolution to succeed is to proceed to civil war, turning the demonstrators into an army, so to speak. That’s what Mao did in China. Far more common is for the military to split. If the split creates an overwhelming anti-regime force, this leads to the revolution’s success. Always, the point to look for is thus the police joining with the demonstrators. This happened widely in 1989 but hardly at all in 1968. It happened occasionally in 1848, but the balance was always on the side of the state. Hence, that revolution failed.

It is this act, the military and police coming over to the side of the demonstrators, that makes or breaks a revolution. Therefore, to return to the earlier theme, the most important question on the role of radical Islamists is not their presence in the crowd, but their penetration of the military and police. If there were a conspiracy, it would focus on joining the military, waiting for demonstrations and then striking.

Those who argue that these risings have nothing to do with radical Islam may be correct in the sense that the demonstrators in the streets may well be students enamored with democracy. But they miss the point that the students, by themselves, can’t win. They can only win if the regime wants them to, as in Egypt, or if other classes and at least some of the police or military — people armed with guns who know how to use them — join them. Therefore, looking at the students on TV tells you little. Watching the soldiers tells you much more.

The problem with revolutions is that the people who start them rarely finish them. The idealist democrats around Alexander Kerensky in Russia were not the ones who finished the revolution. The thuggish Bolsheviks did. In these Muslim countries, the focus on the young demonstrators misses the point just as it did in Tiananmen Square. It wasn’t the demonstrators that mattered, but the soldiers. If they carried out orders, there would be no revolution.

I don’t know the degree of Islamist penetration of the military in Libya, to pick one example of the unrest. I suspect that tribalism is far more important than theology. In Egypt, I suspect the regime has saved itself by buying time. Bahrain was more about Iranian influence on the Shiite population than Sunni jihadists at work. But just as the Iranians are trying to latch on to the process, so will the Sunni jihadists.

The Danger of Chaos

I suspect some regimes will fall, mostly reducing the country in question to chaos. The problem, as we are seeing in Tunisia, is that frequently there is no one on the revolutionaries’ side equipped to take power. The Bolsheviks had an organized party. In these revolutions, the parties are trying to organize themselves during the revolution, which is another way to say that the revolutionaries are in no position to govern. The danger is not radical Islam, but chaos, followed either by civil war, the military taking control simply to stabilize the situation or the emergence of a radical Islamic party to take control — simply because they are the only ones in the crowd with a plan and an organization. That’s how minorities take control of revolutions.

All of this is speculation. What we do know is that this is not the first wave of revolution in the world, and most waves fail, with their effects seen decades later in new regimes and political cultures. Only in the case of Eastern Europe do we see broad revolutionary success, but that was against an empire in collapse, so few lessons can be drawn from that for the Muslim world.

In the meantime, as you watch the region, remember not to watch the demonstrators. Watch the men with the guns. If they stand their ground for the state, the demonstrators have failed. If some come over, there is some chance of victory. And if victory comes, and democracy is declared, do not assume that what follows will in any way please the West — democracy and pro-Western political culture do not mean the same thing.

The situation remains fluid, and there are no broad certainties. It is a country-by-country matter now, with most regimes managing to stay in power to this point. There are three possibilities. One is that this is like 1848, a broad rising that will fail for lack of organization and coherence, but that will resonate for decades. The second is 1968, a revolution that overthrew no regime even temporarily and left some cultural remnants of minimal historical importance. The third is 1989, a revolution that overthrew the political order in an entire region, and created a new order in its place.

If I were to guess at this point, I would guess that we are facing 1848. The Muslim world will not experience massive regime change as in 1989, but neither will the effects be as ephemeral as 1968. Like 1848, this revolution will fail to transform the Muslim world or even just the Arab world. But it will plant seeds that will germinate in the coming decades. I think those seeds will be democratic, but not necessarily liberal. In other words, the democracies that eventually arise will produce regimes that will take their bearings from their own culture, which means Islam.

The West celebrates democracy. It should be careful what it hopes for: It might get it.

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