So, first Ms. Malik tells us that revolutions screw up:
And yet, when we look across the Arab world today, it is hard to believe this happened. Only the “Tunisian revolution” remains intact. Every other country affected has either collapsed into chaos and civil war, as in Libya and Syria – or, like Egypt, has entered a new era of dictatorship, darker and more oppressive than ever before. What has come to pass looks like a fulfilment of the warnings that were issued against the protests from the start: this will only lead to even more political instability.
Some people have made this point before, that evolution not revolution might be the way to go. But apparently revolutions are as with socialism, it wasn’t real revolution:
The problem was the absence of enough of the forces necessary to the success of a revolution rather than the presence of too many counter-currents against it.
Not enough revolution, d’ye see?
It can happen. It has happened before. Now we know what it looks like. And next time, we will know what is required of us.
So, let’s have more revolution!
The same logic that led Lenin to shoot a few more peasants when the crops failed.
Sigh.
Revolutions usually, overwhelmingly, end up with the people who did the fighting pushed aside by the ones who held back until the ancien regime was defeated then used weasel methods and internecine violence to take over. Ask Kerensky.
Oh, and right vs wrong or justified vs impulsive, they are just not factors at all in who wins.
“Some people have made this point before, that evolution not revolution might be the way to go.”
What are the incentives in the economy? Make a better widget than the next guy, own a huge factory, get the money (and then the pussy)? OR build an army, take over the next guy’s farmland/oil field, get the money (and then the pussy)?
Why did the Arab Spring work in Tunisia and not in Libya? Go and look at the exports of the two countries. Tunisia is mostly about making things. Electrical machinery, clothing, shoes. Around 5% of the exports are oil. What are the exports of Libya? 86% oil.
And yes, all this stuff is gradual. You get more industrial, you get less tribal. I don’t agree with her assessment of Egypt but it’s one of the more liberal places in the region, and that’s because it’s more industrial than say, Iran or Saudi Arabia.
What has come to pass looks like a fulfilment of the warnings that were issued against the protests from the start: this will only lead to even more political instability.
Who could possibly have foreseen the possibility that CIA sponsored colour revolutions wouldn’t lead to anything good?
Shocked, I tell thee.
Revolutions are messy affairs, and may well not give the results you desire. News at 11…
Armed revolutions rarely work, because the incumbent regime has more gins. Tyrannies fall when they are revealed as ludicrous. It was contempt and derision that doomed the Democratic Soviet Socialist Republics.
guns, not gins. Although the Politburo had its fair share of dipsomaniacs.
@ Steve:
” Who could possibly have foreseen the possibility that CIA sponsored colour revolutions wouldn’t lead to anything good?”
It’s a real mystery to the Powers That Be as to why foreign-backed, non-organic ‘ revolutions’ don’t usually work.
Surely someone, somewhere has benefited from all the chaos though, right?
“Revolutions never solve anything, before long another one comes around. That’s why they are called revolutions”
Sir Pterry was a fount of wisdom among the humour.
If course one problem for the “Arab Spring” was that whilst there were lots of groups who agreed that they didn’t like the government those groups disagreed with each other on most other things. So once the government was gone they fell out amongst themselves. And ended up with a different government that nobody liked.
Expect something similar in the US assuming Trump leaves office in January. All those groups who worked for his removal will fall out amongst themselves.
Children act up; parents spank them. Guardian searches for deeper meaning.
@ Pat:
” Expect something similar in the US assuming Trump leaves office in January. ”
They might bicker a little over the spoils but they’re united by one all-encompassing motive: they all agree that White people are the enemy.
They are arabs, who’d expect them to be able to run anything effectively , including a revolution.?
*or, like Egypt, has entered a new era of dictatorship, darker and more oppressive than ever before.*
Cue Prophet Samuel, warning against choosing a king, the populares backing Gaius J Caesar and getting Caligula and Nero, the French Revolution and the Marat-Robespierre “Reign of Terror”, 1917, the Soviet-aided conquest of China by Mao Zedong, the overthrow of Prince Sihanouk by the Khmer Rouge, the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, the murder of King Faisal of Iraq, …
Some of the results of these make Lenin seem moderate (and all of them make Cromwell, the worst dictator in English or Irish history, pale into wallpaper) so maybe Ms Malik thinks 1917 wasn’t a “real revolution”
so maybe Ms Malik thinks 1917 wasn’t a “real revolution”
The first one was, the second was a coup. The pattern is all too familiar.
“Like Saturn, the Revolution devours its children.”
Jacques Mallet du Pan, 1793
The problem was the absence of enough of the forces necessary to the success of a revolution rather than the presence of too many counter-currents against it.
Because people like Ms Malik were pretending to be refugees in the UK rather than actively working for democracy in their own countries? You know I think there may be a solution to this problem. Dare I say, a win-win solution.
It is interesting that none of the Arab monarchies were shaken by the Arab Spring except Bahrain. Which survived. The Soviet Union’s former allies were. I do not know what that means.
However given that oil revenue gives some Arab states enormous resources it will be very hard to shift them. They can hire mercenaries and pay off all opposition. Naturally Ms Malik wants higher taxes, always and instinctively, to make the state stronger.
SMFS: Are you saying that wicked Trumps’ wicked Muslim Ban was actually a good thing. Shock!!! Horror!!!
Maybe this time around all of the heroes will be forced to stay in the Middle East and fight, instead of cowering in our countries and trying to shove us into the sausage machine instead.