To compare or not to compare:  Is Revolution an Egyptian Word?

The blog Abu Muqawama ("Egypt: A Humble Request," January 30, 2011) makes a timely point: "can we all agree to stop using European historical analogies to describe what is taking place in Egypt? It's not Europe in 1848 or Eastern Europe in 1989 or France in 1789: it's Egypt in 2011.... When we use "western" frames of reference to make sense of what is taking place, by contrast, we a) sound really freaking narcissistic and b) fail to take those local phenomena seriously and thus miss a lot of what is going on."

I think the problem is not a Western frame of reference. After all, students of revolutions have developed some interesting insights into revolutions around the World by comparing them to earlier revolutions for which there is a fair amount of detail (France, Russia, China, etc.). 

The problem is the use of an analysis of a past revolution, to explain the future development of a rebellion that has not developed into a revolution as yet.  It turns out that no revolution springs full-blown from the head of Zeus, or from those involved in the early days (American mythology of founding fathers not withstanding).  Entrenched groups resist, movements radicalize, and the end result is much different than what people foresaw going in. (see The Dangers of Reification)

So, yes, that said, it IS important to remind commentators that (1) understanding 20th-century Egyptian history is more important than understanding 19th-century European history in understanding the current situation in Egypt (in this sense, 1952, 1956, 1981 in Egypt are more important than 1848, 1968, etc., elsewhere); and (2) to compare in revolutions is to deploy a metaphor (and as John Gaddis, Landscape of History suggests, that is what scientists, from geologists to astrophysicists, do).

Why Egyptian Street Protests?: a University Professor Lays Out the Bullet Points

• First of all, they want a real democracy.
• Another issue is the use of torture by the police, who are protected by the Emergency Law.
• The third is corruption.
• Connected to the corruption is the bureaucratic inefficiency.
• The last problem is the poverty.

("A Short Primer on Egypt Now," by guest post by Noor Khan, American Footprints, January 29th, 2011)  Professor Ulrich recommends We are all Khaled Said which includes latest video links.

Liberation 1944, 2011

• The Egyptian tanks, the delirious protesters sitting atop them, the flags, the 40,000 protesters weeping and crying and cheering in Freedom Square and praying around them, the Muslim Brotherhood official sitting amid the tank passengers. Should this be compared to the liberation of Bucharest? Climbing on to an American-made battle tank myself, I could only remember those wonderful films of the liberation of Paris. A few hundred metres away, Hosni Mubarak's black-uniformed security police were still firing at demonstrators near the interior ministry. It was a wild, historical victory celebration, Mubarak's own tanks freeing his capital from his own dictatorship.
• In the pantomime world of Mubarak himself – and of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in Washington – the man who still claims to be president of Egypt swore in the most preposterous choice of vice-president in an attempt to soften the fury of the protesters – Omar Suleiman, Egypt's chief negotiator with Israel and his senior intelligence officer, a 75-year-old with years of visits to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and four heart attacks to his credit. How this elderly apparatchik might be expected to deal with the anger and joy of liberation of 80 million Egyptians is beyond imagination. When I told the demonstrators on the tank around me the news of Suleiman's appointment, they burst into laughter. (Robert Fisk, "Egypt: Death throes of a dictatorship," Sunday, 30 January 2011, The Independent)

Blog Update: New Issues, New Sites

Events in Tunisia, Yemen, and Egypt require a few changes to the blogs I read and recommend.  I have added the following:

• Al Jazeera Transparency Unit
• Arabist
• Blog Stephen A. Cook (CFR)
• Democracy Arsenal
• EAWorld View
• Lede (New York Times)
• Mark Lynch (FP)
• Octavia Nasr / Blog

Après moi le déluge?

An apocryphal comment by Louis XV, but perhaps the dismissal of Turgot, Calonne, Brienne, or Necker (that is the rearrangement of the chairs on the deck of the Titannic) might be the better historical metaphor to today's news from Egypt.

• 1776 Louis XVI dismisses his finance minister, Turgot 
• 1786 August 20: Finance minister Calonne informs Louis that the royal finances are insolvent 
• April 8: Louis dismisses both Calonne & the keeper of the seals, or minister of justice, Miromesnil, in an attempt to break the impasse.
• April 30: The Archbishop of Toulouse & vocal leader of the higher clergy, Loménie de Brienne is appointed chief minister of state 
• 1788 June: Outcry over the enforced reforms ensues, & courts across France refuse to sit 
• July 5: Brienne begins to consider calling an Estates-General 
• Late August: Brienne resigns, & Jacques Necker replaces him as Minister of Finance.
• 1789 June 30: Large crowd storms left bank prison & frees mutinous French Guards 
• July 11: Necker dismissed by Louis; populace sack the monasteries, ransack aristocrats homes in search of food & weapons 
• July 14: Storming of the Bastille(adapted from Timeline of the French Revolution)
• 2011 Jan. 29. Mubarak appoints the former head of Egyptian military intelligence (Omar Suleiman) his vice president (and therefore likely successor). He appoints the Air Force Chief of Staff (Ahmad Shafiq) as prime minister. ("Mubarak’s Response to Demand for end of Military Rule," 01/29/2011, Informed Comment by Juan Cole)

Wild in the Streets (1968, 2011)




Is youth rebellion always good or always bad?

• Some political scientists warn of the dark side of the "youth bulge." A study by Population Action International asserted that 80 percent of the world's conflicts between 1970 and 1999 started in countries where 60 percent of the population was under 30. ("The Arab World's Youth Army," by Ellen Knickmeyer, Foreign Policy, January 27, 2011)

Some indications of hope from the young protestors:

• Now Al Jazeera is reporting that young protesters have formed a human chain around the museum to protect it against looting. It seems for now that this treasure trove of human ingenuity and the natural world's wonders is in no immediate danger. ("Egypt (and Beyond) LiveBlog: Black Hole or Another Day of Revolution," January 28, 2011, Scott Lucas, EAWorldView) 

But the riot police are generally young as well (as here from Liberation Square, Cairo).  The median age in Tunisia is 30; the median age in Cairo is 24; the median age in Yemen is less than 18.  More than 2/3 the population of Yemen is under 24.  (source: 29 January 2011, "What next in Yemen?," by Ginny Hill, BBC)

Iran Film Director Jafar Panahi Sentenced to Prison, Artistic Ban

Amnesty International notes the following with a call for action and signatures

• Jafar Panahi, an internationally celebrated film director who won the coveted "Golden Lion" prize at the Venice Film Festival for his 2000 film "Dayareh" (Circle), has been sentenced to six years in prison plus a twenty-year ban on all his artistic activities—including film making, writing scripts, traveling abroad and speaking with media. Jafar Panahi was convicted of “propaganda against the state” for having exercised his right to peaceful freedom of expression through his film-making and political activism. He was specifically accused of making an anti-government film without permission and inciting opposition protests after the disputed 2009 presidential election. Mr. Panahi's artistic collaborator, Mohammad Rasoulof, was also sentenced to six years in prison. (see also, Offside Director Remains Imprisoned)

The Dangers of Reification (Verdinglichung) of Riot and Rebellion


Green Revolution, Jasmine Revolution, Twitter Revolution, Pink Revolution 1, and Pink Revolution 2:  some are, some aren't.  The revolution happens after the riots.  And it is difficult for journalists to know.  The danger is not just in our pronouncements.  It is also on the streets.

The Real Palestine Papers?

The Gaza Youth's Manifesto for Change.

Michael Steele Removed from the RNC

Well, yes.  But this is regarding another regime change.  Make that men remove torn photo of former Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunis (from "Tunisians celebrate their freedom as country slides towards lawlessness," by Adrian Blomfield, 16 Jan 2011, The Telegraph)

The BBC has a useful timeline of the Tunisian twitter/wikileaks/social network rebellion/revolution:

• 17 Dec: Man sets himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid over lack of jobs, sparking protests
• 24 Dec: Protester shot dead in central Tunisia
• 28 Dec: Protests spread to Tunis
• 8-10 Jan: Dozens of deaths reported in crackdown on protests
• 12 Jan: Interior minister sacked
• 13 Jan: President Ben Ali promises to step down in 2014
• 14 Jan: Mr Ben Ali dissolves parliament after new mass rally, then steps down and flees
• 15 Jan: Parliamentary Speaker Foued Mebazaa sworn in as interim president (16 January 2011, "Tunis gun battles erupt after Ben Ali aide arrested")

The Revolution Will Be Televised (or Live Blogged)

("Tunisia Revolution LIVE UPDATES," Huffington Post, 01/14/11)

Andrew Sullivan also drew attention to the following:

• As in the recent so-called "Twitter Revolutions" in Moldova and Iran, there was clearly lots wrong with Tunisia before Julian Assange ever got hold of the diplomatic cables. Rather, WikiLeaks acted as a catalyst: both a trigger and a tool for political outcry. Which is probably the best compliment one could give the whistle-blower site. ("The First WikiLeaks Revolution?," by Elizabeth Dickinson, January 13, 2011, Foreign Policy)

Tunisia and Belarus compared?

(December 20, 2010, "Video of Opposition Protests in Belarus," by Robert Mackey, The Lede, New York Times)




("Tunisia: What Does It Mean?," 14 Jan 2011, Andrew Sullivan, Daily Dish)