Revolutions in Review

From the Mahgrib…

…to the Persian Gulf

The revolutionary time is over and – the furor over the movie notwithstanding – things generally move at the slower pace of domestic politics. It’s becoming clear that the demonstrations were organized and carried out by counter-revolutionary elements – at least those that were not spontaneous, and only to the extent they were not. They bothered some people more than they bother me. How can a revolution expect to get rid of spontaneity? Counter-revolutionary spontaneity is just one price a revolution pays for its own spontaneity.

It’s also becoming clear that they (the counter-revolutionary elements) haven’t gained any real traction against the revolutions this way. They (the demonstrations) are dying out, aren’t they? Nothing of any importance was gained against the United States of America either. Though today the perpetrator is under arrest, I believe, because how he made the movie involved a probation violation. That’s justice!

At any rate it’s now possible to proceed with a review of what the revolutions have achieved, the reaction on the side of Salafism, etc., having proven, if persistent, comparatively weak.

One could say metaphorically that the face of the Arab world has changed. But speculative philosophy can do better. It can say that the prospects of the Arab world have changed. And so by way of summary, with an individual post projected for each of the bullets in the list:

·         Tunisia. Last I heard, they managed to write a constitution without institutionalizing the Sharia. So this is possible to be done in the absence of a secular despotism.

·         Libya. Represents, like Yemen, an instance to prove that strongmen can successfully preserve the national existence of countries that would otherwise come apart at the seams. Not that the strongman has come forth again, but that the seams are bursting. Yet in late news, the revolution has used its strength against provincial and fundamentalist militias. Even if central government cannot be restored on the same footing (but absent the strongman), there is nothing profoundly undemocratic about federalism.

·         Egypt. President Morsi behaves as though he’s already gained control of the state, in both its inward and outward aspects. Who’s to say he hasn’t? It’s far too early to say whether he will betray the revolution either for personal aggrandizement or for Islamic fundamentalism. Yet there’s been no sign whatever he’s tried. On the contrary, he has kept a politic balance. So why worry?

·         Palestine. Ever notice that the Arab Spring never seemed to touch Palestine? To me this means it was already an effective democracy. A nation in arms can still be a democratic nation.

·         Jordan. More constitution, less monarchy. The Hashemites have not tread this path at a revolutionary pace, but they’re not free to leave it either. The King really ought to provide a better example to the aristocracies and monarchies of the Arabian Peninsula.

·         Syria. Did you know that military science, like the theory of revolutions, is also a dialectical science? I could explain that in another post, but to analyze the civil war as such might be out of scope for this blog.

·         Lebanon. Like Palestine, relatively untouched by the Arab Spring, and also possessing beforehand a discernable, if tumultuous, political life. The abasement of the Assad despotism can only strengthen democracy in this country.

·         Iraq. You could ask the same question about al-Maliki that some would like to ask (prematurely) about Morsi. But the American people didn’t spend blood and treasure to set up a despot in Iraq they way they did once or twice in Vietnam.

·         Bahrain. Where agitation for democracy is still a criminal act. The successes of the Arab Spring seem to have stopped at the headwaters of the Gulf and the geographical (and political) frontier of the Arabian Peninsula.

·         Yemen. Both like and unlike Libya. The new president Hadi has restored the former authority of the government without perceptibly making a revolution in the state. Reforms only, but reforms that seem to enjoy a measure of popular support. Meanwhile, Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula has been reduced to making war on Moslems.

The decision lies with Egypt and Iraq, the one wealthy in population, the other in oil. (Both of which, by the way, have verbally aligned themselves against the current regime in Syria.) If these centers of gravity are shifted permanently to democracy, the rest are that much more likely to continue in that path or to follow. If that happens in this generation, what will happen in the next? and where?

…Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

The Revolution is Over…

…or it might as well be. I wonder what the people of Yemen will have gotten for their trouble.

The dialectical analysis of an historical entity fails when a larger such entity intervenes, to some degree removing its possibility of self-determination. The smaller entity is no longer free to work out its own contradictions – among other things redoubling the difficulty of dialectical analysis. Now any movement for changes in the state is or may be at the instance, or subject to the approval, of the larger entity and its interests. It’s not a new pattern. What usually happens when the United States, or any other such power, feel they have something to fear about, or gain from, the goings on in a sovereign, independent nation?

So when I posted that the revolution in Yemen was in a dangerous place, the devolution into tribal, prerevolutionary conflict was one danger. The result is worse still, because the first success of that phase was won by al Qaida, when forces under their influence gained control of some provincial capital in the south.

Since then, the U.S. has been exploring the resumption of military aid to the regime, which, apart from procuring the absence of Saleh, gives no appearance whatever of having a revolutionary agenda. It’s too busy struggling with al Qaida, and the tribes who think al Qaida represents their interests – though, to be sure, not their economic interests.

Next, the regime managed to drive al Qaida out of some of the positions they had captured. But at a philosophical distance, the action resembles nothing more than the historical norm of tribal conflict.

So the internal forces are pushing the country backward, and so is the external force majeure being applied by the U.S. To an extent, Yemen still is self-determining, but in a movement that is fundamentally counter-revolutionary. At the end of this movement lies another strongman – at least one strong enough to alternately conciliate and cow the tribes, if not to make himself universally feared.

The revolution in Libya is not in much better condition, though the retrograde movement has not been so rapid. Things seem to have stabilized at a point short of more or less continuous armed conflict. There are reasons to think someone with strong political, nationalist instincts could still overcome a provincialism that cannot be in the interest of the Libyan people as a whole.

In a Dangerous Place

Libya is in a dangerous place. Some countries seem too need a strong man who is strong enough to keep them from flying apart from the outside in. That situation has been reached by the revolutionary militias and their rivals, which are local, in some cases tribal, and in the worst cases, still loyal to the family of the despot.

At least Libya has oil. Oil grounds the possibilities of the middle class, which in turn grounds the possibilities for political and civil liberties in Libya.

This much can’t be said for Yemen. It was chosen by al Qaida for the same reason they choose all their other bolt holes (Iraq excepted, but Iraq was a mistake): it has little or no economic life. Tribal and regional rivalries antedate the Saleh regime – by centuries, even millennia. They drove the very course of the revolution. Saleh’s mastery of those relations was the prime reason he was so difficult to oust.

Worse still, with Saleh gone, what does the revolution do next? Is there anything on its agenda, the demand for which is strong enough to overcome the tendency to relapse into conflicts based on ancient rivalries? The people still carry rifles so they can protect their water holes from rival bands and tribes. Even if the revolution could coalesce around principles and programs, would it be able to govern until they were achieved?

All of which just goes to show that the departure of the despot in normally closer to the beginning than the end of a revolution – particularly a successful one.

So long, Saleh!

Seemingly, the tribes woke up and found they were strong – strong enough to strike a mortal blow, not as chance would have it to Saleh personally, but to his physical ability to maintain his regime. With Saleh in a Saudi hospital, is there anyone left to carry on the civil war in his name? That seems doubtful. The Vice President says he will, but I suppose he’s got a job and would like to keep it.

Power that is built on the weakness of and divisions between one’s enemies rather than the strength of one’s support tends to evaporate in one’s absence.

That leaves the tribes face-to-face with the students and their allies in the capital. We’ll see if they can find common revolutionary ground.

Of course, U.S. insistence on hunting down al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula would tend to resolve this conundrum in favor of another, new strongman in Yemen, someone capable of carrying on the hunt. The choice is between our fears for ourselves, and the bare possibility, slim in itself but scarcely able to resist outside pressure, that the revolution in Yemen might actually be able to gain something for the political and civil liberty of its people.

In the past, confronted with a similar choice, we’ve taken counsel of our fears – more than once in Vietnam, for example.