The American Historical Review's April 2007 issue includes an excellent article entitled What's Left? Popular Political Participation in Postwar Europe. Author Belinda Davis notes that many works in progress and now published have begun to consider the ways in which major governmental change has occurred in Europe since World War II, including whether the change agents are or were merely democracy at work or actual revolutionaries.
Taking a cue from the Davis article, this article explores what these issues mean when considering Obama.
Is there evidence that Obama's campaign is actually fomenting revolution? If so, is the revolution a relative of leftist politics or something different? Can it trace its roots to upheavals in Europe and Asia, or is this something new and different? Is this not democracy in action?
Is there any connection between social change abroad and Obama's change movement? Are Obama's changes those of an elitist revolutionary or those of more docile evolutionary change? Can we tell what we are facing when we hear and see Obama's proclamation that those in government need to be out of power?
Why are so many of those seeking change part of the current United States government and will they also be thrown out? What are the roots of Obama's message of "change"?
This article addresses these issues.
The Worldwide Roots of Change and Revolution
Over the last several decades, the media has managed to bring its audiences into a world filled with revolution. From Asia to Europe to South America, change has been the operative word for most of these revolutions. In every such environment, the change sought is a break from the "old" to the "new."
In Europe and Asia, recent movements for political change have depended on more public demonstrations that have used far less force. Most are now complete, but many remain as strong undercurrents. Some are still based on violent means, which has resulted in nomenclatures like "radical extremists."
These revolutions have proceeded from those brought in the early part of this century largely through methods far more violent than those of today. The older revolutions often swiftly overthrew governments, but also at times required long periods of warfare before they succeeded.
Most of the rhetoric in Europe has addressed radical government change. From Solidarity in Poland to the Greens in Germany, the impact of these changes often changed the landscape of these countries through public efforts outside of the government processes. This was done with distinct themes designed to ensure that clear choices existed between the "politics of the old" and the "new politics."
Postwar revolutions also took place in Vietnam, Cuba, Nicaragua, Indonesia and elsewhere. These revolutions were violent, as were some attempted in the United States by such people as the Symbionese Liberation Army, the Weather Underground (Dohrn and Ayres), the Black Liberation Army, the Black Panthers, Manson's crazed group, and a number of people who support radical change. The description of the Black Panthers brings to light the threads of change sought by that group, including the following, which can be seen in today's anti-corporation rhetoric.
Former Panther Earl Anthony said the party was originally created to prepare America for an armed Maoist revolution in order to change the social structure for the benefit of black people. For Black Panthers, this meant the realignment of domestic economic policies to benefit citizens (including those of other races), who were being crushed under the weight of corporate America.
The focus on corporate America is among the most virulent parts of Obama supporter attacks. That these supporters expect substantial reform here is without question. What that reform will be remains largely hidden from view.
Obama's Change Argument and Revolution
Obama has proclaimed that this country is involved in as great and important a period of change as it has faced since the Founding Fathers wrote the United States Constitution. The nomenclature "change" is essential to Obama's process. He has bandied the word "change" about as a real break from the past.
It is therefore essential to think through what is being offered. It is tempting to throw such a review off as mere resistance to new politics. But those directly involved in Obama's "change" use revolutionary slogans, have referred to revolutionary figures and countries, have used revolutionary symbols and fail adequately to define what is being changed.
The danger of finding oneself in a revolution with broad parameters and no real specifics makes this type of review timely. If this means (as it could) that what is good about our society and government will be rejected when moving to an unknown and potentially stifling "change" in 2009, careful review is not only appropriate but essential to our future.
Obama has had great attraction to and support from recent immigrants other than Hispanics. Go to any caucus and look around. Many Obama voters are naturalized citizens. Many speak with accents. And many are fulfilling dreams they had when they sought to change countries from which they have come.
These people are for strongly motivated by Obama's cry for change. Their knowledge of such change may often stem from revolutions and public demonstrations that have dramatically affected public positions in numerous countries from Japan to Germany.
The most mobilized and motivated people seeking revolutionary change make up Obama's most vocal constituents. Many are young, as were most post-war revolutionaries here and abroad.
In the absence of complete crisis, there is little doubt but that his cry for change will not be accepted if his relationship with these groups make them more than mere constituencies. So far, we have heard the cry of change in his overt reference in June 2007 to the plight of blacks who may riot and the need for continuing and substantial change in racial relations. But most of the change sought remains hidden from view.
The fact that the distinct outlines of the change are not grounded in issues has been buried by all of the participants, especially the media. Instead, they depend on the same discussion we have seen from everyone to date. That the real vote is over "issues." But the absence of distinct benchmarks is fact. And the fact that some ideal is being placed in front of people with so much change in the air will be viewed to be a mandate beyond any in modern time other than perhaps FDR.
The undefined change involved and where the United States is going is classic revolution from within. But it has no obvious constituency beyond Obama's inner circle and certain constituents who speak in terms of new coalitions. Indeed, most voters are clueless concerning the objectives or who will benefit. This makes Obama's claim of a mandate dangerous. For his views are not necessarily shared by a majority of his supporters. And they may be even less connected to popular movements than any in the history of the United States.
If one reviews blogs from Obama supporters, they can learn the sort of revolution they each foresee. Many believe that corporations are evil and will be held in check, that Obama intends to ensure that they become more important than any other, and that they will be invited into government to govern.
But Obama is less like the head of a political party and far more like an independent revolutionary. The roots for such a revolutionary may be seen all around him. From Dr. Wright to William Ayres to the antiwar demonstrator Kerry, the metes and bounds of revolution have been set for Obama throughout his life. The following traces these boundaries. Each can be seen. But each will be rejected, one by one, by those inclined to go on gut instinct, relying on what Obama says rather than what he does and where he comes from. Is this a secret revolution, or merely rhetoric sounding in revolution but based on democratic means?
Whatever real revolutionary change means, whether the Weather Underground model or the Dr. Wright and black church model, the revolution is necessarily not sufficiently inclusive to allow victory as long as the risks are known and neutrally analyzed.
Comparison with Europe
The underpinnings and meanings of "revolution" and the ways it has developed in postwar Europe provide a convenient backdrop for considering how people seeking "change" have gone about their efforts and how successful these efforts have been. They also pose some questions regarding whether Obama is seeking permanent change or only claiming a different way of looking at these things.
Although she does not admit to any comparison with Obama's "change" contentions, Belinda Davis states that the "flood of research in progress" offers "significant perspectives on the nature of politics, and of political change, useful beyond the subject of contemporary Europe, . . . [which] provide wide-ranging and important lessons." It is the thesis of many of the most recent works that European change movements cannot trace their successes to any given political party, such as the Liberals throwing Conservatives out. Instead, such change occurs through popular uprisings obtained through activist demonstrations who share common views and goals.
Geoff Eley's Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe 1850 - 2000 makes the point that democracy occurs when broad shifting population changes occur. This acknowledges the fact that change is more likely when substantial changes of population occur.
This is one worthwhile benchmark for our analysis. The United States has been involved in a very recent huge population change. The diversity of this population change may be greater than any time in our Nation's history.
There are other issues expressed by recent literature that are worthy of consideration. For example, there is a tendency to promote earlier periods of revolution as cumulative in nature, even when such change was neither democratic or sought by the majority of the population. Indeed, while Davis says that these are mere tendencies, one is readily taken by the fact that some
of these historians share a concern for what remains a fragile democratic tradition across Europe . . .. It is precisely to highlight these histories of popular activism and to thereby further encourage such actions that several of these authors write.
International Connections of Importance to Change in Europe, Asia and the United States
During the Vietnam war, people in the United States and other countries communicated on issues of importance in a growing number of areas. These included much more basic communication methods than are available today, but were largely direct through visits to and from the United States. While never the subject of as much study as the contacts from the United States that formed the background for Europe after World War II, one has to believe that these contacts were far more extensive than reported and led to many of the Vietnam War protests in Europe. According to Davis,
The informal politics of minorities and migrant communities, intra-European and otherwise, have attracted only limited historical attention. [Also] contemporary European activists interpreted and responded to prevailing trends and events through direct or indirect connections with others, outside and well as within the region and continent. British public scholar Timothy Garton Ash remembers that for him, "Pierre in Paris, Helena in Warsaw, John in Washington, and Michael in Bonn were, and remain, friends" and "were a 'we,' "constituting an ongoing "political community."
The impact of globalization and internationalization including especially by and through the media far exceeds other means of bringing people together globally, obtaining social and cultural change, and delivering a consistent message of change. The elements of an effective change message include a "collective memory in informing activism," "the cumulative effects of popular political action," and a wide variety of forms that go beyond "public demonstrations" and "underground literature." Thus, unlike before, popular politics today take place in alternative modes of and new spaces for communication, living, working, and new means of protection against abuse and harm.
As the global reach of the Internet and corporations made boundaries far less significant, the links among those seeking social and political change widened and deepened. Indeed, these have become huge torrents of "change" occurring in front of our faces. Focus on what blogs are talking about these days, their themes and views. Inside this constituency are many who have been more Marxist for years than Democrats. Most see our country in bad need of radical surgery.
Another important connection to the movements in many countries around the world and their connections is their source. In many if not most, the stimulus for Twentieth Century revolutions has come from elites, especially university students reveling in the prospect of change and making it happen.
As our populations have become more educated, their influence has strengthened because of mutually shared revolutionary environments. Obama has clearly found fertile ground here, and has no doubt used university environments both to obtain student support and to talk with faculty from those with moderate to radical views.
Obama in Asia and Suharto
There is little doubt but that many of the same influences existed in Asia. From the Japanese environmental and labor movements to the independence and "freedom" fights, the populations were in regular contact with American influences. And these made a huge difference in considering the future of these movements, most begun as small group efforts that seized national headlines and reverberated throughout the affected societies.
Obama was influenced by these movements and their thinking. It is foolish to ignore what he himself highlights as his foreign policy experience, namely his time in Indonesia and other foreign countries. Indonesia itself is well-portrayed in the movie "The Year of Living Dangerously," a marvelous and haunting portrait of the upheavals confronting Obama as he was raised in that largely Muslim country.
The significance of where he went to school has been diminished by the recognition that this was not a Muslim only school. Obama's classmates included the grandchildren of President Suharto.
Not only was that school not a madrasah but it was a secular one attended by children from Indonesian elite families, including the grandchildren of former president Suharto. In his memoir, Obama said his family could not afford to send him to an international school, which most expatriate children attend in Jakarta.
Why is this significant?
After being promoted, Suharto was assigned emergency powers on March 11, 1966 through a presidential decree by Sukarno known as the Supersemar. He would then go on to become president in 1967. Suharto would proclaim the New Order, a system of authoritarian rule to reconstruct the country.
Obama was present in Indonesia during the assassination of the members of the PKI and the repression of the Chinese in Indonesia. The purge of the PKI, an organization claimed to be communists, is estimated to have resulted in the death of at least half a million Indonesians.
Estimates of those killed in the purge range from 78,000 to over 1 million, with most estimates agreeing that at least half a million were killed. A CIA study of the events in Indonesia assessed that "In terms of the numbers killed the anti-PKI massacres in Indonesia rank as one of the worst mass murders of the 20th century..". Many others were also imprisoned and for the next ten years people were still being imprisoned as suspects. It is thought that as many as 1.5m were imprisoned at one stage or another.
Based on my current research, Obama has never criticized Suharto's New Order or discussed any effect that Suharto's actions had on his future plans. The absence of such criticism is difficult to understand. But his own citation of Indonesia as a model Muslim country is far more difficult to understand from anyone claiming to be well-versed for foreign policy because of the understandings he gained there. Thus, he stated the following during a debate.
I then attended a public school, but the majority of the country was Muslim. And the brand of Islam that was being practiced in Indonesia at the time was a very tolerant Islam. The country itself was explicitly secular in its constitution. And so you didn't have the oppressive state that was trying to impose people's religious beliefs. And Christians and people of other faiths lived very comfortably there. And women were working, and out, and were not wearing the traditional coverings that we see in the Middle East. And so what it taught me, and what it still teaches me, as I think about foreign policy now, is that Islam can be compatible with the modern world."
There are many examples of people like Suharto in politics. They run in a peculiarly recent vein, largely focused on personality and personal charisma. But when necessary, they have always been grounded in force.
Obama has many of these traits, traits often seen coming from the far left. The use of mass media, the changes in that media for emphasis or in support of alleged truth, and the copying of positions in order to achieve a goal that is then abandoned for one's true agenda. From Lenin to Castro, such regimes appear with false appeals to democracy only to sink into self-directed change determined by one man. Is this where we are with Obama?
Are Democracy and Revolution Different?
As noted above, the authors of these new works have tended to merge the terms democracy and revolution, making their meaning less obvious than one might think. One reason for this could well be that revolution led to democracy in many countries, so the terms are necessarily married. But in the United States, they stand for two distinctly different things. And it is dangerous to treat them as one.
Democracy is the proper exercise of voting franchises in order to choose one's government. We have this to a degree in our country.
The Democratic Party believes that it is appropriate to insist on a candidate before all the votes are in and a convention where all ideas can be expressed. It abhors popular votes, choosing instead to use undemocratic caucuses. And it also chooses to provide delegates based not on popular vote even if by a huge majority but instead on an allocation method allowing manipulation and control over the process in unintended ways. Indeed, both it and the Republican Party require an order of primaries and caucuses that artificially impact their outcomes.
Is Obama Fostering Revolution or Democracy?
Obama's own Internet guru is a Harvard graduate who is an admitted Marxist, and Obama's first office was adorned with a huge picture of Che Guevera. From his mother to Indonesia to the Weather Underground to Dr. Wright and black liberation movements, Obama's life has been that of a revolutionary. Many factors point in the direction of an Obama revolution, starting with his change designed to be a complete break from the past similar in importance to 1776.
Do the majority of voters in this country favor a revolution rather than the exercise of democracy? Is the rejection of Obama by middle America the same as has happened in the past? Is this a rejection of revolution for steady progress? And finally, does Obama's control of the Democratic Party represent revolution rather than mere exercise of democracy for all?
The hodgepodge of Obama supporters has some common traits. They are largely this country's elite. Many are rich and/or highly educated. They trust Obama because they believe he is like them.
If there were a risk that Obama is not like them, what would they do? Are the Old Democratic Party of Pelosi-Kennedy-Kerry-Leahy merely part of the planned revolution or true patriots?
Proven patriotism is inherent in the way we live and our conduct toward our fellow citizens. It is finding that we are all in this together, not that some are bitter for no good reason or even a good reason. It is avoiding racial prejudices inherent in the claim that race is at the base of voting against Obama, and the need better to understand and consider why anyone with his background does not represent a risk to our country.
In the end, there is little doubt but that Obama has revolutionary roots, from his mother to his life in Indonesia to his work with terrorists and black liberationists like Dr. Wright in this country to his university and other university supporters. Are these roots going to take us to profoundly different places? And if so, who will choose this route as opposed to Clinton or McCain?
Only time will tell.