Ted Koppel really got my dander up this morning with his arguments about the inconsistency of the American approach to the various revolutionary and humanitarian crises in the Middle East, North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa. Koppel said that our approach is inconsistent in our treatment of the various revolutions in the North Africa and the Middle East. And if this action by the UN was truly humanitarian, then why isn't there the same call to action in the Ivory Coast or the Congo.
Laurence Lewis in his well-written diary on the front page of Daily Kos displayed a similar myopia when he said that our approach is not marked by "noble intentions," but instead is part of the same cleoptocratic foreign policy that is evidenced by the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He says:
But if human rights and support for democracy and freedom truly were the motivating factors, there is no reason we wouldn't be seeing a consistency of response to all these revolutionary movements, and to all elsewhere in the world. And hardly at all mentioned is that all these movements were inspired by Tunisia, and Tunisia was inspired by the depth of its government's corruption, which only came fully to Tunisian public consciousness with the release of the U.S. embassy cables by WikiLeaks.
And Laurence is right that the inspiration for these movements have come from one source: the selfless act of one Tunisian fruit-vendor. I would ask all who read this diary to also read the inspiring Washington Post article by Marc Fisher of Mohammed Bouazizi, the man who through the act of self-immolation has changed the region and the world.
But Laurence is wrong when he asserts that this inspiration means that we should treat the Arab Spring of 2011 consistently. We are seeing a revolutionary movement that the world has never seen before. The Arab Spring is completely different than the revolutionary spirit of the late 18th century, the European revolutions of 1848, the colonial revolutions after World War II and the anti-communist revolutions in 1989.
We CANNOT act reflexively as a nation or as part of the international community. And we as activists cannot hold our leaders to our ideals without fully understanding what the Arab Spring revolutions mean and how they are different than prior revolutions and different in each country.
The world is confronting a completely new phenomenon: grassroots-led and inspired revolutions. The similarity between all revolutions in the past was that despite having different causes and different goals, they were led by elites. The American Revolution was led by the richest and most powerful people in British America. And while they wanted a republic, we all know well that they feared giving too much power to the people. And thus we have our Constitution that placed great authority in the hands of the elites.
The 1848 revolutions were also led by elites in Europe and sometimes led to the formation of autocratic regimes, such as in France and Germany. The nobility in France were rebelling against the royal absolutism of the French regime. The Polish nobility led their revolutionary movement in 1846. And the communist rumblings were inspired by Marx, who was educated member of the middle-class.
Even the colonial independence movements of India, Vietnam and many other African and Asian countries and the 1989 anti-communist revolutions were led by elites, such as Ghandi, Ho Chi Minh and Lech Wallesa.
Here, we are dealing with an entirely grassroots-inspired and led democratic movements. Even those who were already revolutionaries, such as Ahmed Maher of Egypt, or were sympthetic to the revolutionaries and were in a position to spread the message like Seyfallah Machtat of Tunisia (both interviewed in the Fisher article above), did not lead this revolution but were caught up in it. This is why you see thousands of young people drive off to the front lines in Libya without any direction by a military commander. Read this account from Al Jazeera of the early advance of Libyan rebels before Gaddafi began his counterattack that led him to the brink of Benghazi:
But the rebels' lack of training might prove more fatal than their limited armory. Frontline fighters have displayed notable bravery and have organised fairly effective supply lines for weapons, food and fuel, but they often flee when presented with serious resistance and seem to have no organised hierarchy, raising the possibility that the recent series of rebel victories was the result more of strategic withdrawals by Gaddafi troops rather than their full-scale rout.
So why is all that important? I bring this up because the governments of the West are "scrambling to figure out what to do" not, as Laurence says, because "the current revolutionary movements in North Africa and the Middle East are challenging the results of centuries of careful political maneuvering and less careful political thinking." The real reason for the confusion on how to handle this is because we are dealing with a movement the world has never seen before on this scale. We, in the U.S., have been aware of the poltiical power of the internet and social networking sites for a while. The success of MoveOn.org, Dailykos and various other progressive online organizations or the success of Meetup and the Howard Dean campaign in 2003-04 are a testament to that. But our successful movements have not had the scale or the power of the Arab Spring. This is why the world is scrambling to keep up with these fast-paced revolutions.
And the inconsistency of the international community's approach is due to the inconsistency of the revolutions and crises before us. The Arab Spring is unlike the Ivory Coast or the Congo in that those sub-saharan African conflicts are truly civil wars with either two or many parties. In Zimbabwe, there may have been an attempt to have a movement similar to the Arab Spring (it's not clear whether it was actually a revolutionary call-to-protest or a government trick to expose opposition leaders), but it failed to lead to any results.
Just because the crises in Libya and the Ivory Coast are humanitarian in nature does not make them equal either in their toll on the people at risk or in our ability to stop the violence. If we try to solve some of these crises we are not likely to be effective and like Somalia would not be able to get out without many casualities and loss of prestige.
The Arab Spring is a different situation. In many of the countries, especially Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, we are dealing with a united populace desiring change. Moreover, these movements are different in their character than many of the other crises in sub-Saharan Africa or other hotspots in the world. Mr. Bouazizi's inspiration to act is a perfect example of what I am saying. He was inspired by the humiliation of a corrupt police force that prevented him from providing a better life for himself and his family. This is not the same cause of the crises in sub-Saharan Africa.
I also disagree with Laurence's and Koppel's point that the international community should have a consistent approach to the revolutions in the Arab world. To do so would ignore one of the central lessons that we should have learned from Iraq, which is to not treat the Arab world as if it is a homogenous society. We need to take each country one at a time and deal with these revolutions as best we can.
Tunisia and Egypt fell due to peaceful revolutions. In Yemen, 60% of its military defected to the opposition the weekend after 50 people were killed by snipers at Sanaa University. In Jordan, Syria and Saudia Arabia, even the protestors are not calling for the resignation of their King or President.
Bahrain has a majority Shia population but a Sunni monarchy. When the more radical elements of the opposition movement called for the resignation of the King, many Sunnis began to fear for their safety if the monarchy fell. Yet, this movement is different in its course from Libya in another way in that King Al-Khalifa has been more willing to negotiate with the opposition movement. Also, the opposition movement today agreed to a negotiation with the King to be mediated by Kuwait.
Libya is the only country with a united opposition to a dictator who has been unwilling to negotiate but has been very willing to use all military means possible to destroy the opposition. He has used armor, rocket launchers, naval bombardment and jets and helicopters to bomb, shoot and strafe thousands of innocent civilians. Had his forces entered Benghazi the death toll would most certainly have gone into the hundreds of thousands. In addition to this, he has used absolutely thuggish behvaior, such as was exposed by a brave woman in Tripoli telling the world of her gang-rape and beating.
This is not to say that the other regimes have been paragons of virtue. Mubarek and Ben-Ali probably killed dozens and possibly hundreds this winter before they were forced to leave. The use of snipers in Yemen to kill nearly 50 innocent protestors at Sanaa University was despicable. The suppression of the revolt in Bahrain has been brutal, especially since King Al-Khalifa is using forces mostly from Saudia Arabia and other Gulf nations. Moreover, the measure of the brutality is not yet known due to the media blackout. And in Syria, close to a hundred people were killed this weekend by Bashir Al-Assad.
Yet none of those nations displayed the cruelty or the callousness of Gadaffi. Moreover, as I pointed out above, each nation has different forces and issues that are leading to their revolution and/or causing its progress or lack thereof. We, in the west, especially we activists must recognize these differences and account for it when we push for greater support for the various movements of the Arab Spring.
I do not mean to imply that there is no self-interest involved in Obama's or the rest of the world's reaction to the Arab Spring. That would be an effort in futility. As Secretary Gates and Clinton pointed out, European coutnries are very scared of the immigration problems that may result from the revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa. Furthermore, it was clear that our initial reaction to the January 25th revolution in Egypt was an attempt to help Mubarek stay in power while trying to get him to make political reforms. Moreover, it is clear that the U.S. does not want to shine a light on the actions of the al-Khalifa regime in Bahrain since our Fifth Fleet is stationed there.
Yet even these self-interested concerns has not changed Obama's message to Arab dictators to make political reforms and deal peacefully with their citizens. Nor should they negatively color UN Resolution 1973 nor the interational coalitions efforts to protect the Libyan people. But we as activists must ensure that the actions of the Obama administration and the international community continues to benefit the people of the Arab world. We must do this because Laurence was very right when he said:
[W]e must claim and cling to our ideals. We must dream of a day when policies will be based on the common good, in respect and awe of our common humanity. We would like to believe our foreign policy at least to some degree is predicated upon noble intentions, but only by continuing to hold all governments accountable will we ever even begin to make that seeming fantasy a reality.
While I am not convinced that it is so today, we can hope that the Libyan no-fly zone is the first step in that effort.
Viva La Revolution!