Guide for revolution watchers

Last Sunday, I spoke to an Egyptian lady old enough to have witnessed the crowds protesting in the time of King Farouk. She told me the crowds gathering in Egypt today far exceed them. By Wednesday morning (when this is being written), what the crowds had achieved was already remarkable. Even so, the crowds were not yet satisfied.

Meanwhile, reporters stationed around the Arab world were filing stories about protests in Yemen and Jordan, eager monitoring of the protests by youth in Syria, online organisation of protests in (north) Sudan, barely just subsided protests in Algeria and sudden largesse from state coffers in Kuwait, where each citizen is to be given a substantial cash grant over the coming year. Oh, and in Tunisia some protests continue.

Watching these events is giddying. Comparisons with large historical events, such as the domino collapse of governments in eastern Europe in 1989, are flying. But while a fall of dominoes is a possible scenario, so is a variety of others. And even if the dominoes do fall, will the result be a real revolution or a milder reform? How is one to guess which is the more likely scenario in each case?

Here, then, is a guide for the amateur revolution watcher. There are at least five major stress points in a revolution. Watching each of them as closely as one can should yield some clues to which of the possible futures is likely, in each case, to come to pass.

First, how does the crowd represent itself? No protesting crowd calls itself a crowd; only its adversaries and would-be controllers do. The protestors give themselves a name, if only “the people”. But giving oneself a unifying name acceptable to all is not as easy as it looks. It presupposes a willingness by the protestors to bury their differences in the name of unity.

In Tunisia and Egypt, people wrapped themselves in the flags and national unity was easily invoked and taken to heart. But such national unity cannot be taken for granted so easily in every Arab country. In North Africa and in the Gulf, nationalist sentiment can transcend differences. In parts of the eastern Mediterranean, however, the situation is more complex.

In Lebanon and Jordan, internal fragmentation is such that national unity is based on very delicate legal and political fictions. No census is taken in either country, so as not to let the actual demographics (which everyone suspects but no one officially talks about) provoke a disruption of the precarious equilibrium.

This is why protests in Lebanon are overtly factionalised. And although factionalism is disguised in Jordan, the members of the protesting crowd are watched carefully. So far, it is significant the crowd demanded (and obtained) a change in government. But it has not challenged the monarchy itself, the disappearance of which would upset the paradoxical balance between a Jordanian national minority and a likely Palestinian majority.

Second, what means do protestors have to keep up the pressure?

One of the major weapons in the protestors’ arsenal has, of course, been the social media. But the persistence of the protests was given bite in both Tunisia and Egypt by the fact that both countries have long-standing, important trade unions, whose call for a general strike could be heeded.

Obviously, this is a condition that will be present, if at all, much more weakly in those oil-rich countries with a labour market decisively shaped by expatriate workers.

Third, can one guess what role the army will play?

The role of the army in Tunisia was decisive. It has a tradition of non-involvement in politics. One of the questions posed by the Egyptian case is that the army there has a higher caste involved in politics as well as in the economic sector. This may well have implications for the outcome of the protests in Egypt. Similarly, the army in countries such as Algeria, Morocco, Syria and Jordan has ties, of various kinds, to the current order. One would not expect the results in Tunisia to be replicated so easily.

Fourth, how far does the revolution go?

Will the result be a real revolution – a drastic break from the current distribution of power – or a reform? This depends on how quickly a national coalition breaks up into its various competing interests. Watch out for when the middle class goes back home: that tends to mean the outcome will be less radical than it might have been.

Fifth, if a change in government is achieved, is that the end?

Up to a few years after a revolution, a purge of the original coalition by a dominant faction seeking a clean sweep is possible. It happened in Algeria, in 1965, and in Iran, by 1981, not to mention in France in the 18th century and several other places. So keep watching.

ranierfsadni@europe.com