So much is different
an interview with  Nazmi al-Jubeh

BI: Thinking about European history, what similarities and differences do you see with the "Arab spring"?

Jubeh: Comparisons are more or less impossible due to the socio-economic and cultural background of each community. Take into consideration that the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a comprehensive collapse of the Soviet Union, as well as the Eastern Bloc. There were similar socio-economic conditions in the socialist countries and the bloc sustained itself for a long period through security forces rather than social groups or classes.

Revolutions are by their very nature unpredictable. Hence it is tempting to compare ongoing revolutionary upheavals to preceding ones so as to get some indication or roadmap of where they may be leading. For years, both supporters and opponents of the Soviet revolution tried to look for parallels to its various stages in post-1789 French developments: were Lenin's communists analogous to the Jacobins; was Stalin a reincarnation of the anti-radical Thermidor? The most famous attempt at developing such an overarching theory of revolution was made by the Harvard scholar Crane Brinton in his 1938 "The Anatomy of Revolution".

While obviously enticing, such attempts may also be misleading, as became clearly evident when US President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, tried to use Brinton's theory when the United States was suddenly confronted by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's Islamic revolution in Iran. The consequences of trying to find such parallels without a closer study of local conditions were, to say the least, less than helpful.

Yet the recent series of demonstrations and revolutions in the Arab world, some successful, some less so, does call for an attempt to look for possible parallels. If applied carefully and with due acknowledgment of historical, social and cultural differences, this can be helpful.

The obvious parallel--because recent and still on people's minds--is the dramatic series of 1989-90 upheavals that spelled the end of communism in Eastern Europe. There, just as in the Arab world, a sudden and unpredictable wave of dissent, public demonstrations and popular anger brought down, one after the other, a series of dictatorial regimes that until then looked not only formidable but also unassailable. Almost overnight, strutting tyrants, bolstered by a seemingly powerful ideology, proved to be paper tigers.

The parallels are appealing. Yet there are at least two aspects that suggest the analogy may be misleading.

The first is the outcome. In Eastern Europe, within a few months all communist regimes--from Moscow to Tirana, from East Berlin to Belgrade--came crashing down: leaders were deposed, ruling communist parties were dethroned if not banned, and dissenters and revolutionaries headed new provisional governments that led their countries within a few months to democratic, multi-party elections. First steps were made to dismantle the communist command economy.

Not in all countries was the outcome a successful transition to a consolidated democracy: Russia is a prime example of such a failure. But in all cases, the old system was dismantled and in no case did the "ancien regime" fight back successfully or maintain its hold on power.

At least until now, this is not the picture in the Arab world. Only in Tunisia and in Egypt have dictatorial leaders been deposed. In Syria, President Bashar Assad's regime holds on and continues in its violent oppression of its own people; in Libya, Muammar Gaddafi still controls half of the country, despite NATO's intervention; in Bahrain, the Sunni dynast managed to stay in power, thanks at least in part to Saudi support; and in Yemen, the confused outcome may herald a long period of chaos rather than democratic transformation. Meanwhile, the strongest, richest and most influential oppressive Arab regime, Saudi Arabia, appears almost totally immune to change and transformation.

Yet even in the two countries where dictators were ousted, the outcome remains unclear. In Egypt, effectively ruled by a military junta, the difficulties in crafting the mechanisms of a transition to an elected form of government suggest that the jury is still out: will the country end up with a combination of military-cum-Islamist rule, or will a truly democratic outcome prevail? A similar conundrum is facing Tunisia.

The second difference has to do with the fact that in Eastern Europe, the revolutions succeeded because they were led by well-organized groups of dissenters (Solidarity in Poland, Carta-77 in Czechoslovakia) with a clear ideological message (away from communism and the Soviet system and towards western-style market economy). This made it possible for them to successfully take over the machinery of government. These movements were also blessed with charismatic leaders (Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel) or powerful internal reformers (Mikhail Gorbachev). All this--both movements and leaders--is sorely lacking in the Middle East, not only in Syria but also in Tahrir Square.

This is not 1989.

Yet there may be another, more nuanced parallel: the 1848 "Spring of Nations". Here too, a host of oppressive regimes was toppled almost overnight through popular demonstrations and uprisings--from Paris to Vienna, from Berlin to Napoli. Great hopes were in the air: for national self-determination, for representative government, even for socialist revolution. Yet within a few months, the powers-that-be (emperors, kings, princes, the Pope) were able to regain control, mainly due to the lack of articulation and organization of the democratic forces. It turned out that bringing down tyrants is relatively easy and can sometimes be achieved in a couple of days, but developing, maintaining and sustaining a democratic transformation is a long-term effort anchored in a well-articulated civil society. And this, Europe in 1848 was still lacking.

Yet--and this is the silver lining--despite the success of European reactionary rulers in regaining power, the re-established conservative regimes were never the same: to preempt a repeat of revolutionary attempts, they had to make concessions by introducing elections, even if on a limited scale, social legislation, and accountability; new social classes inched their way to power. The almost total disregard for vox populi by the pre-1848 regimes could not be regained: old-type absolutism was dead. Thus, despite the immediate failure of 1848, Europe did eventually change: slowly, gradually, but definitely.

The lesson for the Arab world is obvious: even if the current balance is problematic, the region will not be the same again. As Heraclitus said more than two and a half millennia ago, you can never step twice into the same river.-Published 11/8/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Shlomo Avineri, professor of political science at the Hebrew University and former director-general of Israel's Foreign Ministry, is the author, among others, of "The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx".

Twenty years from now, December 2024, I know exactly where I will be: celebrating the anniversary of the fall of the Wall, with a dancing crowd, enjoying a display of giant falling dominoes. No, this won't be in Germany. Unfortunately, I missed that event on November 2024, when visiting icon and Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa tipped the first domino in commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years earlier. My air ticket destination will read Tunis.

For centuries, the Arab people have been gazing at the Wall of fear that their oppressive regimes have managed to erect in every citizen's mind. People knew the high price that they would pay if they dared to leap over that wall. But the free Tunisians had a better plan: if you can't jump it, thump it. Within days, it crumbled. Then the Egyptians followed the lead. And their Wall fell too. In Libya, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, the people are still trying and dying. The path is long and grueling, but one thing is certain: the spark of democracy has been ignited.

But what's next?

The cascading wave of change in the Arab world holds some resemblance to the 1989 revolutions in Poland, East Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Romania that led to European-style liberal democracies--with less emphasis on civil society and non-governmental organizations. However, three experts in this field caution against the analogy. They emphasized in email correspondences with me that the specificity of the 1989 European revolutions that led to the collapse of communism could not be forced on the Arab setting. "The key difference for me is how strong some of the governments in the Middle East are proving to be, and conversely, how easy it was to bring communism to its knees," wrote Patrice C. McMahon, associate professor of political sciences at the University of Nebraska.

Ironically, the communist ideology contributed to the fall of these regimes as it encouraged workers unions, which led to the formation of Solidarity in Poland with its ten million members. In 1981, those members organized a four-hour-long strike that was reportedly the largest in European history. This prompted the New Republic magazine to publish an editorial by Hendrik Hertzberg that sarcastically wrote, "If Karl Marx were alive today, he would not be surprised at what is happening in Poland."

Both Poland and Hungary revolted in 1956 against Soviet oppression. All, including Czechoslovakia in 1968, were met with force. However, these regions had a "permissive environment for change", argues McMahon, where many citizens had accumulated precious experience in human mobilization, politics, and administration--all put to use at the time of transition in 1989.

No such equivalent is available in the Arabic world today, which makes the Arab public less equipped to deal with the logistical challenges of the revolutions (although the introduction of social media has ameliorated this shortcoming). In addition, many Arab countries currently don't seem to have the kind of financial troubles that limited the ability of the communist regimes at that time and their protector, the former Soviet Union, to respond to the revolts.

Another key difference that makes the "Arab spring" unlikely to go the way of Poland is the absence of the external factor. "I don't think the precedent of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe travels very well to the Arab World," wrote Larry Diamond, senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and professor at Stanford University. Those regimes were "artificial" not only because they were illegitimate, but also because "they had mostly been imposed and maintained by former Soviet military domination or intimidation," Diamond added. And once Mikhail Gorbachev, then president of the Soviet Union, announced in December 1988 that his country would not use force to defend communism in Eastern Europe, the meltdown ensued. An external factor that "so powerfully locks the Arab dictatorships in place" is lacking in the Middle East.

Not only has the birth of the Arab spring been independent of any external influence, but it's completely "home-grown", according to Larbi Sadiki, an academic at Exeter University in the United Kingdom and the author of "Rethinking Arab Democratization: Elections without Democracy". Sadiki points to another difference between the Arab and the European revolutions, saying that the former lacks an ideological dimension. In Tunisia and Egypt, the revolts started "as bread riots and then converted into bottom-up struggles for dignity and freedom," he explains.

But if the Arab spring doesn't follow in the steps of Poland and East Germany, what direction will it take? Basically any one. "It will be complex, open-ended and arduous," but it will eventually open up paths for democratization, says Sadiki. Diamond and McMahon concur, stressing that events will be much more protracted and violent than those in most of Eastern Europe.

So don't expect the display of enormous falling dominoes in Tunisia or Egypt any time soon. That's why the date on my air ticket to Tunis will be December 2024. I hope by then I will see the democratic example of Poland and Germany, not the regrouping of the old order as in the former Soviet states.-Published 11/8/2011 © bitterlemons-international

Adil Awadh is a journalist and fellow with the Pearl Project at Georgetown University in Washington DC.

It is quite understandable that when a nation is badly governed it should develop a wish to govern itself. But a desire for independence of this kind, stemming as it does from a specific, removable cause--the evil practices of a despotic government--is bound to be short-lived. Once the circumstances giving rise to it have passed away, it languishes and what at first sight is a genuine love of liberty proves to have been merely hatred of a tyrant . . . . (Alexis de Tocqueville, "The Old Regime and the French Revolution")

Just like in human life, failures and false starts are as much if not more important for dealing with future challenges than the much rarer triumphs and crowning moments. The recent upheavals in the Arab world are often referred to as the "Arab spring", evoking reminiscences of the Spring of Nations in Europe in 1848 and of the Prague Spring of 1968. To note that both of these historic models were in fact glorious flops does in no way diminish the significance of the current events in the Middle East or the idealism and heroism of the millions of protesters participating in them.

It is hard to point to a single cause or factor that brought about the revolutions of 1848 and 2024, unless one thinks of endemic disillusionment with the powers-that-be as a cause rather than a symptom of the malaise. Political oppression, poverty, national awakening, historic wrongs, and strict social stratification all played a role then and now, reinforcing one another, spreading near and far and creating a combustive atmosphere in which a single spark would lead to an explosion.

Sifting through the events of 1848, 1968 and 2024, it is equally difficult to point to a single demand or program that would unite the briefly victorious masses. In the latest instance, is it liberal democracy, Islamic state, economic improvement, redistribution of property, or a simple requirement of dignity in life? The answer is parts of all, or perhaps none of the above. The program of the defenders of the status quo, on the other hand, is always fairly simple and easy to operationalize: it is to give up as little and to preserve as much as possible.

It is mainly because of this disparity that the protesters in Egypt, Tunisia, and even more so in Yemen and Syria run the risk of losing some of their recent achievements. The process of a successful restoration or counter-revolution generally follows a standard course. It consists first of a tactical retreat when the wave of popular unrest is at its crest. Promises are mouthed about reforms, constitutions and bright futures. The second phase is infiltration. People who have mouthed the promises use them as legitimization to shed their all-too-often unsavory pasts and join the seemingly victorious rebels. There then comes a suppression or elimination of all dissent marketed as a highly desirable return, now that the revolution has won, to law and order and productive activity under the newspeak headline of "normalization". Finally, it is time for the purges, or worse.

Such was the history of both 1848 and 1968. In the absence of clearly-defined goals against which progress or the lack thereof can be measured, people will gradually fatigue and drop off one by one as they feel their vague aspirations have been achieved or--on the contrary--have become unattainable.

This does not necessarily mean that the history of the Arab spring will follow the same course. Parallels are only that. The best model of a cat, as Arturo Rosenblueth used to say, is another cat, specially the same cat. Much will still depend on the ability of the protest leaders to present a program that is general enough to agree upon, easy to comprehend and realistic to implement and that promises some real improvement in real time. "Back to Europe" was such a program that in one form or another did the trick for the countries of Central and Eastern Europe after the revolutions of 1989. It also demonstrated the slight advantage we had in being able to point at something that really existed, that we were once a part of, and that was demonstrably working not just as a past ideal but also as a blueprint for the present and a sound point of departure for the future. In the case of the Arab spring, such a model seems to be harder to find.

Recourse to past certainties is a natural but not necessarily helpful response to situations of social upheaval, conflicting claims and a significant degree of insecurity. In the short run, the rediscovery of glorious, often mythological histories helped to establish the identities of a number of European nations before, during and following the revolts of 1848 but also planted seeds of future nationalistic resentments and conflicts that came back to haunt us with a terrible vengeance in the following century. The Islamic option in the current upheavals offers similar temptations and similar risks.

Even if the current upheavals end up badly, however, it does not follow that the entire exercise was in vain. Some of the accomplishments, be they the abolition of serfdom in Europe of 1848 or the emergence of real and virtual social networks of the Arab spring, will survive and take root. And the bitter fruit of defeat goes to seed in the form of broken dreams discarded, false hopes dispelled, illusions shattered. When the next confrontation comes, the objectives are more clearly defined and the mood more realistic. People will have learned from their failures and mistakes. The tyrants, on the other hand, in the immortal words of Talleyrand, will have learned nothing and forgotten nothing.-Published 11/8/2011 © bitterlemons-international.org

Michael Zantovsky is the ambassador of the Czech Republic to the Court of St. James, former ambassador to Israel and the United States, former Czech senator and former spokesman for President Vaclav Havel. He writes in his personal rather than official capacity.