The bitter truth of deep inequality has been disguised by an era of cheap imported goods and the anyone-can-make-it celebrity myth – Polly Toynbee
It is pretty clear that the proximate cause for the tidal wave of uprising is the dramatic rise in food prices. While there are other, longer term issues, it appears to me that economic desperation has been converted brilliantly into political revolution.
Now, how do you entrust a regime that oppressed its people and looted its national wealth for 30 years with reforms? How do we entrust a regime that kills its opponents in the name of GOD and rightousness?
This regime should be in jail to answer to the people for the crimes (murdering and theft) committed against Iranian nation. How could Khamenie et al comes to be worth billions of dollars? We need a revolution and we need it now.
I tend to think of political revolutions as like crimes, in that a means, motive, and opportunity are required. Means are the resources would-be revolutionaries employ to achieve their ends such as social networking sites or, more traditionally, guns. The motive is the ideological foundation revolutionaries draw upon–why is this power structure illegitmate? I don’t think if you ask average Iranians, they will be able to give you a solid answer. We constantly complain about the symptoms of this abomination called IRI but never really quite articulate why the regime’s ideological foundations and goals are a path to destruction of Iran.
We never really discuss what other goals and ideological visions should replace the ones indoctrinated into the fabric of the society for the past 32 years? Democracy and secularism in abstractions are too vague for the average joe. What does democracy and secularism translate into in tangeable and concrete ways to improve the daily struggle of making ends meet?
Opportunity is the event or series of events that allow for the revolution to occur in the first place. Opportunities are external and structural more often then not, such as international pressure on the state, the threat or continuance of war, and yes, most common, economic crisis or complete collapse. Iran is ripe for a revolution at this time.
It’s unreasonable to expect upheavals/uprising to have well-defined game plan from the beginning. The American revolution happened in 1776, but the federalist papers weren’t published until 1787.The most important thing about the American revolutionaries was their determination to avoid despotism. That’s really all that’s needed for these revolutions to succeed. It was, by the way, lacking in Iran in 1979.
The most important thing about the American revolutionaries was their determination to avoid despotism. That’s really all that’s needed for these revolutions to succeed. It was, by the way, lacking in Iran in 1979. I also have to mention that the rAmerican evolutionaries were minority educated elite who who mobilized/infomred/educated the rest of the uneducated colonies on why and how they needed to save themselves from the shackles of British Empire.
“Revolutions are rarely, if ever, carried out by the “People,” the “Mob,” of the “Masses.” You need elites, you need organizational structure, you need firm ideological cohesion, and you need an effective strategy in motivating actors and replicating your message for a “successful” revolution.”
The French, operating under vague, yet lofty-sounding Enlightenment ideals, almost immediately tore themselves apart over who should take power in the republic and how it should take shape. The Bolsheviks, on the other hand, had built an extremely effective party aparatus and a means of applying Marxist thought to the Russian reality far before 1917. They had a chain of command, they had a clear message, they had an army.
It is undeniable that the Egyptian military, as the only legitimate governmental institution left, will play a significant, if not primary, role in rebuilding the country. It’ll be interesting to see if they can hold it together, and do so while preserving “democratic” principles. There has been no class transfer of power and wealth. It is yet to be known whether we can call it a revolution.
Nature abhors a vacuum. That’s why “organizers” will fill it. As we clearly saw in 1979.
No meaningful transformation of Middle East is possible without addressing those two evil twins whcih hinder progress and development — religious archaic superstitions and political oppression.
Just my two-cents.
