Revolution in the Arab World - Observation of a lost soul Blog

foreign policy • revolution in the arab world • revolution makers
was so brave, so inspiring—and so improvised, foolish, and irresponsible.
“People were going into the streets spontaneously, asking for something
that is not achievable,” Djinovic told them, perhaps not gentle enough as
he razed their heroes. “Our advice,” he said slowly, “is that you think about
nonviolent struggle totally differently than you have seen in this movie.”
Silence fell over the group.
“Then you know what you have to do,” he said.
CANVAS has worked with activists from 50 countries. It cannot
point to 50 revolutions.
The most prosaic reason is that often the people it trains aren’t the ones
in charge of a movement. Some groups, like Georgia’s and Ukraine’s dissidents,
choose to model themselves on Otpor. In Iran, by contrast, though
small groups of CANVAS trainees held successful actions, the leaders of the
Green Revolution have not adopted Otpor’s tactics.
The more profound reason, however, is that context matters. A very
closed society, the kind that most desperately needs a strong democracy
movement, is the place least able to grow one. By the end of the Burma
workshop, Popovic and Djinovic were content; the students had understood
the lessons. But what they could do with them was not clear. On the
workshop’s last day, I asked the members of the Barefoot Campaign group
whether they would try to start one in Burma. The strategies were wonderful,
valuable, fresh, they said—but better for someone else. “I am not sure it’s
practical for me,” Pink Shirt said.
The Serbs argue that a country’s level of repression is not dispositive.
Popovic told the Burmese that far more important than the government’s
brutality is their own level of skill and commitment; a well-organized and
committed democracy movement can gradually win enough freedom to
work. “Political space is never granted. It is always conquered,” he said. It
was easier to work in Serbia in 2000 than it had been in 1991 because the
opposition had won important concessions over that time. “Serbia built
those advantages,” he said. For example, it forced Milosevic to respect local
election results in 1996 that left municipal television stations in opposition
hands. But could this apply to Burma Winning political space there could
take decades and there was no guarantee that the country would even move
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