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

foreign policy • revolution in the arab world • winners, losers
pened in 1989, but paired with the word “velvet” to underscore the differences
from the great revolutions of the past.
Of course, revolutions have hardly disappeared since 1989. But the recent
wave of them across the world—the Rose Revolution in Georgia, the
Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the recent events in Tunisia—all look much
more like 1688 than 1789. They have been short, sharp affairs, centered on
the fall of a regime. In none of these countries have we seen the development
of an extended “revolutionary” process or party. And though some of
these revolutions have triggered others, domino-style, as in 1848, they have
not themselves been expansionary and proselytizing. As far as I know, there
are no Tunisian revolutionaries directing events in Cairo.
The principal exception to the current pattern—the one great contemporary
revolution of the second type to remain an ongoing proposition today—is
Iran. Although it has been more than 30 years since the fall of the
Shah, Iran’s Islamic Republic is still a revolutionary regime in a way matched
by few other states in the world today. Despite its considerable unpopularity
with its own people, it has remained committed since 1979 to the enactment
of radical, even utopian change, and not just inside its own borders. Organizations
such as the Revolutionary Guard retain considerable importance.
Egypt, interestingly enough, experienced a revolution close to the 1789
type in its relatively recent history. The so-called Revolution of 1952 that
overthrew the country’s monarchy and brought Gamal Abdel Nasser to
power ultimately involved a great deal more than regime change. Nasser
had broad ambitions both for remaking Egyptian society and for taking
his revolutionary movement beyond Egypt’s own borders (most strikingly,
in the creation of the short-lived United Arab Republic). Ironically, Hosni
Mubarak spent much of his military career in the service of Nasser’s revolutionary
regime. But well before Mubarak came to power, following the
assassination of Anwar Sadat in 1981, Egypt’s revolutionary energies had
largely dissipated.
The fundamental question being discussed by commentators at present
is what shape a new Egyptian revolution might take, now that Mubarak’s
regime has fallen and the military has intervened while promising elections
in six months’ time. Will the upheaval come to a quick end with the establishment
of a new government—hopefully a democratic one—or will a
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