WHAT CAN PEOPLE’S POWER ACHIEVE IN THE ARAB WORLD?

Sami Faltas Security Matters, Newsletter from the Centre for European Security Studies, November 2011, no. 24

The powerful call for change in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen has not only shaken up and in some cases driven away the authoritarian regimes of these countries. It has also challenged some widely held notions about democracy, social movements, non-violent action, women and religious minorities in the Arab countries.

How long will the Arab Spring go on, and how deeply will it change the Arab world? People’s power is a term we use to describe the influence of large numbers of people showing their determination to push through political change by nonviolent means. It often plays out in city squares. In 1967, Soviet tanks put an end to the Prague Spring in Wenceslas Square. 1989 saw government tanks crushing students in Beijing’s Tienanmen Square, and protesters shouting down Nicolae Ceauşescu in Bucharest’s Palace Square. In 2004, the Maidan in Kyiv was the epicentre of the Orange Revolution. Finally, in January 2011, young Egyptians took possession of Cairo’s Liberation Square (Midan al Tahrir) and brought down the regime of Hosni Mubarak.

 Experience in various parts of the world, analysed by Kurt Schock and others, suggest that people’s power has the potential to achieve durable change. In his 2005 book Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Non-Democracies, Schock looks at people power in China, Burma, Nepal, South Africa, the Philippines and Thailand, and seeks to explain why it was unsuccessful in the first two countries and successful in the other four.

 The author says that revolutionary violence is not the only way for a people to change their regime. Today, according to Schock, non-violent action actually stands a better chance of transforming a political regime. Nor do the activists of people power seek to provoke violent repression from the rulers. But he does point out that people’s power can be connected to violent forms of action, as it was in South Africa. We could add that whatever the armed struggle of South Africa’s liberation movements may have contributed to the downfall of Apartheid, it achieved less than schoolchildren demonstrating in Soweto, the moral authority of leaders like Desmond Tutu, Christiaan Beyers Naudé, Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela, the massive but peaceful resistance of the United Democratic Front, and the international isolation of the white minority regime.

Schock argues that the choice for non-violent action is usually pragmatic. He also provides some evidence for the claim that people power achieves success but forcing the rulers to act, rather than appealing to them on moral grounds. What is the difference between successful people power in Nepal, South Africa, the Philippines and Thailand, and the crushed uprisings in Burma and China, as analysed by Kurt Schock? According to him, successful people’s power movements are decentralised, but have some form of loose coordination. They act in various places at the same time and use various tactics. Besides, activists communicate with each other in ways that avoid the government’s control of the media. These features were absent in the movements he studied that failed, says Schock, namely the ones in Burma and in China.

Naturally, he adds, various national and international factors of a political and economic kind also determine the success or failure of people power. Schock’s description of a successful people power movement fits the uprising in Tunisia, which launched the Arab Spring, quite well. The same applies to the 25 of January movement in Egypt, except that it had a narrow geographic focus, Cairo’s Liberation Square. And of course, there was a fresh batch of jokes, a popular form of political satire in Egypt. At the gates of heaven, all who wish to enter must record their cause of death. President Nasser’s entry says: illness. Sadat wrote: assassination. In Mubarak’s case the record reads: Facebook.

The uprisings in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen also fit Schock’s description of successful people’s power, but have nonetheless been crushed. Libya took a very different road. Underscoring the importance of decentralisation and independent networking, Schock’s work is of some help in understanding the Arab Spring. Nearly thirty years ago, there were powerful manifestations of people’s power in several countries of Central and Eastern Europe. In Poland, Catholic shipyard workers launched an unstoppable movement that in the end and after some setbacks defeated the Communist regime. In a striking rebuttal of communist party propaganda, protesters in Leipzig and other East German cities took to the streets with banners that read: “Wir sind das Volk” (We are the people). And indeed, to the displeasure of Margaret Thatcher, François Mitterrand and several other European politicians, people’s power in East Germany achieved exactly what most protesters wanted, namely the dissolution of the GDR and the integration of their country into the Federal Republic.

How durable are the gains of people’s power? When the old order has become unsustainable and collapses, as it did in the Warsaw Pact countries in the late 1980s, the risk of the old regime being reinstalled is negligible. The same is true of white minority rule in South Africa. But even if the old order cannot be restored, we often see the new regime displaying features of the old order. In several ex-Communist states, the old power elite rose to power again in the guise of a renamed party and free-market policies. In other cases, the old order did not change irrevocably. The Orange Revolution introduced new policies and inspired Western-leaning Ukrainians with great hopes, and Russian-oriented Ukrainians with frustration. But it was unable to push through many of its main policies, and corruption became worse rather than better. In 2010, Victor Yanukovich, the president who was disgraced and forced to step down in 2004, was freely and fairly voted back into office. This was at the same time a sign of Ukraine’s democratic progress and proof that the Orange Revolution had failed.

So what makes the gains of people’s power last? In my opinion, democratic leadership and strong institutions. In South Africa, Nelson Mandela’s great achievement was not that he brought down the apartheid regime. It would have collapsed before long anyway. Nor was it remarkable that he acknowledged the rights and freedoms of white South Africans. That had been the policy of the African National Congress all along. Mandela’s great achievement was that by his words, his actions and his personal example, he led people to believe in the new South Africa and renounce revenge for the crimes of the Apartheid regime. 

Unfortunately, such leadership is rare. The Arab world has no Nelson Mandela or Václav Havel. Egypt has a man of integrity who is trusted by most activists of Tahrir Square, but by his own admission, Mohamed El Barada’ei is at best a transitional figure. It is hard to see who might lead the country toward democracy and the rule of law, protect vulnerable minorities and successfully counter the electoral appeal of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The Arab world also lacks strong institutions like an assertive parliament and an independent judiciary. Political parties are little more than support groups for aging politicians that lack a clear mechanism for the selection of their successors. The police are little more than the strong arm of the regime, enforcing the public and private interests of the rulers and harassing the ruler’s adversaries. Especially in the absence of charismatic and democratic leaders, it is hard to see who might provide the impetus for the development of effective parliaments, a strong judiciary and political parties worthy of the name. Fortunately, under the influence of satellite television (especially Al Jazeera) and online networking (especially Facebook and Twitter), government censors are fighting a losing battle. Arab media are becoming less docile and more competitive. In conclusion, the spectacular changes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya are fragile. The gains of people’s power will probably be lost if the countries concerned do not develop the leaders and institutions that will establish a living and resilient democracy.