SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE has an interesting opinion piece on Revolutions.
He points out that revolutions are the result of complex forces that build over time. Catalysts are not generally not causes:
Revolutions are set off by dramatic events, yes — a stolen election in Iran in 2009, a self-immolation in Tunisia. But they also reflect longstanding economic depression, not to mention rising expectations and the temptations of comparison: the Internet meant Arab youth could now compare their own stunted rights with those of their Western counterparts. The generational difference between their wizened pharaohs and the Twitter-obsessed youth worsened the crisis, which may yet mark the end of the ancient paradigm of the Arab ruler, the wise strong sheik, el Rais, the Boss. A dictator who is regularly mocked by the young for his Goth-black dyed hair and surgically enhanced cheekbones, and whose entourage features as many nurses as generals, is in trouble — he has lost “the personal gift of grace.”
His treatment presents a historical perspective on revolutions and their motivating forces.
Montefiore differentiates between the superficial and the real. For example, he considers Libya as merely a sideshow in the real unfolding drama of history:
Libya, strafed by British and American planes, may be in the headlines but it is a minor country: it is the destinies of the key three — Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Iran — that will decide everything.
We live in interesting times! While our times may be “interesting,” they are hardly definitive. History moves at its own pace, a pace not convenient to the human life span. We cannot know the ultimate implications of much of what we see. According to Montefiore:
What’s next? When Zhou Enlai, the Chinese Communist prime minister, analyzed the French Revolution two centuries later, he declared that “it’s too early to tell.” We should remember that while enthusiasts have repeatedly cited the revolutions of 1989 to 1991 as the encouraging precedent for today’s revolutions, how successful were those?
Perhaps there is a reason we cannot know the future clearly. If we could, we might not be able to deal with the present.
