Married to the Revolution

This weekend we remember the War for American Independence, a revolutionary act that inspires an annual surge of patriotism and summer barbecues.  I am also contemplating getting engaged, so I am mindful of a few comparisons between revolutions and marriages, namely,  they are both fun to plan, exciting from a distance, and passionate at the outset.  However, it takes a few years to see if either a marriage or a revolution will work.  Take the American Revolution, for example.

As a thrilling tale of daring bravado, the American Revolution is hard to beat, but, even if you are not Sarah Palin, it is easy to overlook some basic premises of revolution that are routinely underestimated.  Click on the jump to read five common perceptions about revolutions.  Chew these over while you have your spouse hand you a Bud Light.

Revolutions are quick.  False. In modern parlance, and particularly in commercial sound-bytes, revolution is often equated with speed.  ‘Revolutionary’ technology implies an image of increased veocity with which to accomplish daily tasks or chores.  This concept bleeds over into political revolutions as well, where misunderstanding the timeline of past revolutions creates an impression of suddenness that is counterfactual.  For example, the American and the French revolutions each drug on for more than a decade, lasting 19 and 11 years respectively. Consider that the American Revolution arguably began with the 1770 Boston Massacre and ended, in a meaningful way, with the ratification of the Constitution in 1789 – notwithstanding another round of violence in 1812. Likewise scholars regard the beginning of the French revolution coincided with the First Assembly of Notables in 1788 and ended with the Constitution in 1799. The lessons of these two revolutions belie the conventional wisdom that revolutions are quick. Rebuilding government institutions requires a protracted, spasmodic process that can oscillate wildly.  Even eight years into the rebuilding of Iraq, significant challenges remain.  Challenges that might have been familiar to our forefathers as they hammered order from chaos.

Revolutions are popular. False. A street-filled with protestors and cut-away shots of crowds streaming towards a rally point define the very idea of a popular revolution.  A look at the television during the events in Egypt would make one believe that the entire country, or at least a majority of them, stood in Tahir Square or marched in defiance of the government.  Pundits hailed the revolutionary uprising in Egypt as one of the greatest popular revolutions in modern history.  Analysts considered the sheer numbers of those who participated in the uprising as well as their percentage compared to the total population is unprecedented and astonishing. It is estimated that between January 25, when the demonstrations started, and February 11, when the dictator Hosni Mubarak was toppled, 15 million people out of a population of 80 million–that is only 20 percent of the population–took part in the mass mobilizations.  The lesson to take away from these modern revolutions is that small coherent groups can effect change on a grand, even  revolutionary, scale.

Revolutions are liberal.  False. Revolutions trade on the belief that what lies on the other side of the barricade is superior to the status quo.  The promises of power, wealth, and justice seduce the revolutionaries, until their very existence becomes wedded to the installment of these ideals. Yet, those who have succeeded in a rebellion will tell you that these ideals, the flames of the revolution, must be tamped out swiftly lest they catch fire and destroy the revolutionaries themselves.  What happens the day after a revilution is not a burst of democracy and freedom, but a harsh paranoid, martial contraction. This is by design. In On Authority, Karl Marx, the father of fomenting revolution, correctly foresaw this dilemma, even he conceded that “A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon … if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the reactionists .” History is littered with revolutions that delivered the population from an oppressive government only to produce a more oppressive government. 

Revolutions are non-violent.   False. The idea of revolutions succeeding solely month basis of superior ideology summons images of a serene Gandhi or throngs of jubilant faces during the so-called “velvet revolutions” in Central Europe in 1989.  However, to assume that violence, even in these “non-violent” transformations, does not play a role in revolution is misguided.  Violence is endemic to revolution, either directly or indirectly. In certain cases, the revolutionaries cause the violence in order to effect change. These revolutions are the classical example of an armed uprising. In other cases, violence serves as a foil for the resistance, a dark force against which they hope to stand out through persistent pacifism.  Gandhi, in particular, perfected a strategy that induced opponents to react brutally, thereby inviting sympathetic support from the press and public and encouraging foreign intervention on the side of the resistance.  Violence, real or imagined, actual or threatened, provides a dependable and necessary catalyst for revolutionary change. 

Revolutions are fashionable. True. Revolutions are manifest rebellion.  The cool detachment of a social counter-culture movement derives its verve from the real angst of street rebellions. Within weeks of the Iraq invasion, Kiffeyeh-clad hipsters walked in main street USA. After the bombing in Libya, the phrase “Benghazi-chic” described   motley collection of rebel fighters that found themselves on the front page of the world press that harkened back to a timeless image of a defiantly cool Che Guevara.    Revolutions amalgamate every middling act of defiance from the James Dean cigarette, to the Easy Rider motorcycle.  In truth, there is nothing couture about a revolution, which deprives people of basic liberty and sustenance for long periods of time.  Nonetheless, the image of a carefree defiance endures. 

Similarly, revolutions are also political trend-setters, with one state’s revolutionary fervor stoking another’s rebellious outpouring. Revolutions occur in clusters including, the nearly twin occurrence of the American and French revolution, the revolutions of 1848, and recently the Arab Spring.  These cluster events suggest that despite the uncertainty and the inherent violence, revolutions inspire followers and belief.  So long as there remains a group of rebels, there will also exist those followers who mimic their style and philosophy.  Revolutions will never go out of style.

Jason Whiteley is a distinguished graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and an Iraq veteran.  He is the author of Father of Money: Buying Peace in Baghdad.

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