by Eric Cummings
On Violence
The Arab Spring, as our most thought provoking event of 2011, should remind would-be-American-revolutionaries what a revolution really is: the break down of society and order, a revolution in power, which (mostly) results in violence. In this pan-Arab/north African revolution we have seen a few civil wars (Yemen, Syria and Libya), a military invasion (Saudi Arabia into Qatar), authoritarian crackdowns with unlawful arrests (Qatar, Eqypt, Syria and Yemen) and protesters generally arrested or attacked throughout. It is safe to say, to those who advocated revolution, violence followed.
This completely fits into the larger narratives of the history of revolutions. The American Revolution (Historians debate over whether this qualifies, I believe it does; it threw out the entire power structure.) cost one in every hundred males his life. The American Revolution is the second deadliest conflict in American history, percentage wise, with only the Civil War beating it, itself its own kind of revolution.
Meanwhile, France’s revolution is symbolized by the guillotine, an industrial means of execution. The Russian Revolution lead to the deaths of literally millions of people. The revolutions that wracked Europe throughout the nineteenth century always included violence and death. When I studied Latin America history in high school, my notes read, “Colonialism. Revolution. Dictator. Revolution.” It applied to every country.
Violence always coincides with the outbreak of revolutions, for a few reasons:
First, instability. Inherently, revolutions are unstable, by definition an overthrow of the existing power structures. When this happens, chaos ensues. Food shortages, lack of security, a breakdown of the social order. The best explanation for this is our blog’s namesake, On Violence, by Hannah Arendt, that argued that violence and power are opposites. Thus, when the power structure disappears--as in France or Russia or Libya--violence fills the gaps.
Second, vengeance. Most revolutions have a very legitimate basis: people feel discriminated against, or suffer from severe economic inequality, or chafe under colonial rule. When the masses revolt, they take their vengeance against their previous oppressors. Look at what happened in the French revolution. Or what happened to Moammar Ghaddafi. Or Saddam Hussein.
Third, civil wars. They happen when revolutionaries disagree, or the over-thrown don’t want to leave so easily. Take the above groups advocating revolution, the Occupiers and the Tea Partiers. They don’t agree on anything. So if one side starts a revolution, they’ll basically have to go to war with the other side. Boom, you’ve got a civil war. This is what is happening in Syria.
Are there counter-examples? Sure. The Revolutions of 1989 were relatively peaceful. So was the later Orange Revolution. But the idea of “peaceful revolutions” is a relatively new one; clearly it isn’t at work in north Africa.
The point of this post, the “So what?” if you will, is that revolutions often end in severe, uncontrollable violence. And often then transition to authoritarianism. Extremists on both sides of the political spectrum in America casually throw around the Jefferson quotation (behaving properly) that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants,” without really understanding what this means or implies.