The Middle East....what and why now? NOT the intervention!

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Twitter and cell phones can be important for spreading the words--but they won't stop bullets. The attitude of the police and the military, so far in our history, remains decisive.

I think both are decisive. Twitter won't stop bullets, but the protests would have been quashed before they got off the ground if the communication had not decentralized so much.

Places like Iran are on top of their counter-revolution game, but everyone else was blindsided by it and rushed to clumsily contain the technology. In the past it was easy to silence a newspaper, a tv or radio station. But silencing distributed communications through text messaging and social networks was something they weren't up for the task to do in time.

Quote:

I don't for a moment see this as some kind of "Arab Spring," that's just some nonsense of the jargon type of which news media are so fond. Certainly, this is just my opinion. In the most succinct form, that opinion is that little has changed, and there is still a good deal of water to run under the bridge before we can know just how important these events are. Twitter and cell phones didn't help the Persian kids in the street over the last couple of years.

"Arab spring" is a very loaded term, that was originally used to reference something wholly different (and politically loaded) but I do think this is a tipping point, and that this genie is not ever going to be put back in the bottle.

Incidentally, twitter and cellphones didn't save the Iranian revolution but it was what made it happen in the first place. I think you are giving technology short shrift here, without it none of the protests would have gotten off the ground at all, even if they aren't a silver bullet that grants the protesters what they need it is an essential part to the process.

This is why the US state department sponsors the TOR project (onion router, to give these folks anonymity online) for example.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

It should be noted that it cannot be said with certainty, at this time, that anything substantive has changed in Egypt. That yet remains to be seen. If there is a revolution in Egypt, it ain't over--not by a long shot.

I agree and disagree, they have a long way to go (not just the economic uncertainty I spoke of elsewhere but the military is still the core powerbase of the country) but there has been seismic change.

There is no denying that this will fundamentally change Egypt, it's just unclear what the short-term nature of the changes will be and how quickly things will protest. But Egypt is simply not the same country it was last year. The people finally have a voice, and even if they haven't yet solved all their problems with it this is a fundamental difference to them.

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Predictions:

There will NOT be regime change in Syria this year
There WILL be regime change in Yemen this year.
There will NOT be regime change in Bahrain.
There WILL be regime change in Libya this year (though it may take the form of a divided country temporarily).

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@Robert Gentel,

I cannot agree that there have been "seismic" changes. In fact, the only change has been the removal of Mubarak, which hasn't changed the apparatus of governance at all. I'm not denying that there may have been substantive change, just that we don't know. Unless and until there is a public statement about constitutional amendment and elections by the military leadership, we just don't know. I certainly hope all of that happens, but so far we don't know; and it is ominous that people are asking for the constitution to be amended rather than just taking steps to amend it. It is evidence that they are still powerless.

I agree completely that it is very important to them that they have been heard.

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@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

Unless and until there is a public statement about constitutional amendment and elections by the military leadership, we just don't know. I certainly hope all of that happens, but so far we don't know; and it is ominous that people are asking for the constitution to be amended rather than just taking steps to amend it. It is evidence that they are still powerless.

Not sure what you have in mind, but they already overwhelmingly approved a referendum to amend the constitution.

In any case, it seems we are saying the same thing but with slightly different weight to it. Something big has happened, and we are just differing on how big we describe it as. I predict it is an inflection point and that it has set the snowball in motion. But no, Egypt is not gonna suddenly join the first world, or even be a highly developed and functional democracy for a long time and it all depends on just what you think is a big deal or not.

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

But no, Egypt is not gonna suddenly join the first world, or even be a highly developed and functional democracy for a long time and it all depends on just what you think is a big deal or not.

This is more or less my point. Approving a referendum does not mean anything, either, unless and until it is seen that it is conducted in a free and fair manner. When that happens, i'll believe in substantive change. After all, Mubarak was regularly "elected" to new terms by huge majorities. You think any of those majorities were real? I know this may sound contradictory, but i'm a cynic and an optomist.

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@Setanta,

Yeah, I'm an skeptical optimist, but pretty heavy on the optimist part. I really do think we are describing ourselves and our personalities more than the situation. That is, I am far more likely to use positive spins to describe the same thing you would less positively. We can see the same thing and you'll likely effervesce less about it than I would. We can agree on all the facts but take away a different "feeling", if you will.

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Is this 1848?

The above is an interesting article I read in The Boston Sunday Globe
comparing the current Arab revolts to Europe in 1848.

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@George,

Good article, George, thanks.

George's source wrote:

For them, the period we should be thinking about is not 1989, but rather 1848, when a cascade of revolutions engulfed Europe only to be extinguished by forces of the old order.

The extinguishing of the socialist uprisings was pretty damned brutal, too, and sustained the forces of reaction for another century.

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@George,

Ya know...I was thinking 1848... that genie never really returned to the bottle.

That's an interesting point about the flush of enthusiasm that may wither when no immediate change is seen.

Sorry I am not responding much....am very busy..but reading with interest.

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@Robert Gentel,

Robert Gentel wrote:

Predictions:

There will NOT be regime change in Syria this year
There WILL be regime change in Yemen this year.
There will NOT be regime change in Bahrain.
There WILL be regime change in Libya this year (though it may take the form of a divided country temporarily).

After a short talk with my World Editor:
There will NOT be regime change in Syria this year
There WILL be regime change in Yemen this year
There will NOT be regime change in Bahrein (the Bahreini government by itself can't control the revolt, but for the regime change to happen, the US would have to convince the Saudi Arabian regime not to intervene in favor of the Sunni minority; the US won't do that, because of their fear of Hezbollah).
There WILL be regime change in Libya this year (it may take the form of a divided country temporarily, but Gaddafi will fall before the year's end).

So you and him and me (who tend to regard both of your opinions highly) agree on the basics.

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@fbaezer,

I'd love to hear more of your analysis of all this Fbaezer.

Do you think this COULD be an "Arab Spring"?

Do you have anything to say on what you think things might look like ten years from now?

How much weight do you give to the media/social networking aspects?

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@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

Do you think this COULD be an "Arab Spring"?

It IS a spring, regardless of the outcome.

To notice it is a spring, it's good to listen to what the people say:

"There is a horizon, because people have lost the fear to fight for their rights"
"The wall of silence and fear is broken"
"Many thought that if you went out to the streets, you'd get tortured. This changed"
"We were tired of being frustrated and humiliated, and spoke up"
"We were so used to living silently, with fear... if I could, I would tell my dead father: 'They're falling down!!'"
"The revolts have returned the sense of pride we had lost"
"People got tired of being stepped upon. The young ones have conscience that the future is in their hands"
"We have grown"

On the other topics, I don't have enough information to have an educated opinion.

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@fbaezer,

Great words.

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This thread is an interesting read with good opinions on what is happening in the ME right now. I lean on the optimist side regardless of what the end result will end up being in the various places. (actually to be honest I would have to say I stand firmly on the optimist side.)

I had a thought the other day that maybe since all these revolts seem to be starting with the educated youth of these countries (is that right set?) that maybe some of these youths got their education in western countries and were inspired to want to change their own countries rather than just fatally excepting that is the way it is there?

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@revelette,

I think you are overestimating the "education in Western countries" factor. Only a tiny minority managed to get it.
A more educated youth, but educated in their own countries and more open to global influences via the media (internet included) has to do more with the change of attitude, IMO.

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@fbaezer,

You know, I am truly fascinated with the media thing,

Do you think social media or Al Jazeera most important?

Or whatever the hell is left of decent media in the west?

Or something else?

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@fbaezer,

Quote:

I think you are overestimating the "education in Western countries" factor. Only a tiny minority managed to get it.
A more educated youth, but educated in their own countries and more open to global influences via the media (internet included) has to do more with the change of attitude, IMO.

I did kind of wonder how the poor in the ME managed to send their youth to the west to our universities. I did read a little on BBB thread about the rebel leader spent quite a few years in Virginia and only came back last month. I don't know about other places but there are a lot of Arabic doctors and other professionals around in my area and I just thought maybe the younger generation are deciding to take their education to their own countries and try to change them. It was only a thought and more than likely you are right.

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I would not quibble with Setanta, I would however note that western as well as ME media along with "political analysis" by both "insiders" and international "experts" have been consistently wrong. Much is made of the trivia while little is made of the major factors.

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@dyslexia,

There is a tendancy among commentators to treat the Muslim world as a monolith. But Muslim countries are no more identical one to any other than are countries of any other description. Any one in the industrialized world would consider it an absurdity to compare, for example, the Ukraine to Portugal. But commentators have no problem speaking about Arabic-speaking countries in the aggregate, just as though they were all the same.

I wonder if media in the Arabic-speaking world does the same thing when observing the West.

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The Middle East....what and why now? NOT the intervention!

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