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On February 17, 2011, The New York Times ran two major stories that have a common denominator: angry protesters. Bahrain and Wisconsin are not typically thought of together.  Bahrain is a small kingdom in the Middle East whereas Wisconsin is a large republic in North America. In mid February, 2011, both were enveloped in protest at their respective capital cities.

In Manama, Bahrain, the army took control on February 17th; on the following day, the military would use automatics against a group of protesters. Before the army had taken control of much of the capital city, the police had opened fired on protesters camped in Pearl Square--that occurred a day after the king had said that the protesters could use that park to express themselves. According to The New York Times on February 17th, "As the army asserted control of the streets with tanks and heavily armed soldiers, the once- peaceful protesters were transformed into a mob of angry mourners chanting slogans like 'death to the king,' while the opposition withdrew from the Parliament and demanded that the government step down."  In short, violence had turned on peaceful protest, turning the capital city into a near warzone, and that situation was repeated the next day.  From the standpoint of the protests in Madison on February 17th, the scene of carnage in Manama would have been difficult to imagine. My thesis is simply that the difference should not be overdrawn, as both the people in Manama and Madison are human, all too human, and thus able to engage in similar actions.

In Madison, protesters had begun protesting on February 16th. I happened to be in Madison on that first day and I witnessed the protest. On the 17th, the protesters were congregating at the seat of government when opposition walked out of the Senate (and in fact out of Wisconsin). With the majority party one person short of a quarum in the Senate, the walkout on Walker (i.e., the governor: the head of state and chief executive of Wisconsin) left his the bill reducing benefits for public employees and restricting their unions' collective bargaining rights to wage negotiations (up to the rate of inflation in Wisconsin) in limbo. The New York Times reported on February 17th that "Walker’s plan was upending life in the capital city."  On the 18th, the paper reported that on the previous evening as the rallies against the bill grew, "(p)eople screamed: 'Shut it down! Shut it down!' Drums pounded. Students, some barefoot, danced." This description is more revealing than one might suppose at first glance.

Even though the protesters in Madison can be distinguished as a group from the protesters in Manama, the protesting Wisconsinites should not be treated as a homogenious mass. In fact, the presence of out-of-state university students broadened the protest beyond Wisconsin. Furthermore, although some of the students were doubtless deeply involved in labor issues, many of the students I saw on their way to the protest on the 16th looked excited rather than angry. Some even had little pictures painted on their faces as though they were going to a summer art festival or rock concert. Later in the week, a large drum circle took shape inside the capitol. At times protesters seemed more concerned by what they regarded as insufficient attention on them by the national media than by their cause. It's all about me! Watch me! That is not a true revolutionary attitude.

The more disgruntled, personally-invested protesters (i.e., actual workers) might have been mobilized by the unions that would receive less in union dues if public workers had the right to withhold union dues (a feature of the proposed bill). In other words, greed rather than anger might have been motivating some of the protest organizers even if most of the unionized protesters were motivated by principle. Also, in addition to teachers attending on principle, schools may well have organized their students to attend as a group. Before lunchtime on the 16th, I witnessed a very large number of students walking from their school to the capitol. Their presence seemed organized; that is, I had the sense that the students had not spontaneously self-organized themselves; moreover, they seemed excited about the cancellation of classes and hence no quizzes (remember how that felt?) and stimulated by all the excitement in downtown Madison. None of the high school students I saw looked angry.  Looking at them, I noticed the party atmosphere--far from a revolution in the works. 

Therefore, lots of agendas (including the labor-protecting one that was passed on by the media) went into the protests in Madison. My point is not that the protesters were somehow fakers; I did not get that sense from watching them, and I saw many (especially the workers themselves) who were protesting on behalf of the right to collectively bargain. Rather, my point here is that things that are notably different may look like one fuzzy blob from a distance (i.e., through the media). Just as it is easy to conflate the various segments at a distance into one angry mass, it might seem like the protests in Madison were essentially like those that were taking place in Manama at the same time. I argue this point first, after which I suggest some underlying potential commonalities based on human nature and political organization generally.

In terms of being different, shutting down the Senate temporarily is a far cry from a revolution wherein an entire government is to be permanently shut down and replaced. Treating the passage of a bill as though it were a matter of life and death smacks of hyperbole. Responding to the flight of the democratic senators, for example, Senator Scott Fitzgerald said, “This is the ultimate shutdown.” Well, no, Senator; the ultimate shutdown was occurring in Tunesia, Egypt and Libya. What was going in Wisconsin was not revolution even if that language may have served the protesters' various purposes. The difference between the two protests can be appertained by contrasting college students in Madison dancing barefoot while protesters in Manama were facing live gun-fire. Screaming "[temporarily] shut it down!" is not like screaming "stop shooting at me!!!" Protesting for a real revolution seems like a world away from protesting to "stop the bill." Accordingly, the pictures below of the protest in Madison show a scene remarkably unlike the one above of the violence on the same day in Manama.


In Madison, the likelihood that the protests would turn violent was perceived on both sides as being so remote that protesters were allowed inside the capitol building, where all three branches of the Government of Wisconsin are situated.


Whereas the police and military in Manama were mobilized on the 17th to remove protesters from a city park, the Wisconsin National Guard (the military) was nowhere to be seen as protesters engulfed even the capitol building itself in Madison. Even when the capitol police wanted to clear the building for cleaning on the Sunday of the second week, the protests were able to remain. In fact, the Wisconsin National Guard had been notified by the government of possible activation not to protect the government from the protesters or to clear them, but, rather, to step in to perform vital governmental functions should the public employees go on strike. In short, the image of college students--pre-inclined to join any protest on the left while studying at a historically progressive (yet internally corrupt) university--dancing barefoot as "angry protesters" in a seat of government is difficult to reconcile with the pictures we have seen of protesters in the Middle East getting shot at and carried to hositals. I wouldn't blame one of the real protesters for shaking one of those students and saying, "Hey, this is serious!" 

Why were the protests in Madison so different on the surface from those in Manama? Why did the drama turn Madison into "a political circus," according the USA Today, while mourning protesters (and even the medics trying to help them) were getting shot at? My knee-jerk explanation is that the tradition of democracy and protest that had by 2011 been so engrained in Wisconsin that no one there would have suspected in February of 2011 that violence would erupt. Furthermore, in spite of there being a protester's sign displayed at the protests in Madison identifying Gov. Walker in Wisconsin with Pres. Mubarak in Egypt in "One Down, One To Go," the Wisconsin protesters' goals did not reach toppling the republican legislature and chief executive, or even the form of government itself.  This said, I contend nevertheless that the disjunction or dichotomy between the protests-to-violence in Manama and the protests-as-festival in Madison is in part illusionary. Imagine, for example, some blue coller unionists in the capitol building suddenly losing their cool and pushing against the police and the latter over-reacting.  Imagine how quickly the barefoot dancing would turn to horror amid real-time images at point-blank range of blood and open wounds. Suddenly, the stakes would get very real--yet I suspect that the protesters would still shink from demanding an actual revolution wherein the government itself would be deposed or overthrown. In other words, the distance between Madison and Manama would have been narrowed, but not eliminated.

The inhabitants in the United States are muffled from the starker political protests that go on in other regions of the world; so much of the status quo is presumed in the U.S. Also, the difference between a real dictatorship and the republic form of government, and the difference between the political culture of Bahrain and that of Wisconsin make a difference, to be sure. However, a political protest by a mob is inherently unstable; the police and military in Wisconsin were just as capable of violence as were the police and military in Bahrain.  This point is often lost on people living in a society whose political system has been stable for over a century.

Just a week before the protests, a Madison police officer had been dismissed for "overbearing, oppressive, or tyrannical conduct." Visiting Madison for the day on February 16th, I personally witnessed similar conduct by a policeman. Having no idea why there was a crowd at the capitol, I walked to one of the street baracades to ask a Madison policeman. I started chatting with him lightheartedly about the protest.  He told me that 40 buses were on their way from across Wisconsin, and I mentioned my thought that government is indeed more accessable to a Wisconsinite in Wisconsin than in Washington, D.C., so it makes sense to me that more domestic policy should be decided by the Wisconsin Government (and less by the General Government). I wasn't sure what the policeman thought of my mini-lecture on federalism, so I did not belabor my point.  In the context of the noise from the protesters, I then mentioned offhandedly what I had heard earlier that day from some local residents concerning the local apartment building owners and managers being unethical with deposits and  regularly ignoring complaints by their adult tenants about drunk college students regularly disturbing them in the middle of the night. I told the policeman that I was surprised that the property owners and students get away with the collusion there. Furthermore, I said I would have thought that the police department would have come down on the local property owners for not being responsible in managing their buildings. The policeman's reaction was, frankly speaking, pathological and excessive. He  began quickly walking away from me, stating in an aggressive tone, "I don't know about that case! WE ARE DONE HERE."  While he was walking away from me as though he had temporarily lost impulse control, I tried to remind him that I had said that the local property owners were the corrupt parties in those cases--that the police had simply not broken up the collusion between them and the drunk college students.  I had not mentioned a particular case, so I was surprised by the irrationality of his apparent need to assert his ignorance of any particular case. His assumption, in other words, was way off (and his emotional reaction was excessive), and yet he had the gun.  This is what really concerned me. Additionally, his reaction itself, being disproportionate, could have been an indication of guilt concerning the existence of a cozy relationship between the local property owners and his department. In short, I was left to question an on-duty policeman's state of mind and impulse control, ironically as I walked in the direction of the "angry" protesters. A friendly chat amid the festivity of the protesters had quickly turned on me, and in a most irrational and bizarre way. I could see how the police, whether from incompetence, psychological make-up, or corruption, could feel themselves justified in suddenly attacking protesters based on some imagined provocation. In other words, I could visualize Madison becoming more like the capitals such as Manama in the Middle East. However, such a visualization could not gain much traction due to the very different political contexts.

On Saturday, February 19th, Tea Party and pro-labor activists protested peaceably outside the seat of government of the republic of Wisconsin, while "Libyan forces opened fire on mourners leaving a funeral for protesters Saturday in the flashpoint city of Benghazi." Both were simultaneous front-page stories on msnbc.com (and CNN)--the Libyan death toll from protests reaching 100 due to the 15 killed on that Saturday, while Wisconson senators were praising the lack of any violence in five days of mass protest. The contrast could not be starker. Besides the obvious difference in violence, protecting the bargaining power of public-sector unions in a republic is a world away from deposing a dictator.



Even so, the potential of an underlying common denominator based on human nature, from which violence is possible at any large protest, should not be so easily dismissed even where there are limited aims, a mitigating poltical culture, and a relatively open political system. To support this point, I now turn to the matter of the more fundamental substratum existing in the concurrent protests in Madison and Manama (Sana, Yemen and Benghazi, Libya could easily be substituted here for Manama).

For one thing,  Madison may not have been any less corrupt than Manama at the time of the concurrent protests. Apart from the progressive students that the university there is known for, the city itself is rather provincial.  For example, La Follette remarks in the preface of his autobiography that the political boss in Madison was quite corrupt and exclusionary. In the 1930s, the inside group in the city government twice thwarted the will of the people expressed in two referendums that Frank Lloyd Wright's plan for a city building on one of the city lakes be built (Monona Terrace was finally built in the 1990s). The reason, according to a PBS documentary on Wright, was that the city "leaders" didn't like him. Similarly, in the early 1990s one of the dean's offices at the university in Madison lied to a professor up for tenure in the early 1990s about the result of his tenure vote (which I believe is a felony) simply because some people at the university didn't like him. Even twenty years later, academics warn about the vindictive politics at that university. Even faculty at the university talk openly of the corruption. For example, one spoke openly to colleagues at other universities about having complained in utter futility to the university's chancellor about the chief of the university's police department notifying students' parents of the respective students' criminal records with the department (which is against privacy laws). The chancellor apparently told the professor that he didn't want to go up against the lesbian. A fish rots from the head down. So it should not be surprising that physicians from the university's hospital (or medical school) were blatantly handing out fake sick notes outside the capitol to local teachers who had called in sick to join the protests. The ends justify the means every time, right?  Perhaps it could even be said that the violence at the Vietnam War protests at the university in the late 1960s were stoked by (and perhaps an unconscious vent releasing pressure from) the stolid corruption in the university's administration. In short, the city (and the University of Wisconsin) may suffer from a corrupt insider element that does not feel itself constrained either by fairness or the law, and this could potentially sow the seeds for revolution. The seed, after all, is in the harvest.
That Wisconsin is a republic (i.e. a policy characterized by representative democracy) whereas Bahrain was a kingdom at the time does not mean that abuse of power by public authorities was not possible in either polity. Moreover, the problems in Wisconsin at the time of the protests there likely went far beyond the Wisconsin Republican Party imposing its will against the entrenched unions and state employees. Judging from the extent of corruption in Madison at the time, the protesters there were probably not going far enough in their demands. For one thing, the firing of the chief of police could quite reasonably have been added to their demands. Such a demand would move Madison closer to the protesters at the time in the Middle East. Outside Sana University in Yemen, for example, a few hundred people complained on February 17th of corruption and poor government services. According to USAToday, Mouath Hamed, for example, said that corruption was killing Yemen. Also unlike the protesters in Madison, the protesters in Sana  declared, "This is the beginning of the revolution," and they faced sticks and electro-shock weapons as the students in Madison danced barefoot. To the extent that Madison was similarly corrupt, there was the potential for such protest (and governmental response) there too. Had that potential been realized, I suspect the students would not have been dancing barefoot for long.

The capital city of a republic can be so corrupt that protesters in such a city should demand mass resignations of  entrenched, corrupt and incompetent civil servants in order to clean up the people's house. It could be objected that my American cultural bias shows through here; to expand protest demands merely to include getting rid of civil servants can be labeled as an Americanization of what in terms of the Middle East protests would include the ouster of top government officials and the cessation of extant constitutions. To be sure, the American constitutions are already democratic. However, it is only to the extent that a constitution really is democratic that it can be expected to not be treated by protesters like a constitution in the Middle East that props up a dictator. For instance, to the extent that office-holders in a republic can protect themselves as entrenched incumbants from the electoral check afforded to the people by a democratic constitution, the protests of the people could come to approximate those in a dictatorship, even in America. That is to say, the curtain of political stability that we presume distinguishes us from them could be ripped down the middle if the corruption continues to get worse. Depending on the salience of popular sovereignty in the American republics, it is possible that the sort of demands made by the protesters in the Middle East could be carried by westerly winds and take root in the United States. I am not advocating such protests because they risk the total collapse of civic order. Also, unlike dictatorships, republics can perhaps repair themselves without such violence. Even so, I acknowledge that fundamental protest that treats the system of governance itself as illegitimate--"Shut it down for good!"--could take root in any of the United States if sufficient public frustration builds up amid the hubris of wealth and power.

Furthermore, I assert that the potential for such protest was latent even in the barefoot-dancing (and drumming) protest in Madison even though that protest was (shortsighted in being) limited to defeating a bill. Wisconsin really would have shaken things up in the United States had the removal of corruption there and the associated  entrenched  public  authorites been the key demand. While some of the protesters did seem to have sufficient gumption (or partisanship) to protest until the head of the government resigned, even such a demand would have been viewed as too unrealistic (or radical) by most of the "progressive" protesters themselves in the land of La Follette. A real revolution must go beyond partisan-ship to clean house rather than merely rearrange deck chairs.  One would like to think that representa-tive democracy obviates such spring cleaning. However, no political system is perfect.

Abstractly speaking, human political nature is a constant in the human race; accordingly, the potential for escalation and ensuing violence should not be summarily dismissed on the basis of an assumed sui generis American civic culture that is somehow immune from revolution. In the American context, the driver to watch is the extent to which the corruption of wealth entrenches itself in the halls of government at the expense of government of, by and for the people. Public officials desirious of favors, good relations, friendship, or money are tempted to develop cozy relationships with entrenched private property interests at the expense of the public good and justice. At the time of their respective protests at least, Madison and Manama may not have been so different in this regard. Therefore, even though the pictures of the respective protests in Manama and Madison clearly suggest marked differences in the nature of the protests, the underlying dynamic might have been more alike than the barefoot dancers in Wisconsin could have known, for they were generally blind in their festivity to the true corruption in their midst. It is far easier to see corruption in the other's yard than on one's own street.

In summary, America is not an island isolated from human nature. We are not so exceptional or protected as the political culture we have built up may suggest to us.  As incredible as it may seem, both in terms of aims and governmental reaction, the protests that were spreading throughout the Middle East in early 2011 could manifest at some time manifest in any of the United States. It is not as though American public-private liasons are so pristine or salubrious that fundamental protest could not take root. We are not so different--not so immune--as we might suppose. It may be that the Tea Party included traces of this more fundamental level of protest in the 2010 election season in declaring that the U.S. Government had gone beyond its constitutional authority in certain respects and was to that extent illegitimate as a government. It should not be lost on any of us that the subterranean human political dynamic stemming from human nature can surface at any time, anywhere. Specifically, the human proclivity to engage in corruption and even violence and to protest arrogant governmental encroachment on human liberty are the real dynamics going on under the surface anytime, anywhere, there is political authority and mass political protest.  A political culture can moderate this dynamic only to a certain extent, even if appearances seem to say otherwise. Any type of government invented by man is mortal, and flawed, being constructed by and inhabited by human beings. Likewise, human nature is mortal, and flawed. The interaction of political organization and human nature cannot be segmented by region or political system such that one area or type is somehow different, or safe from the latent violence that is almost inherent in the interaction itself. So the protests in Madison and Manama were in some important ways very distinct, but in a more fundamental sense they were made of the same stuff--albeit realized outwardly differentially because of the different types of polity and cultures.

In the end, good government is based on caritas seu benevolentia universalis (higher human love, that is, universal benevolence) rather than privilege and partiality. The people of any polity have the right and  responsiblity to insist that the people they put in authority over them use their power on the basis of compassion rather than corruption.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/world/middleeast/18bahrain.html?hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/us/17wisconsin.html?ref=todayspaper

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/02/16/us/WISCONSIN-8.html (poster of Mubarak and Walker at the protests in Wisconsin)

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/19/us/19wisconsin.html?pagewanted=2&hp

http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/article_1a175cce-30c3-11e0-b614-001cc4c03286.html  (on the psychology/corruption in the Madison police dept)

Iona Craig, "Protests Spread, Worsen in Middle East," USA Today, February 18, 2011, p. 8A.

Dennis Cauchon, "In Wis., Pitched Battle by Unions," USA Today, February 18, 2011, p. 1A.

Concurrent lead stories on protests in Libya and Wisconsin on February 19, 2011:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41658587/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41664858/ns/us_news-life/
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/02/19/rights-group-estimates-84-killed-libya-protests/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/19/saturdays-protests-wisconsin-expected-biggest/

On La Follette of Wisconsin, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._La_Follette,_Sr.

Perhaps by looking back on one's own time as though it were already historical, it is possible to assess whether what one is witnessing on the global stage is truly significant from the standpoint of human history or merely of that which history is replete. In the context of the popular protests in the Middle East in early 2011, the question is perhaps whether the world was witnessing a Hegelian burst of freedom or merely more of the same in terms of political revolutions.

According to The New York Times, popular movements were "transforming the political landscape of the Middle East" in the wake of the protests in Tunesia and Egypt.  For example, in Bahrain, "as in Tunisia and Egypt, modest concessions from the government [were] only raising expectations among the protesters, who by day’s end [on February 15, 2011] were talking about tearing the whole system down, monarchy and all."  The prime minister, Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, the king’s uncle, had been in office for 40 years. Accordingly, the protesters were asking not only for the release of political prisoners, but also "the creation of a more representative and empowered Parliament, the establishment of a constitution written by the people and the formation of a new, more representative cabinet."

The New York Times placed the protests in Bahrain in the wider context of the protests that had recently occurred in Tunesia and Egypt. The Bahrain protests, "inspired by the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, have altered the dynamics in a nation where political expression has long been tamed by harsh police tactics and prison terms." (italics added)  However, it was not clear at the time of the protests whether the thread of inspiration was determinative to such an extent that the landscape of the Middle East itself would be transformed as a result. In allowing the protests, the king of Bahrain may have assumed that he could stay in control and thereby reduce the strength of the "inspiration" by giving the protesters some space to do their thing and presumably get it out of their system. However, Ibrahim Matar, an opposition member of Parliament who joined the crowd of protesters, said, “Now the people are the real players, not the government, not the opposition.” It is interesting that he dismissed his own movement (i.e., the opposition) rather than trying to take credit for the uprising.  If Matar was correct, the spread of protests throughout the Middle East had the wherewithal to fundamentally change the means by which people would be governed in the region. That is, the protests could have been a transformative wave wherein people finally had within their sight the possibility that government could be of and by the people. The revolutions in Tunesia and Egypt would not have been isolated incidents in a long world history of sporatic revolutions without autocratic government itself being expunged from the tired face of the earth. The question that captivated the world watching the Egyptians protest was whether something different might have been going on. 

Whereas the twentieth century had hosted technological change on many fronts, political development was not among the areas of progress. When the twenty-first century had gained enough of its own years to claim its own time, the question may have become whether the human race was  ripe then for a leap in political development. If so, the trigger would not be in the democratic nations that preach representative democracy; rather, it would be in the people themselves who had lived under autocratic rule. It is as though there were a spreading suddent awareness that they didn't have to take the abuse anymore; they could simply say no--though "simply" is the wrong word here as saying no in a state such as Iran, for example, was at the time still prompting a barrage of bullets from government soldiers. It was clear that the autocratic governments had different strategies with respect to the protests.  The question was perhaps whether the thrust of the wave had rendered the choice of strategy nugatory. In other words, was the world witnessing the beginning of the end for autocracy or dictatorship as a means of governing human beings, or merely the latest round in a series of revolutions that have been an intractable part of human history?  Did Tunesia unleash a burst of freedom that can be placed in a Hegelian progression of human history wherein human spirit comes to realize itself in greater freedom, as per its nature? That is to say, were we witnessing a Hegelian moment? Can the protests in the Middle East in 2011 be interpreted as marking a fundamental political change or even a new awareness in humanity?  I suppose the answer would depend on whether the protests spread like a forest fire across highways and byways such that no dictator would remain standing not only in the Middle East, but, moreover, in the entire world as well.

Lest we get too carried away in celebrating the salubrius evisceration of autocratic government, we should not forget that representative democracy is far from perfect. Left without any viable competitors, this system of government could be more subject to abuses from within. If representative democracy is the beneficiary of the extinction of autocracy, might democracy as an ideal be like capitalism in the wake of the demise of the USSR (and communism in China)?  In other words, might the hegemony of representative democracy ironically make it more likely that the drawbacks of such democracy gain in force, or at least become more transparent?  Just as the financial crisis of 2008 rather than the USSR demonstrated that the market mechanism itself is flawed in how it accommodates increased volatility (by freezing up rather than accommodating it), perhaps once the world is populated by republics we might come to see the internal flaws in what the U.S. Founders called "excess democracy."

The protests in the Middle East reminded the world that history is not very predictable. Similarly, history can be quite ironic, given the fixity inherent in human expectations. As we the West welcome our brothers and sisters in the Middle East into the family of free nations, let us not get too self-congratulatory, for our institutions are far from perfect.  We are all human, all too human. Yet in spite of human nature as its constant, human history may contain a progression wherein humanity the world over comes to realisations that insist upon or inevitably lead to greater self-realization. Humanity's realization in the early twenty-first century may involve political development. I suspect that the next turn will concern religion. After that turn, the world will be quite different than for those who lived before even the technological revolution in the twentieth century.  In other words, modernity may well be characterized in terms of succeeding intervals of technological, political and religious transformation--altogether evincing a huge amount of change even as human nature remains constant.  The question might be how much change is possible given the constancy of our nature, or do some change elements change human nature? In the context of the protests in the Middle East, human nature looks pretty much the same as it has been for eons.  Yet the future change may shift the basis-point in human biology and psychology such that even more change becomes possible.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/world/middleeast/16bahrain.html?ref=todayspaper

After two weeks of mass protests in Egypt for representative democracy and the ouster of President Mubarak, the Egyptian government agreed to concessions including allowing freedom of the press, releasing of political prisoners arrested during the protests, and commencing a committee with the opposition to consider constitutional amendments. According to The New York Times, the "regime also pledged not to harass those participating in the anti-government protests." That the government would agree not to harass the protesters could be read as a tacit admission that the regime had indeed been actively behind the pro-Mubarak people who attacked the protesters by surprise in the middle of the second week. Meanwhile, the strategic orientation of the American administration of Barak Obama was evident. According to The New York Times, the Obama administration was "struggling to determine if a democratic revolution can succeed while President Hosni Mubarak remains in office." The man whom Obama had sent to persuade Mubarak not to run for re-election eight month later, Frank Wisner, told a group of diplomats and security experts that “President Mubarak’s continued leadership is critical — it’s his opportunity to write his own legacy.” Meanwhile the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, "gave a strategy overview that stood at odds with that assessment." Earlier, she had "made the case at a gathering in Munich that the entire process would take time, and must be carefully managed." Revolutions must be "managed"? Isn't this an oxymoron?  When Mubarak resigned after eighteen days of protests, the Obama administration tried to catch up from its public position that Mubarak could another seven months until the regularly-scheduled elections would be held.

The New York Times goes on to observe, "It is hardly the first time the Obama administration has seemed uncertain on its feet during the Egyptian crisis. . . . The mixed messages have been confusing and at times embarrassing — a reflection of a policy that, by necessity, has been made up on the fly. 'This is what happens when you get caught by surprise,' said one American official, who would not speak on the record. 'We’ve had endless strategy sessions for the past two years on Mideast peace, on containing Iran. And how many of them factored in the possibility that Egypt,' and presumably whatever dominoes follow it, 'moves from stability to turmoil? None.'"  However, it could be that the reason is less being caught by surprise and more being too technocratically- or bureaucratically-minded. "Administration officials insist their responses have been more reaction to fast-moving events than any fundamental change in objective."  Is this saying, in effect, that the administration has been following rather than leading? Also, would it even matter if there had been any fundamental change in objective if the approach had been muddled and contrived according to the administration's advantage at the moment? In short, Barak Obama and his advisors might be too occupied with strategy to act on the basis of principled, big-picture, leadership. Fortunately, history proffers more principled exemplars of such leadership that the Egyptians can follow.

As an alternative to Obama's timid and incremental approach, Gandhi's teachings and example could serve the Egyptian protesters well. This occurred to me during the twelfth day of protests.  To my surprise, that night Gandhi was fortuitously being aired on the TCM channel. Rather than having responding in violence to the pro-government violence, the protesters could have taken the higher moral ground, and incredibly this could have won the day even over raw force. This is the incredible thing about moral power--it can affect even governmental power and the related force of the sword, or rock. 

Gandhi proffered a new way to fight. "We will fight against their anger--not provoke it," Gandhi says in the movie. Non-violent non-cooperation is indeed fighting. As in all fighting, there is pain.  Only rather than inflicting physical pain, Gandhi took others' anger and though his pain the others would feel pain. "Through our pain, they will see their injustice. This will call them pain." It prompts them to as questions about themselves--uncomfortable questions with even more unpleasant answers. This new way of fighting is not in the interest of governments. If their opponents do not turn to violence, governments such as the Egyptian will be inclined to actually tempt the non-violent protesters to violence because it is a government's currency. Ironically, governments are on firmer ground when their opponents turn violent because government is fundamentally a means of legitimately ordering societal violence. In dealing with non-violent civil disobedience, governments are not in control; rather, the protesters are acting at their choosing to provoke a reaction that will make the injustice transparent to all. This locus of control gives the non-violent the upper hand. Rather than joining government on its axis, non-violent civil disobedience fights not to punish for weaknesses that we all possess, but to change minds and hearts. It is thus active rather than passive.

In terms of character, particular traits are necessary for one to remain non-violent even when tempted to strike back. According to Gandhi, turning the other cheek is not just figurative; it requires courage to take the anger of those having the power of government. Relatedly, firmness is also required. It is to defy "not with violence that would provoke anger," but, rather, "with firmness that will open their eyes." In contrast, an eye for an eye "only makes the world blind." Gandhi looked back at history to find that even as tyrants might for a time seem invincible, they have all fallen in the end. He felt that noncooperation with evil is a duty. A sense of this duty is also required.  Strategizers, such as those in the Obama administration, would be like seeds on rock in terms of Gandhi's approach. That is to say, Gandhi preached and engaged in principled leadership rather than in what was most comfortable for him at the moment. His approach also called upon self-respect. One must willingly take others' blows without either hitting back or retreating, and this involves keeping one's head held high with a sense that what one is doing is the alternative worthy of self-respect. Such respect is worth something to the protester, for pain is indeed involved in making injustice visible.

In terms of Egypt, Gandhi's strategy of a general strike throughout British India, with Indians at prayer rather than work, such that the entire country just stopped, is, I submit, morally superior and more effective even against government than answering rocks with rocks. Rather than joining the government's forces on their ground, the Egyptian pro-democracy protesters could have simply stopped.  Egypt, stopped. Something stopped cannot be governed, hence a government cannot cope with such a strategy.  Hence it is no coincidence that the pro-government forces on the street lured the protesters into engaging in violence. The protesters might have looked to Gandhi rather than take the bait. Even though tyrants might seem invicible for a time, one can have faith that the apparently-mighty in terms of worldly power will eventually face their own downfall. When their injustice has been suffered in a way that exposes it, that downfall can be facilitated. Ironically, returning violence for the violence of the state actually extends the current regime's tenure as providing order in the context of violence is a government's foremost rationale to exist.

Not taking the bait was on the mind of Hussein Ramadan, a political activist and organizer who helped lead the protests in Bahrain the week after Mubarak had fallen in Egypt. “The people are angry, but we will control our anger, we will not burn a single tire or throw a single rock. We will not go home until we succeed. They want us to be violent. We will not.” The "they" here refers to the government. When a people spurs its own government's instigations to be violent, the legitimacy of that government is compromised and the people gain the upper hand, even if this is not apparent at the time.  When soldiers working for the British beat unarmed protesters at the Salt Works in India, any moral right that the British had had to maintain order in India was lost. Of course, changes in government policy can lag, but in the end a government that has lost its moral basis to government must fall.  It is like a romantic relationship that ends. At one point before it actually ends, one of the two people in it has the sense that the relationship will end because of something intrinsic to it. Even so, the other person may be stunned when it does end--not having had the same sense. One could also use the analogy of jets. Once one has run out of fuel, it must inevitably fall back to earth. So too, a government that has lost its moral legitimacy on account of illegitimate violence exacted on its citizens must fall, sooner or later. If such a government takes its time in succumbing to this natural law, citizens can simply sit and do nothing. In other words, active non-violent non-cooperation can be viewed simply as waiting for nature to do its work on the human organization that still takes itself as immortal. Protesters resisting the temptation to return violence know and have faith in this natural law, so they are not so desparate to hit back. It is the comparative lack of desparation that gives the protesters the upper hand in being able to provoke a government to overstep.  Unlike such protesters, government officials typically attach an urgency to protests and thus feel compelled to act under the assumption: "before things get out of hand." Ironically, it is such a mentality that causes things to get out of hand. The lack of order is in the officials rather than the protesters who foreswear violence.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06policy.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41445147/ns/world_news-mideastn_africa/

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/world/middleeast/16bahrain.html?ref=todayspaper

Despite several days of overwhelming popular grass-roots protest in Egypt, on January 30, 2011, the U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, stopped short of urging the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, to resign.  According to The New York Times, she spoke of "a process that must include a government dialogue with the protesters and “free, fair, and credible” elections, scheduled for September." In the face of overwhelming protests going on in Egypt, the top U.S. diplomat was urging a dialogue through September. It is as though she viewed the current Egyptian president as legitimate in democratic terms, yet she also said: “We have been very clear that we want to see a transition to democracy. . . . And we want to see the kind of steps taken to bring that about. We want to see an orderly transition.”  If a transition to democracy means that the Egyption officials have not hitherto been legitimately elected democratically, then why was Clinton so timid? On February 1, 2011, The New York Times reported that President Obama had sent a message to President Mubarak through Frank Wisner that the Egyptian president not run for reelection in September. According to officials, it "was not a blunt demand for Mr. Mubarak to step aside now, but firm counsel that he should make way for a reform process that would culminate in free and fair elections in September to elect a new Egyptian leader." According to The New York Times, Obama was continuing his balancing act by "resisting calls for Mr. Mubarak to step down, even [while calling] "for an 'orderly transition' to a more politically open Egypt." As a result, it was still  not clear whether the Obama administration favored Mubarak turning over the reins to a transitional government. On February 5th, just days after suggesting that it wanted immediate change, the Obama administration said it would support an “orderly transition” managed by Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman. The New York Times reported that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "said that Mr. Mubarak’s immediate resignation might complicate, rather than clear, Egypt’s path to democracy, given the requirements of Egypt’s Constitution." Not coincidentally, Israeli officials, who have long viewed Mr. Mubarak and Mr. Suleiman as stabilizing influences in a dangerous region, "have made clear to the administration that they support evolution rather than revolution in Egypt." Accordingly, U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden urged Vice President Suleiman on February 8th to take specific steps toward democracy. The technocratic turn presupposed the evolution rather than revolution approach, as per the interests of Israel and contrary to that of the Egyptian protesters.

The ambiguity in the Obama administration's "policy" on Egypt bespeaks an underlying lack of clarity in regarding principle as distinct from diplomatic expediency. At the time, the protestors in Egypt saw through the American strategic moves as such and continued to demand Mubarak's immediate resignation; the half-way, or "balanced," measures of convenience were regarded as wan from the standpoint of the protestors' acting on principle. I contend that both Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama put short-term tactical advantage above leadership. It should have been obvious that the breakdown of Egptian law and order and the accompanied strikes went beyond a need for "dialogue" and an evolution toward democracy. It was as though a soldier hemorrhaging on the battlefield were being told to relax and be orderly rather than that a tourniquet would be immediately applied.  It is sad, indeed, how bad things would need to get on the ground before the Obama administration would admit that a new government from the top was urgently necessary. In my view, the loss of law and order itself meant that the government had lost its right to govern. The U.S. administration lost this window by letting things "evolve."

If "real change" means anything, it surely involves departing from business as usual in order to lead by principle. Principled leadership entails taking risks. Indeed, tacticians are so cautious in part in order to obviate such risk. That is to say, principled leadership involves the risk that being guided by one's principles can involve short-run costs. As regards Egypt, standing up for the Egyptian protesters by saying that President Mubarak should step down immediately (and that no further U.S. aid would go to Egypt otherwise) would risk that president's displeasure should he retain power. Also, representative democracy unguided by Mubarak and his supporting offiicals could have brought to power parties such as the Muslim Brothershood that were not in the U.S. interest.  However, such is democracy; the victors of another country's elections are not necessarily going to favor U.S. interests. A principled leader would not be so selfish and manipulatory as to hold back from exercising principled leadership simply because he or she might suffer drawbacks. Ironically, the drawbacks might be less than expected, for a principled leader has such credibility from being authentic and principled that any resulting resentment is apt to be tempored by respect.



In general terms, the American problem lies in prioritizing self-interested calculation over principled leadership.  The American society has embraced the bureaucratic age such that leadership is exterpated and replaced with incremental strategic management--even in the Oval Office. Sadly,  being "professional" had replaced being "principled," such that the highest officials in the U.S. Government privileged the expertise of immediate tactical advantage over the principles that were innately felt by the Egyptian protesters (and presumably by ordinary Americans as well).  The American "leaders" had forgotten that in trying to have it both ways, they would be apt to end up stagnate, confused, and not well respected.  Were the officials bold in putting principle above immediate tactical advantage, I submit that the tenor of the U.S. government would better reflect the values of the American people. In the context of the Egyptian protests, as in that of the preceding Iranian protests, People the world over were crying out--yearning--for principled leadership rather than professional bureaucrats in the U.S. Government. It is in human nature to value and respect leaders who have the courage of conviction to say, "This might piss off some powerful people whom I could otherwise use, but this is what we as Americans believe in." Simply stated, the belief is that a government is no longer legitmate if it loses the consent of a significant number of citizen, especially if they are willing to put everything on the line to "just say no."  Incrementalist bureaurats look quite wan and feckless in comparison. Such officials have forgotten that management is not leadership; tactic is not principle. I suspect that the attempt by business schools to "managize" leadership into managerial strategy lies behind the "tactic as leadership" error. In other words, too many managers want to be known as leaders without actually leading. They treat leadership itself as a commodity that they can appropriate without actually being leaders. There is indeed an expertise in principled leadership, and I suspect an instinct for it, which the typical manager (and government official) does not have. I contend that principled leadership is more valuable than technical expertise in the upper echelons of organizations. 

The irony of the Egyptian protests and the muted or ambiguous incrementalist reactions of Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton, the American "dream team" of 2008, was that there was a disjucture between the U.S. Government and the American people. In other words, I suspect that the typical American preferred the stance of the protesters to that of our own "leaders." Perhaps one day an incrementalist and short-term oriented U.S. administration might find itself surrounded by protesting Americans. Will the government's answer be "evolution"? Citing the "need for dialogue" amid the country at a standstill would be laughable even if bureaucratic technocrats would still take their response to be "prudent" and thus appropriate. "Prudent" and "incremental" were not the words that came to my mind in watching the popular protests in Egypt in 2011. It was far easier to agree with the foreign protesters than with my own government.

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/world/middleeast/31diplo.html?_r=1&hp

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/world/middleeast/02transition.html?_r=1&smid=tw-nytimes

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/09/world/middleeast/09diplomacy.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper