President Obama explained himself and his administration’s policies last night. He was precise about means and ends in Libya: use force to stop a massacre, use politics to support regime change. He reminded me of a revolution past. In Central Europe in the 80’s, there was a self-limiting revolution. Now, in North Africa and the Middle East, we have the self-limiting revolutionary solidarity by a superpower, as strange as that may seem.

Obama did imply a doctrine in the address. Use necessary and unilateral force to defend the safety of Americans, develop multilateral engagements whenever possible in pursuing American interests abroad, turn to the  appropriate international organizations, try to form as wide an alliance as possible. If there is an opportunity to use force to stop a humanitarian disaster, there is a moral imperative to do so. On the other hand, diplomacy and political pressure are understood to be the most useful instruments to foster desirable political results, including regime change and fostering democracy.

I know that for many of my friends on the left, this summary seems naïve or worse. E. Colin R. commented on my last post, the “US intervention within Libya is not linked, IN ANY WAY, with an interest in promoting ‘democracy.’” There are of course much harsher judgments in the press and the blogosphere. They think that the Americans and their European allies are enforcing the no fly zone, protecting Libyan civilians and supporting the rebel forces of Libya, and not in Bahrain, because of oil and corporate interests, without any concern for democratic ideals. This is roughly speaking the position of the Noam Chomsky wing of the American political spectrum.

But what would the same people have said if we did not get involved in Libya? If we allowed a brutal dictator (whose high quality oil fuels Europe) to massacre innocents? “Obviously,” it would have been because we are not willing to upset the status quo, which provides for Europe the oil that it needs, We would have been revealed to be unwilling to support the democratic aspirations of the people of North Africa and the Middle East, because of our dependence on oil from the region, especially from Saudi Arabia. For the no blood for oil crowd, it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

The speech last night reminded me of the opposition strategies of Central Europe in the eighties, because of fundamental insights about human capacity and the need to balance aspiration with capacity, and to formulate ideals as they are realistic. Back then, the democratic opponents of the totalitarian order in Poland understood that they couldn’t overpower the regime. The Communist authorities had a monopoly over the means of violence and the distribution of scarce goods, and the Soviet’s and the might of an empire stood behind the Polish authorities. By seceding from the system as much as they could, by openly pursuing workers’ rights as workers understood these rights in a workers state, and by developing a free public life, the regime was transformed one step at a time, and finally its end was negotiated at a roundtable.

World attention focused on the most dramatic, the most televisual moments, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and before that, Lech Walesa announcing the Gdansk Agreements at the Lenin Shipyards. But the profound change was actually quite gradual, brilliantly rendered metaphorically by Vaclav Havel, then a dissident, later a President, with his notion of a shop keeper deciding not to put a sign declaring “workers of the world unite,” along with the fruits and vegetables. Action and aspiration were limited and focused.

There was a combination of modesty and forcefulness, directed toward a goal, greater self-determination, with an understanding of means and their consequences. I heard such a combination in Obama’s speech. In terms of my last post, Obama knows that the defense of innocent citizens required a military response. While he also understands that for regime change a limited international force may be necessary, he also understands it’s not, indeed, cannot be sufficient. Libyans themselves must overthrow the dictator, and for a successful transition, this is more a political project than a military one. An opening has been presented to the Libyan people, thanks to the international military engagement. Now they must meet with each other in their differences and work at a way to change their political reality without mirroring the oppression of the past. Before the brutal crackdown, Libyans revealed that they were capable of taking the first steps, as have many people are now showing throughout the region. The intervention provides an opportunity to take the next steps. Last night by explaining the limited nature of American involvement, President Obama expressed our support.

As we have seen in my first post, Egypt is now at a critical juncture. I make this judgment not with enduring cultural patterns, civilizational characteristics, religious fundamentalism, and the like, in mind, but with some fundamental facts about regime change and revolutions.

Under a dictatorship in its modern form, revolutions rarely can bring about a democratic transformation. Either they , as mere coups, will usher in only governmental change, or old or new elites, enabled by transitional dictatorships, will be able to renew authoritarian rule in new forms, under new legitimating ideologies.  Since 1989, an immense amount of literature has shown that it is negotiated transitions based on compromise among many actors that have the best chance of establishing the guarantees require by constitutional government, that represents the actual threshold of regime change beyond dictatorships.     It is very important that in Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, the East Germany and South Africa oppositions demanded not the fall of a government, but comprehensive negotiations concerning regime change: its timing, rules, procedures, and guarantees.  The fall of governments of Gierek, Kadar, Zhivkov, Honnecker and P.W. Botha, was only a first step in each, an inner ruling party affair.

In Egypt, while there were important opposition groups they did not demand to jointly negotiate with the government. Even worse, a couple of them negotiated one by one with Mubarak’s men (the Wafd Party and the Muslim Brotherhood, or the latter’s adult branch).  The initially clever strategy of celebrating the military also backfired: it partially re-legitimated the regime. When Mubarak’s last speech surprised the crowds, leaders like ElBaradei openly called for a military coup without claiming any role for the opposition in the transitional arrangements.

Yet it is not impossible or too late even now to graft a negotiating process onto the revolutionary coup. This happened even in Iraq, where the attempt of the American occupiers to impose a constitution failed under the challenge of the Grand Ayatollah Sistani, and where the method of constitution making adopted wound up resembling the two stage Central European/South African model, although it was a version deformed by all sorts of exclusions and irregularities. Accordingly, it would be possible to treat in Egypt, the current junta and its top down method of change similarly to the various efforts of Communist and other authoritarian governments to save regimes through reform from above. They should be forced to discover that this method cannot be legitimate unless it is fully negotiated with the widest possible inclusion of opposition actors.  Using, for example, a roundtable approach, as described by Matynia in an earlier post on DC.

Fortunately, there should be several reasons why the reconstruction of the system of 1953 and after from above should not be easy this time:

First, the high level of mobilization of Egyptian society, and the sophistication of part of the grass roots:  Undoubtedly many have understood the meaning of the coup within the revolution, and the military dictatorship that follows it. But challenging it too soon would have dramatically split society. The military is popular. So the right time to act would be when the Supreme Council of the Military, the true governing organ, undertakes unpopular actions, or fails to to carry out some key measures like the lifting of the emergency.

Second, conditions for organizing have undoubtedly improved. So while it was not easy before to create an umbrella organization of the main opposition groups, it should be much easier now.  This should be done also because there may very well be a need to run a single oppositional candidate against a favored military candidate in presidential elections in what will remain a highly presidential system in the current amending scenario.  Once formed, an umbrella organization of the type I have in mind has the right and duty to demand comprehensive and extended negotiations with the military government concerning the timing, procedures and guarantees of a democratic transition.

Third, the link between power and outcome is not absolute. Lenin was very surprised to lose free elections to a constituent assembly when his party already exercised dictatorship through the councils. Similarly, but on the right, General Kenan Evren was also highly surprised in Turkey after the coup of 1980 to lose an election in 1983 on behalf of the parties he favored, even as he banned the most popular leaders and parties.  Thus even under the conditions of the present military dictatorship, it will be worthwhile to struggle for relatively fair and free elections under international monitoring.

Fourth, as the freedom struggles of other Arab countries influenced by Tunisia and Egypt continue, these can have democratizing effects on Egypt itself, especially if at least one country actually manages to break the threshold of regime change to constitutional rule. Today we cannot tell which country this will be, but Tunisia remains the prime candidate.

The events in Egypt should inspire us all (except for the Israeli right that is losing an enabler to go on without changing their rejectionist policies).  We should not however suspend our critical tools when we examine the results. The project of creating a constitutional democracy in the largest Arab country is far from done, and we should realize that the very revolutionary form the country’s liberation has taken represents serious dangers to the possibility of a genuine democratic regime change.  There are serious signs that the popular movement’s struggle may be frustrated, although the outcome is still open.

We certainly said good-bye to revolutions too soon, between 1989 and 1995. Yes, we were right Romania was the exception, and the series of changes of regime certainly did not represent revolutions. Yet the fact that the latter were represented finally and definitively by the journalistic cliche as the “Revolutions of 1989” demonstrates the tremendous power of the topos.  Central European ideologists of the radical right could still rely on it in the canard of the betrayed revolution, and the demand of a new revolution reversing the agreements of 1989-1990.  It is indisputably true that both the revolutionary imaginary, and the empirical possibility of revolutions belong to the concept of modernity.  This does not mean, however, that the critique of revolutions we inherit from Burke, Hegel, most brilliantly Tocqueville, and, despite all her sympathy, Hannah Arendt has lost their meaning and importance.

In the following analysis of the “revolutions” of 2011 I use the term revolution, from the legal point of view, as a type of internal change that transforms a system according to rules or practices other than those of the systems. This was Hans Kelsen’s definition, who could not however distinguish coups and revolutions as a result. Thus, I add that successful revolutions, unlike coups, change a system’s organizational core or its principle of organization.  Better still, following Janos Kis, we should introduce a new principle of legitimacy. Either way, an illegal act of changing rules is necessary if not sufficient for a revolution, whether carried out by a group or institution outside the old governing order (Lenin’s party or Khomeini’s sect) or one within it, sometimes called autogolpe or self-coup (a president, the Estates General, the military command).

Moreover as the legally sophisticated minds among revolutionaries like Marx, Lenin, and Carl Schmitt always knew, these coups always establish dictatorship at least in the interim. When the goal is truly revolutionary, Schmitt called them sovereign dictatorships, but he was only describing Robespierre’s and Lenin’s practice. Finally, both coup and dictatorship require organizational power.  This power must step in the place of the power that is overthrown, and this can be in the name of the masses that have forced the collapse of an old regime and achieved part of the work of liberation, but never by them.  The exception Hannah Arendt recognizes in this context, the American Revolution, is notably one with inherited republican-constitutional institutions that can step into the breach when the colonial sovereign is eliminated. The same thing happened more or less in India. Under dictatorships and autocracies, there is no such option.

1. Thus Hillary Clinton was only partially wrong when in Munich (amazingly enough!), a few days before the fall of Mubarak she warned about the destructive logic of revolutions. The reform she was pushing was however itself destructive in the given context, and reform and revolution as we should all know since 1989 are not exclusive options. It was admittedly a little strange that Clinton neglected the paradigm of 1989 in the company of chancellor Merkel, a GDR activist at that time. Since the American Secretary of State’s opinion counts for a lot, we should see the partially self fulfilling nature of her polarizing use of the two concepts. With that said, the correct part of her warning should not be disregarded. The highly admirable, disciplined, non-violent movement could force the fall of the Mubarak government, but
2. It could not control either the terms of its replacement, or the linking of liberation to a genuine change of regimes.
3. The latter would have to entail the replacement of what is ultimately a military dictatorship, originally established in the revolution of the Free Officers of 1952.
4. But given the fact that the last step in the Mubarak’s removal was carried out by a silent military coup,
5. And that not wishing to rely on inherited institutions at all the protagonists established a pure if supposedly interim open military dictatorship, the likelihood of such a genuine regime change establishing constitutional democracy is now rather remote.

Hannah Arendt analyzed revolutions in terms of two elements, liberation or the removal of old authorities, and constitution, or the construction of a new, free regime.  In line with what we are seeing in Egypt, she thought liberation succeeds often, but constitution very seldom. There is however a constituent process in Egypt and it is instructive to see why as it is currently organized it falls under Arendt’s strictures.

The current junta has suspended the existing constitution and has dissolved parliament. It has established a new constituent process based on its own decision alone. This consisted of a small unrepresentative panel of experts drawing up some few, indeed very much needed, amendments to Mubarak’s constitution, reversing in fact his most recent and most undemocratic amendments to the Constitution of 1971. This was done in 10 days, with very minimal results that Mubarak himself was ready to concede before he fell, with popular ratification to follow in a referendum in two months. Again, the method of amendment is entirely illegal under the constitution that is to be amended. Its democratic legitimacy will be equally doubtful, given a constrained referendum where the voters would have only the “choice” to approve these amendments or to retain Mubarak’s version that is moreover suspended. Thus they will have no choice at all in reality.

If approved, the amendments would provide for elections 6 months from now (or 4 months from ratification) it was said – too soon for new democratic forces to organize. This should favor a candidate close to the military, and/or the Muslim Brotherhood, if they support one as well.

Lenin rightly warned against electing constituent assemblies under these conditions in 1905, and the Hungarian Democratic Opposition of 1989 followed his advice, rejected quick elections for a national constituent assembly promoted by others, including reformists in the ruling party. Yet surprises in a setting like this, as Lenin himself found out in 1918, in the only free Russian elections till Yeltsin, are also very possible, fortunately. When he lost, needless to say, he did not abide by the results, and dissolved the constituent assembly with bayonets. It should not come to that in Egypt.

Aside from the constitution, free and fair elections in Egypt would require replacement of a wealth of laws dealing with the press, media, public meetings, personal freedom, and while no plans for such legislation have even been suggested, even the 30 year state of emergency has not been lifted. It is under that system that people are still detained, held, interrogated and tortured. Hardly a conducive framework for free and fair elections, even if there are international monitors present. This in addition to the problems of the questionable way the election system is being proposed and the overly powerful nature of the Presidential system.

If the scenario the military junta has in mind is carried through there will be no regime change, or only very incomplete steps in that direction. Egypt will look perhaps like some kind of democracy, but that was the case before, especially before the very last years of Mubarak, in appearance at least. More importantly, the military regime, deeply anchored in the state, society, and the economy as well will preserve all or most of its power. At worst, it will control the political outcomes. At best it won’t, but the governments that emerge will be weak and unstable, opening the door to future interventions. This will still be the old regime, especially on the level that people will experience it. I will explore this more fully in my next post.

I am old enough to still be amazed by modern media; young and open enough to not be beguiled.

This morning I had an exchange with DC contributor Andras Bozoki. Yesterday, I had sent him, along with other DC contributors, an email message, asking for a brief bio and a photo for our enhanced and updated contributors’ page.  He responded to me from China, where, unbeknownst to me, he is giving a few lectures in Hong Kong, and visiting other major cities.  We took care of our mundane business.  He’ll get back to me with the bio and photo upon his return home to Budapest.  I invited him to write something about what he is seeing in China.  He told me that he is quite busy these days, and not sure he will have the time to write, but he will contribute to DC if he writes anything about the very interesting things he is seeing on his trip.  Let’s hope he finds the time.

Every Saturday or Sunday, my wife, Naomi, and I in New York have a Skype visit with our daughter, Brina, and her family, husband, Michel, and son, Ludovic, in Paris.  Two weeks ago, we saw Ludo taking his first hesitant steps.  Last week, walking had already become his primary means of locomotion, moving fluidly around their study, picking up his toys, now with two hands, finding more problematic materials (his daddy is an artist), more easily getting into trouble.   This Sunday we will celebrate Ludovic’s first birthday.  They will open the present we sent via snail mail.  We will sing Happy Birthday, knowing that next year he will actually understand and look forward to the festivities.  One of the great pleasures I had as a father was reading the good night book.  I figure around that next birthday that may become a regular ritual between Ludo and me, as it was between me and my children.

When I explain to people about DC, trying to recruit them to write for us, I have a number of ways of appealing to them.  One is rather academic, in Civility and Subversion: The Intellectual in Democratic Society, I argue that the democratic role of intellectuals is to be talk provokers, to make it possible for citizens to discuss pressing problems of the day, by civilizing differences among opponents so that enemies become opponents, and opponents become collaborators, and by subverting commonsense that hides social problems, revealing those problems so that they may be discussed and acted upon.  DC is a website meant to provide intellectual space for such needed intellectual interventions.

Such spaces in the past were found in political pamphlets, small magazines and journals, and of course books.  DC provides a forum for the type of discussion that used to appear in the small magazines like The Partisan Review.  It is meant to be read by the general public, but it is informed discussion, not just polemical debate.  There are differences between what we are trying to create now and what the circumstances were then, but the similarities I think are notable and appealing.

I worked on such similarities and differences in my book The Politics of Small Things. There I noted how the basis of power generated in the democratic opposition in the former Soviet bloc was quite similar to the power of the anti-war movement against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and of Howard Dean’s primary campaign in 2004.  The democratic opposition used the mimeograph machine, the Dean campaign the internet and new social media.  Here at DC I also have underscored the similarities to the Obama campaign of 2008 and to the Tea Party movement.  The media used then and now were quite different, but the type of social power created was the same.

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All of this comes to mind as we try to understand the role of the new social media in the revolution in the countries of the Maghreb and Mashreq.  There has been a great deal of attention and speculation about these, the Facebook – Al Jazeera Revolutions.  I have no doubt that the social media have made it possible for people to meet each other, speak in each others’ presence and develop a capacity to act in concert, i.e. creating political power in the sense of Hannah Arendt.  But I am also certain that this kind of power existed and was consequential before the social media appeared, for example in the movements around the old Soviet bloc that contributed to the collapse of Communism and in the civil rights movement in the United States.   The rapidity of the development clearly is a consequence of social media, primarily Facebook, and satellite television, primarily Al Jazeera, but there is an important sociological basis of the movement, it is not just a manifestation of the technology.  There is something new, but it’s not all that new.

It is amazing that I can rapidly exchange notes  with my friend Andras, thinking he is in Hungary, learning that he is in China, at eight this morning for me, eight this evening for him.  (In fact as I am about to post this he sent a journalistic account of his presentation in Hong Kong, two in the afternoon here, two in the morning there).  It is indeed amazing that I see and regularly interact with my grandson in Paris, from my home in New York, and that in my study at home, I am developing this blog, which is global in its reach. The transformations of 2011 are incredible.  These manifestations of friendship, family, love, informed intellectual exchange and revolution are not created by the new media regime.  While they can be facilitated by it, friendship, love, deliberate thought and political ideals must be independently created. As the French say: “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,” the more things change, the more they stay the same.  By the way, that was one of my father’s favorite sayings.