By: Lou Brien
Mohamed Bouazizi had for years sold produce from a cart on the streets of a Tunisian city. From this occupation it is said he made enough money to feed his extended family, but not much more than that. On December 17 Mr. Bouazizi’s day was interrupted by the petty demands of government inspectors, who were said to regularly hassle him and others plying a similar trade. It was generally considered to be an irritation that was usually looked upon as a cost of doing business; degrading, but unavoidable. However on that day in December as the low level bureaucrat was attempting to confiscate his produce, Mr. Bouazizi pushed back. Maybe he had gone through this deflating ritual one too many times, but on this occasion he resisted the government representative, who slapped him in the face for his disobedience and then he was beaten by two of her colleagues. But his resistance was noted by the others in the crowd, and that part of the story is important. Later that day the twenty-six year old produce salesman went to the municipal building to demand the return of his property, at which time it is reported that he was again beaten. From there he went front gate of governor’s office and when he was once more rebuffed it is reported that he doused himself in paint thinner and set himself on fire; he died a couple of weeks later.
In a dictatorship, such as Tunisia had been for decades, such events may usually pass by without much of a public reaction; better to internalize the plight of someone like Bouazizi than to act out and face government retribution. But, for whatever reason, the people of Tunisia did not ignore the incident, they took to the streets, a tipping point had apparently been breached and the way that the government had treated its people would no longer be endured, the lack of economic opportunity would no longer be tolerated. Seemingly a long dormant sentiment had been awoken by the desperate act of young countryman who sold produce from a cart. On January 14, less than a month after the Bouazizi incident, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country he had ruled for twenty-three years.
“Every fight consists of two parts: (1) the few individuals who are actively engaged at the center and (2) the audience that is irresistibly attracted to the scene.”
“To understand any conflict it is necessary therefore to keep constantly in mind the relations between the combatants and the audience because the audience is likely to do the kinds of things that determine the outcome of the fight. This is true because the audience is overwhelming; it is never really neutral’ the excitement of the conflict communicates itself to the crowd. This is the basic pattern of all politics.”
“The first proposition is that the outcome of every conflict is determined by the extent to which the audience becomes involved in it…The second proposition is a consequence of the first. The most important strategy of politics is concerned with the scope of conflict.”
“It follows that conflicts are frequently won or lost by the success that the contestants have in getting the audience involved in the fight or in excluding it, as the case may be.”
The Semisovereign People, by E. E. Schattschneider
The scope of the conflict in Tunisia expanded exponentially once it had begun; in essence in went viral. “Well, Twitter mattered, as did Facebook, YouTube, SMS and a whole range of social media. But for them to have the full impact that they had, they needed to get those images out into the mass media where people who weren’t in the network would be able to see them,” said Marc Lynch, the director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University, in an interview on National Public Radio. He noted that the media with journalists in Tunisia had their offices shuttered by the government, but they were still able to get images off the internet and “then they rebroadcast them. That then brought those images and videos to a much broader audience, and it couldn’t be controlled by the Tunisian government anymore.” It is likely those images were hugely important for the pace at which events unfolded, but there is little doubt that the key to the uprising was the new found courage to express the previously suppressed frustration with their lot in life and their perception that the government was responsible. I don’t know why this was the moment for this spirit to reawake, but it did and now it seems as though spirit is contagious, judging by the situation that is bubbling over in Egypt and threatening to do so elsewhere in the region as well.
But there is no reason to assume that a movement such as has occurred in Tunisia is anything but contagious, and is so in a manner for which geography and culture matter very little; we have seen it before and interestingly at somewhat regular intervals. My point is that this is the sort of Tunisian event that can inspire people to stand up and be counted in unrelated places for unrelated issues, real or perceived. And, further, that the timeline and ramifications can unfold faster than conventional wisdom can either recognize or adjust.
1968 is remembered as a tumultuous year; although for this example I will exclude the assignations that occurred in the US and the urban unrest that ensued. The year began with the political liberalization in Czechoslovakia; a step toward democracy that included a loosening of restrictions in areas such as the media, speech and travel and by April the people of Prague were acting in ways that were very un-Soviet. Or course it ended badly that August when tanks from the Warsaw Pact rolled in and shut it down, but in its time it was seen as a movement that was both brave and inspiring. I don’t know if the spirit of the Prague Spring motivated the students and workers of Paris to shut down the French economy for a couple of weeks that May in an action that almost toppled the De Gaulle government, but I don’t know that it wasn’t. One could also wonder if Prague was the muse that turned the protests at the US political conventions into a massive demonstration of political dissatisfaction in late summer to a degree that caught most observes by surprise, but it might have been the case here too.
Although the issues may differ, the sentiment of a people rising up can indeed be contagious. Fast forward to April, twenty-one years hence, and we find a gathering of students in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. At first they came mainly to mourn the passing of a Party official known for tolerating dissent, but as the days turned to weeks the disparate group gained a voice, calling for economic and democratic reforms. By early June this too ended badly. But for some reason a similar sentiment was on the rise in the eastern bloc of Europe as well. It was in August in Hungary that a leak sprung in the Iron Curtain. By September thousands of East Germans and others were flooding into Hungary and then out to the West. Then it was Czechoslovakia that became the exit route. Soon there were mass protests in East Germany as well, which remarkably forced the resignation of long-time leader Erich Honecker on the eighteenth of October. The pace of events quickened dramatically, but up until the day the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989 there was little or no anticipation that it would be so. Within a couple of years so too did the Soviet Union collapse, and again it was an event that was unanticipated, both the outcome and the speed at which it arrived.
Now, twenty one years after students in China and the peoples of Eastern Europe found their long dormant voices and forty two years removed from 1968, we find kindred spirits in the north of Africa. I have no special insight as to how the events there will play out, in Tunisia, Egypt or elsewhere. Nor do I know if they will inspire the people of other countries to follow suit. But if history is a guide then it is within the realm of possibility that other nations in the Middle East or elsewhere will see its people stand to be counted. Maybe even the Irish will decide that they care little to suffer through years of austerity in order to pay the price demanded by Brussels.
Although it may seem that such scenarios are unlikely, remember so too did the events of 1968 and 1989 also seem to be farfetched. Conflict is contagious and so too is the spirit that causes a people to rise up.
Mohamed Bouazizi had for years sold produce from a cart on the streets of a Tunisian city. From this occupation it is said he made enough money to feed his extended family, but not much more than that. On December 17 Mr. Bouazizi’s day was interrupted by the petty demands of government inspectors, who were said to regularly hassle him and others plying a similar trade. It was generally considered to be an irritation that was usually looked upon as a cost of doing business; degrading, but unavoidable. However on that day in December as the low level bureaucrat was attempting to confiscate his produce, Mr. Bouazizi pushed back. Maybe he had gone through this deflating ritual one too many times, but on this occasion he resisted the government representative, who slapped him in the face for his disobedience and then he was beaten by two of her colleagues. But his resistance was noted by the others in the crowd, and that part of the story is important. Later that day the twenty-six year old produce salesman went to the municipal building to demand the return of his property, at which time it is reported that he was again beaten. From there he went front gate of governor’s office and when he was once more rebuffed it is reported that he doused himself in paint thinner and set himself on fire; he died a couple of weeks later.
In a dictatorship, such as Tunisia had been for decades, such events may usually pass by without much of a public reaction; better to internalize the plight of someone like Bouazizi than to act out and face government retribution. But, for whatever reason, the people of Tunisia did not ignore the incident, they took to the streets, a tipping point had apparently been breached and the way that the government had treated its people would no longer be endured, the lack of economic opportunity would no longer be tolerated. Seemingly a long dormant sentiment had been awoken by the desperate act of young countryman who sold produce from a cart. On January 14, less than a month after the Bouazizi incident, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country he had ruled for twenty-three years.
“Every fight consists of two parts: (1) the few individuals who are actively engaged at the center and (2) the audience that is irresistibly attracted to the scene.”
“To understand any conflict it is necessary therefore to keep constantly in mind the relations between the combatants and the audience because the audience is likely to do the kinds of things that determine the outcome of the fight. This is true because the audience is overwhelming; it is never really neutral’ the excitement of the conflict communicates itself to the crowd. This is the basic pattern of all politics.”
“The first proposition is that the outcome of every conflict is determined by the extent to which the audience becomes involved in it…The second proposition is a consequence of the first. The most important strategy of politics is concerned with the scope of conflict.”
“It follows that conflicts are frequently won or lost by the success that the contestants have in getting the audience involved in the fight or in excluding it, as the case may be.”
The Semisovereign People, by E. E. Schattschneider
The scope of the conflict in Tunisia expanded exponentially once it had begun; in essence in went viral. “Well, Twitter mattered, as did Facebook, YouTube, SMS and a whole range of social media. But for them to have the full impact that they had, they needed to get those images out into the mass media where people who weren’t in the network would be able to see them,” said Marc Lynch, the director of the Institute for Middle East Studies at George Washington University, in an interview on National Public Radio. He noted that the media with journalists in Tunisia had their offices shuttered by the government, but they were still able to get images off the internet and “then they rebroadcast them. That then brought those images and videos to a much broader audience, and it couldn’t be controlled by the Tunisian government anymore.” It is likely those images were hugely important for the pace at which events unfolded, but there is little doubt that the key to the uprising was the new found courage to express the previously suppressed frustration with their lot in life and their perception that the government was responsible. I don’t know why this was the moment for this spirit to reawake, but it did and now it seems as though spirit is contagious, judging by the situation that is bubbling over in Egypt and threatening to do so elsewhere in the region as well.
But there is no reason to assume that a movement such as has occurred in Tunisia is anything but contagious, and is so in a manner for which geography and culture matter very little; we have seen it before and interestingly at somewhat regular intervals. My point is that this is the sort of Tunisian event that can inspire people to stand up and be counted in unrelated places for unrelated issues, real or perceived. And, further, that the timeline and ramifications can unfold faster than conventional wisdom can either recognize or adjust.
1968 is remembered as a tumultuous year; although for this example I will exclude the assignations that occurred in the US and the urban unrest that ensued. The year began with the political liberalization in Czechoslovakia; a step toward democracy that included a loosening of restrictions in areas such as the media, speech and travel and by April the people of Prague were acting in ways that were very un-Soviet. Or course it ended badly that August when tanks from the Warsaw Pact rolled in and shut it down, but in its time it was seen as a movement that was both brave and inspiring. I don’t know if the spirit of the Prague Spring motivated the students and workers of Paris to shut down the French economy for a couple of weeks that May in an action that almost toppled the De Gaulle government, but I don’t know that it wasn’t. One could also wonder if Prague was the muse that turned the protests at the US political conventions into a massive demonstration of political dissatisfaction in late summer to a degree that caught most observes by surprise, but it might have been the case here too.
Although the issues may differ, the sentiment of a people rising up can indeed be contagious. Fast forward to April, twenty-one years hence, and we find a gathering of students in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China. At first they came mainly to mourn the passing of a Party official known for tolerating dissent, but as the days turned to weeks the disparate group gained a voice, calling for economic and democratic reforms. By early June this too ended badly. But for some reason a similar sentiment was on the rise in the eastern bloc of Europe as well. It was in August in Hungary that a leak sprung in the Iron Curtain. By September thousands of East Germans and others were flooding into Hungary and then out to the West. Then it was Czechoslovakia that became the exit route. Soon there were mass protests in East Germany as well, which remarkably forced the resignation of long-time leader Erich Honecker on the eighteenth of October. The pace of events quickened dramatically, but up until the day the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989 there was little or no anticipation that it would be so. Within a couple of years so too did the Soviet Union collapse, and again it was an event that was unanticipated, both the outcome and the speed at which it arrived.
Now, twenty one years after students in China and the peoples of Eastern Europe found their long dormant voices and forty two years removed from 1968, we find kindred spirits in the north of Africa. I have no special insight as to how the events there will play out, in Tunisia, Egypt or elsewhere. Nor do I know if they will inspire the people of other countries to follow suit. But if history is a guide then it is within the realm of possibility that other nations in the Middle East or elsewhere will see its people stand to be counted. Maybe even the Irish will decide that they care little to suffer through years of austerity in order to pay the price demanded by Brussels.
Although it may seem that such scenarios are unlikely, remember so too did the events of 1968 and 1989 also seem to be farfetched. Conflict is contagious and so too is the spirit that causes a people to rise up.
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