Do not point your nose too high, do not swell your chest too much, do not boast too loudly, do not be puffed up, let not your ambitions be excessive or take a wrong direction, remember you have done nothing at all, you are just the same member of society you were last week, you are on no higher plane, deserve no new consideration, and will get none and nowhere.
These words !!! How pertinent and timely would they be, pronounced by different Arab leaders and their regimes in power, to all of the uprising populations and youth in their countries. In every one of the Arab countries, Libya Syria and Yemen, Bahrain Jordan and Morocco, even the very repressive kingdom of Saudi Arabia, just a few with ongoing violence and total disdain from the rulers toward their own populations seeking freedom, dignity and well deserved change.
Those of us who live in the developed world are becoming increasingly disturbed by this capacity to do one another harm. We are less tolerant of violence and the behaviour of repressive regimes toward their uprising populations. We are totally uncomfortable with ideologies that demonise whole populations, justifying their abuse or outright destruction.
BUT the evidence of change is undeniable. Most readers will have viewed pictures and documentaries of brutal violence, in which whole towns turned out, as though for a carnival, only to demand more freedom and dignity. To be brutally repressed.
One would have hoped for a different response from the different leaders and regimes in all or most countries, I would have surely hoped for a very different response and approach from the young Syrian leader, any dialogue trying to understand and accommodate would have been smarter and by far more fulfilling, than repeating the same rituals of brutal killings, exercised by his predecessor decades ago, or by his contemporary friends in Libya and Yemen.
The history of these Arab countries will become even more annoying and difficult to contemplate, and future generations will marvel at the ways that we, too, failed in our commitments to the common good of these populations. We will embarrass our descendants by not upholding historic moral progress.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
THE ARAB REVOLTS THROUGH HANNAH ARENDT'S EYES
Arendt is well known for her celebration of "ACTION". She speaks of action as "the one miracle-working faculty of man" Pointing out that in human affairs it is actually quite reasonable to expect the unexpected,and that new beginnings cannot be ruled out even when society seems locked in stagnation or set on an obstinate course.
Since the Tunisian and Egyptian revolts took place, her observation on the unpredictability of politics have been strikingly confirmed, not least by the collapse of both regimes, but also by the ongoing revolts in Yemen, Bahrain, and other places, especially the revolt in Libya and the ensuing bloody events and scenes from that country, all are Arendtian scenes par excellence. Illustrating her account of how power can spring up as if from nowhere when people begin to "act in concert" and can die down unexpectedly from apparently powerful regimes.
But if her analysis of action is a message of hope in dark times, it also carries warnings. For the other side of that miraculous unpredictability of action is lack of control over its effects. Action sets things in motion, and one cannot foresee even the effects of one's own initiatives, let alone control what happens when they are entangled with other people's initiatives in the public arena. Action is therefore deeply frustrating, for its results can turn out to be quite different from what the actor intended.
But apart from the physical difficulties of gaining control over the situation that's set off by action of the masses, she also reminds us of the political problems caused by plurality itself.
In principle, if we can all agree to work together we can exercise great power; but agreement between plural persons is hard to achieve, and never safe from the disruptive initiatives of further actors.
As we stand at the threshold of a new millennium, the one safe prediction we can make is that, despite the continuation of processes already in motion in the Arab world, the open future will become an arena for countless human initiatives that are beyond our present imagination.
Since the Tunisian and Egyptian revolts took place, her observation on the unpredictability of politics have been strikingly confirmed, not least by the collapse of both regimes, but also by the ongoing revolts in Yemen, Bahrain, and other places, especially the revolt in Libya and the ensuing bloody events and scenes from that country, all are Arendtian scenes par excellence. Illustrating her account of how power can spring up as if from nowhere when people begin to "act in concert" and can die down unexpectedly from apparently powerful regimes.
But if her analysis of action is a message of hope in dark times, it also carries warnings. For the other side of that miraculous unpredictability of action is lack of control over its effects. Action sets things in motion, and one cannot foresee even the effects of one's own initiatives, let alone control what happens when they are entangled with other people's initiatives in the public arena. Action is therefore deeply frustrating, for its results can turn out to be quite different from what the actor intended.
But apart from the physical difficulties of gaining control over the situation that's set off by action of the masses, she also reminds us of the political problems caused by plurality itself.
In principle, if we can all agree to work together we can exercise great power; but agreement between plural persons is hard to achieve, and never safe from the disruptive initiatives of further actors.
As we stand at the threshold of a new millennium, the one safe prediction we can make is that, despite the continuation of processes already in motion in the Arab world, the open future will become an arena for countless human initiatives that are beyond our present imagination.
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