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.