Could the great recession lead to a great revolution? A look at mass protests during the past 500 years reveals surprising clues. By Immanuel Ness

csmonitor.com - The Christian Science Monitor Online
from the July 30, 2009 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0730/p09s01-coop.html
Brooklyn, N.Y.

For the first time in generations, people are challenging the view that a free-market order – the system that dominates the globe today – is the destiny of all nations. The free market's uncanny ability to enrich the elite, coupled with its inability to soften the sharp experiences of staggering poverty, has pushed inequality to the breaking point.

As a result, we live at an important historical juncture – one where alternatives to the world's neoliberal capitalism could emerge. Thus, it is a particularly apt time to examine revolutionary movements that have periodically challenged dominant state and imperial power structures over the past 500 years.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, which laid the foundation for liberal democratic elections and the expansion of the free-market system throughout the world, revolution and protest seemed to lose some of their potency.

Leading historians believed that a new age had appeared in which revolutionary movements would no longer challenge the status quo. Defenders of the contemporary system were suspicious of nearly all forms of popular expression and contestation for power outside the electoral arena. But remarkably, this entire discourse sidestepped the major impulses of human emancipation of the past 500 years – equality, democracy, and social rights.

Proponents of neoliberalism are indifferent to this history and dismiss the notion that "another world is possible" that could alleviate grinding misery and poverty around the world. But in opposition to the contemporary individualistic system of capitalism, evidence of a new global movement dedicated to social justice and human rights has sprung from the ashes of the past. Just in the past decade, we have witnessed the expansion of worker insurgencies, peasant and indigenous uprisings, ecological protests, and democracy movements.

Historians frequently view revolutions as extraordinary and unanticipated interruptions of state social regulation of everyday life.

This isn't the case.

In my work as editor of a new encyclopedia of revolution and protest, I've reviewed 500 years' worth of revolutionary actions. And the surprising pattern I've found is the regularity of volatile and explosive conflicts, commonly revealed as waves of protest from within civil society to confront persistent inequality and oppression. While historians cannot forecast the time and place of revolutions, the past has a sustained, if disjointed, record of popular resistance to injustice.

History shows that revolutions must have political movement and a socially compelling goal, with strategic and charismatic leadership that inspires majorities to challenge a perception of fundamental injustice and inequality. A necessary feature is the development of a political ideology rooted in a narrative that legitimates mass collective action, which is indispensable to forcing dominant groups to address social grievances – or to overturning those dominant groups altogether.

Unresponsive rulers risk possible overthrow of their governments. For example, the vision and struggle of a multiracial South Africa was a guiding principle that put an end to the entrenched white-dominated apartheid system.

A second essential element is what Italian philosopher Antonio Negri calls constituent power, the expression of the popular will for democracy – a common theme in nearly all revolutions – through what he calls the multitude.

Mr. Negri counterpoises the concepts of constituent power and constituted power to demonstrate the oppositional forces in society. Thus, following the American Revolution, the ruling elite created a second Constitution establishing a national government with fewer democratic safeguards.

In response to challenges from popular movements, modern states have concentrated power in constitutions and centralized authority structures to suppress mass demands for democracy and equality. Few democratic revolutionary movements have gained popular power as new states almost always consolidate control, often resorting to repression of the masses that initially brought them to power. Still, virtually all revolutions during the past 500 years have created enduring consequences that, in evolving form, remain forces for justice to this day.

Revolutionary movements must recognize the durability and overwhelming inertia of state power. They must acknowledge that they are highly unlikely to seize power from unjust regimes, even when their objectives have moral force and are deeply popular among the masses. And yet, history is full of exceptions to this rule, so we must conclude that while revolutionary transformation is improbable, it is always a possibility.

At a lecture to Young Socialists in Zurich just one month before the February 1917 Revolution, Vladimir Lenin said: "We of the older generation may not live to see the decisive battles of this coming revolution." Less than a year later, Lenin and the Bolsheviks gained power over the Soviet state with the initial support of workers, peasants, and most of the military.

In the last century, the opponents of the failed bureaucratic statism in the Soviet sphere and free-market capitalism in the West have struggled to find a discourse of resistance. While democratic opponents defeated Soviet Russia in the early 1990s, opponents of free-market capitalism have yet to gain traction, in part due to the general consensus among global rulers in defense of neoliberalism. As such, revolutionary movements have had to redefine themselves outside territorial borders as powerful tools of the global collective to petition for human rights and social justice for all.

People are inherently cautious and take extraordinary action only when they have little to lose and something to gain. The current economic crisis has pushed more people into poverty and despair than at any time since the early 20th century, to the point where alternatives to the current system can be considered.

Today, throughout the world, peasants, workers, indigenous peoples, and students are galvanized into movements that are challenging state power rooted in global norms of neoliberalism. New movements have gained greater traction with the legitimacy and strength of a global collective behind them, rather than as isolated protests. The oppressed are framing new narratives of liberation to contest power on a state and international level: whether peasants in Latin America or India struggling for land reform; indigenous peoples mobilizing resistance for official recognition of their rights; or workers and students throughout the world waging unauthorized strikes and sit-ins, and taking to the streets in support of democracy and equality.


Immanuel Ness is a professor of political science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and editor of "The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present."

www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2009 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved.

CNN Praises a Dictator by : Sanjeev Bery, Huffington Post, 24 June, 09

Sanjeev Bery writes on U.S. foreign policy and international affairs.


It has barely been a day since my last blog post criticizing a CNN commentator's Iran analysis. But somehow, CNN has already managed to outdo itself.

In a new article linked to its home page as of Monday, CNN.com heavily quotes the son of a former Iranian dictator without once telling the reader about his father's role in ending Iranian democracy.

The piece is entitled "Fighting tears, shah's son calls crisis a 'moment of truth.'" It heavily quotes Reza Shah Pahlavi, the son of the Shah of Iran. And it has nothing but good things to say about the intentions of the father who ruled Iran for a quarter century:

Under the shah's regime, Iran saw nationalization of its oil and a strong movement toward modernization. Still, his secular programs and recognition of Israel cost him the support of the country's Shiite clergy, sparking clashes with the religious right and others who resented his pro-West views.

Never mind that the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, came to power in a 1953 CIA coup that overthrew Iran's young democracy. Never mind that his Savak secret police crushed democratic opponents. Somehow, CNN.com is bestowing positive coverage upon the Shah and his son without once acknowledging the repressive practices of the Shah's regime. Indeed, if there hadn't been a Shah to rebel against, there might never have been a Supreme Leader named Ayatollah Khomeini.

That isn't to say that the Shah of Iran created Khomeini's ideology or power base. The Iranian Shia clerical class existed long before 1979. But one wonders what Iran could have been like today if the CIA hadn't overthrown its democratic government in 1953.

Follow Sanjeev Bery on Twitter: www.twitter.com/sanjeevbery

Mousavi's "movement" is a hodge-podge of student-mandarins & borgeois soap opera addicts pining for the Pax Americana

by: Andrew Taylor

Mousavi is a 'holy fool' and a demagogue, that is, a politician who woos power by appealing to the prejudices, emotions, fears and expectations of the people via impassioned rhetoric and propaganda using populist themes. If he prevails...you won't need to hold your breath long waiting for US imperialist penetration. Think again.

If anyone thinks the Iranian struggle is headed for woman's emancipation, democracy, or socialism, they ought to think seriously about how middle and even working class mass movements are co-opted into US satellite status. I was in the Parti Communiste du Quebec during the "Solidarity" struggles in Poland in mid-late 80s. The Trotskyists said over and over again at that time that the Polish revolution was headed for socialism. I pointed out that given the counter-revolutionary tide in E Europe and the so-called "Third World" - it was much more likely that Poland was headed for full incorporation into the imperialist camp and a perilous decline in living standards for the Working Class.

If there is one lesson I have learned on the left over decades, it is that the ultra-left is detached from the mass movements and yet misleads many in proportion to its numbers. Mass marchers do not of necessity equal a left turn. The EU electorate has just swung right. Think again about the social-location of populist 'reformers' before assenting to an illusory "mass line". Why is Mousavi both 'favored' and shunned by the US and Israeli governments? It is because he is a dupe, a toy, who usefully demonizes Iranian anti-imperialism, while remaining garbage in the estimate of Imperialist ambitions. If he prevails in Iran, he will assent to the US Script or be trashed for a real imperial puppet.

It is Iran's anti-imperialist foreign policy that is and will remain the enemy of Israel and the US and EU. Mousavi is a useful strutting puppet character in their drama - whether or not his subjective intentions are patriotic or egoistical.

Obama fails to impress: Muslim world enjoys the oratory, but looks for meaningful action By ERIC MARGOLIS 14th June 2009

Eric Margolis is a syndicated columnist and the foreign correspondent of The Toronto Sun newspaper

Source: Winnipeg Sun


SIFNOS, GREECE -- President Barack Obama's masterfully written, artfully delivered recent speech in Cairo was filled with just what the Muslim world had been waiting for.

After eight years of the George W. Bush administration's relentless anti-Islamic hostility, the world's 1.5 billion Muslims at last heard an intelligent, respectful speech from President Obama calling for normalized relations with the Muslim world, including former "betes noires" Iran and Syria, co-operation, and advancement of democracy and human rights.

Very nice. But the Muslim world was not as taken by Obama's silver-tongued oratory as many Americans. The general response there was, "actions speak louder than words. Show us."

Rather than a friendly, helpful U.S.A., many Muslims saw Obama expanding the war in Afghanistan that he could easily have ended upon taking office. They saw the U.S.-rented Pakistani army create three million refugees in its Swat offensive against rebellious tribesmen, continuing U.S. occupation of Iraq, and CIA's covert campaign to destabilize Iran and Syria.

Muslims saw Israel's rightist government thumbing its nose at Obama's sensible calls for a halt to its colonization of the West Bank and Golan, and the U.S. Congress applauding Israel's hard line like trained seals.

These facts speak a lot louder than the president's mellifluous oratory.

We would like to give the new president the benefit of the doubt. He has been in office only four months and will need a lot more time to begin repairing the catastrophic damage inflicted by the Bush administration on U.S. interests and standing in the Muslim world and Europe. Here in Greece, for example, anti-U.S. sentiment reached an all time high, but is now declining thanks to Obama.

However, the White House's recent actions belie the new president's promises.

Exhibit A: Obama unfortunately chose Egypt from which to deliver his message to Muslims of amity, democracy and human rights.

Egypt's U.S.-backed dictator, Husni Mubarak, has ruled for 37 years and is grooming his son to replace him. This leading Arab nation is run by a corrupt oligarchy, the military and secret police.

Torture

Egypt has become notorious for torture and human rights violations. Opponents of the regime are intimidated or arrested and tortured. Elections are crudely rigged.

Egypt is America's most important Muslim ally, along with Saudi Arabia. Are these repressive states what Obama means when he calls for democracy and human rights? He should have given his speech from democratic Indonesia, or the progressive United Arab Emirates and Qatar, rather than Egypt, a pillar of America's Mideast raj.

Exhibit B: Lebanon's June 7 parliamentary elections. A U.S.-French-Saudi-backed coalition of Sunni, Christians, and Druze was pitted against a Syrian-Iranian backed Hezbollah-led coalition that included Armenians and a Christian splinter faction.

Late last month, U.S. Vice-President Joseph Biden went to Lebanon and threatened to cut off all U.S. aid to that nation of 3.9 million if the democratically elected Hezbollah coalition won. Hillary Clinton made similar crude threats.

Imagine the uproar if the Saudi crown prince came to the U.S. just before elections and threatened to raise oil prices if Democrats won.

The United States, Saudi Arabia and France spent millions of dollars bribing Lebanon's rentable politicians and voters. The U.S. has been mucking around in Lebanon since 1957.

Iran spread some money around as well. Nothing new about that: Lebanon's politicians are among the most corrupt and easily bought on earth.

Vote rigging

All the western "baksheesh" and some fancy vote rigging helped the U.S.-backed May 14 coalition, headed by Saad Hariri, win 71 seats. The Hezbollah-led coalition, which speaks for the nation's Shia, won only 57 seats. This left sectarian, fragmented Lebanon just where it was before this sleazy election.

Is this what Obama means by promoting good government in the Muslim world?

Many Muslims and non-Muslims alike see Obama as an honest, decent, well-intentioned leader who has not yet managed to impose his will on the aggressive financial-military-industrial complex that seemingly remains the real power in Washington.

eric.margolis@sunmedia.ca