Leaderless Revolutions
by digby
There have been a ton of interesting and discussion-provoking articles about what led to the successful protests in Tunisia and Egypt (and potentially ongoing all over the MidEast) but this NY Times story has a detail I hadn’t heard before:
As protesters in Tahrir Square faced off against pro-government forces, they drew a lesson from their counterparts in Tunisia: “Advice to the youth of Egypt: Put vinegar or onion under your scarf for tear gas.” The exchange on Facebook was part of a remarkable two-year collaboration that has given birth to a new force in the Arab world — a pan-Arab youth movement dedicated to spreading democracy in a region without it. Young Egyptian and Tunisian activists brainstormed on the use of technology to evade surveillance, commiserated about torture and traded practical tips on how to stand up to rubber bullets and organize barricades. They fused their secular expertise in social networks with a discipline culled from religious movements and combined the energy of soccer fans with the sophistication of surgeons. Breaking free from older veterans of the Arab political opposition, they relied on tactics of nonviolent resistance channeled from an American scholar through a Serbian youth brigade — but also on marketing tactics borrowed from Silicon Valley… Now the young leaders are looking beyond Egypt. “Tunis is the force that pushed Egypt, but what Egypt did will be the force that will push the world,” said Walid Rachid, one of the members of the April 6 Youth Movement, which helped organize the Jan. 25 protests that set off the uprising. He spoke at a meeting on Sunday night where the members discussed sharing their experiences with similar youth movements in Libya, Algeria, Morocco and Iran. “If a small group of people in every Arab country went out and persevered as we did, then that would be the end of all the regimes,” he said, joking that the next Arab summit might be “a coming-out party” for all the ascendant youth leaders.
There are other great stories of key moments in the Egypt uprising, like this one. But I had not realized the length of time they had been collaborating and I think this suggests a much stronger, organic movement than previously realized. I’ve been skeptical of how this would go beyond protest against the status quo without any kind of political structure or specific leadership, but if this has been growing for a couple of years without it then we may indeed be looking at something quite new. And that’s very exciting.
Of course, it’s exciting anyway, to see people rise up and depose tyrants and despots. But too often they are simply replaced by something just as bad, particularly if there’s a political vacuum. Without a common figure to rally around, the energy dissipates and people begin to argue among themselves leaving an opening for undemocratic forces to take hold. But this may actually be different and it bears watching closely as we see this unfold.
Here are a couple of blog posts I found very thought provoking about the idea of “leaderless” uprisings that you may enjoy if you have also been thinking along these lines. I don’t know quite what to think about it yet, but it’s very, very intriguing.
Can “Leaderless Revolutions” Stay Leaderless: Preferential Attachment, Iron Laws and Networks
Why the “how” of social organizing matters and how Gladwell’s latest contrarian missive falls short
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