Is the Arab Spring really an "American" Revolution? According to President Obama and his speechwriters, the answer is, surprisingly, yes.
The dramatic political change that has taken place in the Middle East over the last six months has been led not by the United States, but by young protesters on the ground. Administration officials have largely been relegated to the role of spectators -- watching, not directing, events unfolding before their eyes.
The president sought yesterday, in what was hailed as a major policy address on the Arab Spring, to re-assess and re-assert American influence in the region.
Obama began by reflecting on recent changes, and then admitted that it was not America that put people on the streets. But then he couldn't help himself. He went on to place the Arab Spring in starkly American terms, and by doing so he managed to mischaracterize the ongoing protests, fumble over historical analogies, and ultimately undermine his effort to refocus American foreign policy toward the changing region.
Early in the speech, the president attempted to paint the Tunisian catalyst for the Arab Spring as following in the footsteps of American heroes. The now famous fruit seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, managed to provoke mass protests back in December in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. President Obama likened Bouazizi to Rosa Parks --- he set himself on fire just as Parks "sat courageously in her seat." The truth is that because of Bouazizi's death, he was never able to play the same active and continuing role in his protest movement that Rosa Parks assumed in the American civil rights movement.
Within a myriad of mixed historical metaphors, the president also managed to compare the Arab Spring to both the American Revolution and the American Civil War. In addition to Rosa Parks, Bouazizi was also equated to the original tea party activists. The protesters have been both rebelling "against an empire" and "enslaved." But the Arab Spring is neither a war for national independence or a monolithic civil war. Since January, pundits have been trying to claim that we are witnessing a redux of 1848 or 1968 or 1979 or even 1989. But shouldn't we be content simply to give each of these protest movements their own place in history? To do otherwise is to diminish these unique movements that have assumed their own shapes and forms in each country. They are also struggles that are far from over. As Simon Montefiore has rightly pointed out: "Every revolution is revolutionary in its own way."
The president even harkened back to his speech in Cairo two years ago as if to suggest that he was ahead of the curve -- that it was his oratory that foreshadowed, perhaps even helped spearhead, the dramatic change taking place today. He claimed to affirm in Cairo the sentiment that "the status quo is not sustainable" (a favorite theme of the Arab Spring), but he never uttered those words in 2009.
Obama was also sure to point out that it was American technology that helped fuel recent protests. "The greatest untapped resource in the Middle East and North Africa," the president said, "is the talent of its people." But he then managed to negate that claim in the very next lines: "In the recent protests, we see that talent on display, as people harness technology to move the world. It's no coincidence that one of the leaders of Tahrir Square was an executive for Google." The implied meaning here was unfortunate: the people on their own couldn't have accomplished much, but with the aid of the Internet, and especially the American giant Google and its personnel, they were finally able to tap into their own talents.
The president concluded his speech by quoting from, not surprisingly, the Declaration of Independence. In a favorite rhetorical tool of both candidate and President Obama, he couldn't resist making himself part of the story, personally connecting his own narrative to events taking place far away from home. "I would not be standing here today," the president said, "unless past generations turned to the moral force of nonviolence as a way to perfect our union -- organizing, marching, protesting peacefully together to make real those words that declared our nation: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.'"
The message throughout the speech was clear: Some have claimed that America has been invisible over the course of the last tumultuous six months in the Middle East, but we have been there all along. These Arab revolutions are really "American" revolutions.
But the most effective way to reclaim American influence in the region is not by overstating our power over the Arab Spring. Rather, it is to specify exactly what the United States will do in the coming months to help the young people on the ground who are struggling --- in many places for their lives --- for political change. What will we do if Gaddafi continues to flout American power and murder his own citizens? What will we do if Assad in Syria does not (as the president remarked) simply "get out of the way?" What will we do if Bahrain continues to repress and imprison religious minorities? These are the kinds of questions that need answering. The time for rhetoric has long since passed.
Avi Spiegel is an assistant professor of political science at the University of San Diego in California and a fellow at the Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas. He is completing a book on the next generation of political Islam, based on fieldwork among young Islamist activists.
There will be peace when there is a critical mass of peaceloving countries/people. The history of the last
60 years does not give me a lot of hope.
Clinton made a valiant try and was rebuffed by Arafat. We are doing more harm than good.
Stop financial support of Israel ,the Palestinians and Egypt. Why borrow money to throw in a black hole?
Obama and his team including Samantha Powers, have started an inferno that will not be put out for hundreds of years. Look out women, the Muslin Brotherhood is in town!
It's not only logical, it's a fact....
Buddhist burnt themselves alive in Viet Nam trying to identify the hollocaust that was to come. America did not listen then and they are not listening NOW.
The struggle there is the same as here. For economic justice and prosperity. Who cares what Policitcal government the carrots, peas and meat are distributed. A democratic pea does not taste any different than a communistic or social democracy pea. Not having a pea is the problem. It is not political at all, ECONOMIC. Same problem here in America. The ME Spring should be a sign to revolt economically here at home and we are Talking the Talk and not Walking the Walk.
We cannot tax in the middle of a recession is the best example. Why should the unfair tax code dump the most relative taxes on the worker when and if he gets a job. Do we not have an Aggregate Demand deficiency? Supply Side Economics here and there create the inequities and injustice economically
As was the case in the FSU, the walls fall when the jailers as well as the inmates come to understand that .it doesn't have to be the way it is.
But IT Technology is not a problem per se. The problem is the IT and All technology is not freeing mankind from the toil of work. Giving the common folk a better life with less work.
All technology has been stolen by the few for Self Motivation and greed Higher Profits and more investment abroad to suck up even more wealth and assets from the worlds workers who do the work.
We all need to heed the words of our greatest 20th century philosopher...
"It's never over 'til it's over." Yogi Berra
Remember, after he got elected, he gave a great Rulers-chiding speech in Cairo.
Cut him some slack.
Providing a better life to our children is not that hard to do. Giving them a vote and a poorer opportunity while the Rich are getting richer and controlling all aspects of life need to be reversed. Like taking away the Bush Tax Cuts and then taxing them even more to make them pay their share for every penny they earn like the worker pays. This is need to redistribute the wealth not for justice alone, but so technology will happen since it comes from the WORKER and not the CEO or Stocv Owners
We have run away profits, CIA, military, Executive Branch and Supply Side Economics. Waiting for the business cycle to return. That means the worker accepts the low wages, lack of jobs and buys New Cars and Durable goods at the high prices and lives in a poorer state. While Profits are maintained. The worker need to join or lead the Arab Spring not claim we are there to assist like we were there to over throw the Iranian democratic elected Prime Minister and install a King or Shaw of Iran.
60 years of hate are now OURS. Lies got us there and intellegence excapes us staying there. The hatred will follow. Mark my words.
And American endorsements of these rebellions only harden the resistance of Islamist hard-liners.
Tough crowd.