Too Early to Talk about a Middle Eastern Revolution?

Gamze Coşkun, USAK Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies

With the New Year, the Middle Eastern societies appealed the attention of the world public opinion with their actions which might change the fate of the whole region. The social uprisings started from Tunisia and spread over many countries of the region such as Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and Libya. The authoritarian leaders, the dictators, who were not even imagined to be collapsed with the help of public pressure have started to stand down and renounce their positions.




Many made various comments and different forecasts on these movements. However, it is seen that there is confusion on how to name these public actions. There are two main arguments on the conceptualization of these social uprisings. Some calls these actions as social movement, while some others prefer to name them as revolution from the beginning. The preferred term draws the road map of how to define the issue. At this point, in order to avoid such incomprehensibility, it would be much appropriate and healthy to describe the events going on in the Middle East after theoretically defining the concepts of revolution and social movement.



Concerning the Social Sciences literature, it would not be right to use the concept of revolution to define any kind of attacks against an established order or seizure of power. What is more, it is not proper to use the term revolution for military coups and anticolonial struggles either. Revolutions aim to establish a new moral and material world or order.[1] And this is the main point which separates revolutions from social movements. Revolution is also a deliberate process, and this project has a leader or vanguard acting within the framework of a certain ideology. It brings about the change of the dominant ideology as well as that of the state and class structures, and it is a bottom-up process. For example, Samuel P. Huntington defines revolution as a rapid, fundamental, and violent domestic change in the dominant values and myths of a society, its political institutions, social structure, leadership and government activities and policies.[2] In another perspective, Lenin says revolutions are the festivals of the oppressed and exploited. At no other time are the masses of the people in a position to come forward so actively as creators of a new social order.[3]



Different theorists put forward different arguments while describing revolutions. While many of them agree on that revolution must have a leader and ideology, some others like Theda Skocpol considers the issue from a different angle. For instance, by stating that he shares the idea of Revolutions are not made. They come, Skocpol points out that revolutions are not successful and effective thanks to their leaders who acts in line with an ideology but with the contribution of the efforts of differently situated and differently motivated groups groups not operating even under the shared rubric of a revolutionary ideology.[4] In this regard, leader and ideology are not seen so important at least during its stages of development. The leader and ideology become the influential power mostly following the collapse of the existing regime.[5] Yet all in all, all these theorists reach a consensus on that revolutions come into being with a structural and ideological stark change in the state system.



Many academicians assume that social unrest and dissolution occur because of rapid modernization and this will be followed by revolution. However, as Skocpol and Charles Tilly express that the mass, lower-class participants in revolution cannot turn discontent into effective political action without autonomous collective organization and resources to sustain their efforts.[6]



The process which ended or newly started with the stepping down of the leaders surely began as the people who were uncomfortable with the system took action. Economic inequalities, pressure of the regime, search for reform, change and democracy as well as various structural and international factors triggered these movements. Furthermore, it is seen that the leaders of these movements have not been the ones who act within the framework of a certain ideology but the peoples themselves.



It is not possible to call the incident as revolution while the events in Tunisia and Egypt have not been finalized yet and nearly the same political situation is maintained further than the absence of a certain ideology and leader. Other than that even if a full fledged democratic system could be established, it would not be easy to talk about a revolution in the strict sense at the end of the process as there would not be a radical change in the state structure, ideology and institutions. In contrast to the consensus reached on 1789 French, 1917 Russian, 1911-1949 Chinese and 1979 Iranian revolutions, the revolutionary characteristic of incidents in the Middle East could possibly remain disputed.



In short, with no doubt, the Middle Eastern region entered into a new phase. However, it is not possible to predict the future of the region and direction of these movements from now.A very new situation is expected to emerge in the region, yet calling the upcoming but still nonexistent situation as revolution would be too early. The framework we draw for the explanation of the issue is the precondition of a strong analysis. And a healthy analysis would come after an appropriate and healthy approach to the issue.