Benghazi, Wisconsin

Making subtle connections among seemingly isolated events often offers a kernel of insight; making superficial connections among visually similar theater just as often misses the point.

Our nightly news presents us with a gestalt of images featuring sign-waving crowds and four syllable chants.  Implicitly or explicitly, it is inferred that there is a common denominator of people versus government, albeit with an acutely diverse application of violence, on the streets of Benghazi, Bahrain, Morocco, Yemen, Cairo and Madison, Wisconsin.

It is most easy to parse our deficit-ridden states from the siroccos sweeping across North Africa, and a radically different thesis is in order.  For one thing, the streets of Wisconsin, Ohio, New Jersey, etc. are clamoring for the status quo with the financially strapped governors pushing a new paradigm.  More on that later.

Francis Fukuyama, in his 1992 book The End of History and the Last Man, posited that the end of the Cold War might well usher in the end point of humanity's socio-cultural evolution and the final form of human government, Western liberal democracy.  Besides the misinterpretation that Fukuyama was suggesting the end of historical “events” (he wasn’t), many rose to remind him that ethnic loyalties and religious fundamentalism remained a mighty counter-force to the spread of liberal democracy.

It’s possible that Fukuyama jumped the gun by a few decades and what we are witnessing really is the inextricable lava flow of entropy over polarization.  That, I fear, may be vastly premature as well.  It may not even be desirable.

I haven’t traversed the North African scene in almost 40 years.  I did spend nearly 2 years circumnavigating the Mediterranean: North Africa (Casablanca, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Benghazi & Alexandra) outbound and Turkey, Greece, Italy and Spain on the return leg.   In my naïveté, I don’t remember a single political thought about those places.  The narrow, bustling streets and markets were exotic.  The Call to Prayer a soundtrack, reminding me just how diverse a world existed outside my suburban upbringing, was not the least bit threatening—soothing actually.

Well, one near threatening moment.  I was in Tripoli the weekend Maummar Qaddafi took over Libya in September 1969.  Unaware of the imposed curfew, my compadre and I dashed back to the port area amidst the staccato of gunfire in the distance.  We scampered up the gangway of the first ship inside the port gate—a Russian freighter.  We spent the wee hours conversing with our seafaring brethren; the vodka flowed freely and the chess matches a series of humiliating defeats.  At dawn we returned to our ship unimpeded.  Forgive the reverie, but this week brought those memories back in sharp focus (it was a Russian sailor who pointed out to me that the young Colonel Qaddafi bore a striking resemblance to Johnny Mathis!).

So what to make of the February 2011 revolutions?  Certainly a theme is being played out throughout the region, but it has many variations in my view.  The Moroccan King is personally popular while his Constitutional Monarchy may come up short on the constitutional side.  Libya is extremely problematic, ditto Yemen and Iran.  There is hope for Tunisia and everybody is waiting to see if the other shoe drops in Saudi Arabia.  And there’s Egypt.

The Egyptian establishment has basically operated on the same model since the overthrow of Faruk in 1952. Nasser, Sadat, Mubarak all convinced themselves that this “modern,” “secular” oligarchal model was the next step from the colonial feudalism that preceded it. I am not surprised that the octogenarian Hosni could not contemplate a different paradigm (love that word). My guess is he was told by the existing establishment, and expected to give, a different speech than the one he gave, went rogue, and was ushered onto the Book Tour.

Mubarak’s supporters in the West (and the remaining oligarchies in the Mid East) in their (understandable IMO) desire for stability over chaos seem not to be able to distinguish between “equilibrium” and “stability,” two very different concepts.

A 2x4 is in equilibrium standing on edge or laying flat. Tipped far enough, it will proceed away from its original equilibrium position to (in this example) the other—a bi-stable analogy. Since it must be tipped further to go from flat to upright than vice versa, the flat orientation is more stable, but both are equilibrium states. In equilibrium until a few weeks ago, Egypt was far from stable.

In transition now, equilibrium will eventually be achieved, by military rule, by a more transparent oligarchy mitigated by increased parliamentary (public) authority, or even an Islamic theocracy. Just how benign or stable the next equilibrium state will be is anybody’s guess. It’s not obvious to me.

And one must note how Ghandian the protests in Tahrir Square were—deliberately so as revealed by Wael Ghonim, one of the more visible protest leaders.  Not just in its passivity either, the populace also maintained the disciplined regimen to refuse negotiation or to buy into nebulous offers of reform.   They insisted on capitulation and kept their “Eyes on the Prize.”

Which brings us back to Madison, Wisconsin where negotiation and offers of mitigation are at the heart of the demonstrators’ demands.  Kind of upside down isn’t it?  Of course if a posse of Tea Partiers ride into the crowds on camels, all bets are off and my observations moot.

 

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