Between the lines

Arabellion is Sham-Revolution
Sankar Ray

Arabellion whose seeds were sown somewhat accidentally with the self-immolation of the Tunisian fruit vendor Mohamed Bouazizi on 17 December 2010 is another variant of phenomenon of counter-revolution or an ostentatious revolution. Austrian historian and journalist Hannes Hofbauer states bluntly that there is no semblance of revolution though region as a whole "is in the midst of a territorial and economic process of transformation. And with the help of a golf-monarchical detour, the Western states are dynamising the situation, to their advantage." True, Arabellion is mainly an urban sprawl. Yet it acts as a covert spanner abotaging the libertarian possibilities. If one looks at the upsurge in Tunis, Cairo, and Tripoli, it becomes quite obvious that, "more or less secularly oriented autocrats were removed to pull the 'Islamic card' as a 'political reserve', Hofbauer points out. Small wonder, the principal instigator is the US hegemony which finds secularism uncomfortable because of the latter’s umbilical link with the libertarian strain within the ambit of democracy. Remember Uncle Sam's unabashed use of "Islamic card" in Afghanistan in 1979 six months before Soviet troops had marched into the landlocked country of ethnic strife-contrary to the tendentious impression that the Talibans sneaked into the landlocked and ethnic clash-torn state in retaliation against Soviet armed intrusion. The CIA planned the infiltration of Talibans ahead with the help of military-bureaucratic ruling coterie of Pakistan and the blueprint was drawn under orders from the then US President Jimmy Carter in consultation with his national security adviser Zbignew Brezezinsky who disclosed this in an interview to the French Weekly Nouvel Observateur. No doubt, the Austrian historian rightly asserts, "various political wings of the Muslim Brotherhood represent the most effective mass expression of this Islamic card".

Undeniably, the European critical perception of the 'Arabellion' is deeply erroneous, with at least two attendant shortcomings : "the belittling of the external factor and the underestimation of a lacking social-economic programmatic of the uprising forces". Neo-liberal biggies in the EU have still some wild aspirations that they would become 'profiteers of the situation'. They now pay for the myopia and their failure to envision that 'the Muslim Brotherhood with all its nuances and internal strife leads the project of transformation.' Among the misled were sections of the Left and Western-bourgeois forces who looked up to the uprisings. The profiteers are ultra-conservative groups "which can put off the masses by means of godly ideology to a better afterlife".

"Arabellion" is hyphenated from even the semblance of socio-economic programme, Bashar al-Assad recently stated at the Damascus Opera that the revolution failed due to absence of an idea for transformation of society and polity. Cashing in on this hollowness, the international right reactionary nexus engaged some NGOs such as National Endowment for Democracy, National Democratic Institute, International Republican Institute, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Westminster Foundation. Those NGOs, Hofbauer warns, are "a veritable industry of civil society interventionists", travelling from hotspot to hotspot with formidable cash. They "identify local discontentment, organize seminars and recruit opinion leaders, who are sympathetic towards US-and EU-restructuring plans. Their common goal is named regime change. Where civic warriors do not fulfil the task to bring forward liberal democracy as a guarantee for economic liberalism sufficiently, the means of civilian interventions are complemented militarily. This happened (and still happens) against the only two secular regimes with socialist remnants, Libya and Syria. It shows quite openly the political direction of the external interventions, when military forces are used in the cases of Libya and Syria and not even considered in the cases of Saudi Arabia or Yemen.

Nevertheless, all hopes are not lost as the hiatus between the hegemonistic US and pluralistic EU—albeit within the Neo-liberal groove—is unlikely to lessen as the crisis continues and more job losses are predicted by the ILO. The objective reality is favourable for the genuine libertarians. Oxfam chief executive Barbara Stocking, releasing the report The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt Us All just before the World Economic Forum in Davos, stated bluntly that the huge fortunes amassed by the world's top 100 billionnaires and growth of inequality go hand in hand. Their income in 2012, estimated at $240 billion is enough to eradicate the world's extreme poverty over four times. Extreme wealth, according to the charity chief is "economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive and environmentally destructive". Given this grim reality, the objective situation is for a substantive revolutionary transformation. Karl Marx's essay Criticism of the Hegelian Philosophy of Right (1844) is very relevant for those who believe that revolutionary transformation heads towards economic and social emancipation. "Revolutions in fact require a passive element, a material foundation." Marx wrote and prescribed that even for a bourgeois revolution, "it is necessary for a class to stand out as a class representing the whole of society". Revolutions change social and economic circumstances in contrast to Arabellion that seeks replacement or reform of some political elements keeping emancipatory projects at bay.

Frontier
Vol. 45, No. 49, June 16 -22, 2013

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