What’s going in the Middle East is big. The Middle East itself is big, spanning three continents, 7,008,264 km2 and is home to 376,000,000 people. The Middle East is probably the most complicated region of the world too. It’s also very awkward for Britain. We’ve got history in the region. In the past Britain (and other colonial powers) did unspeakable things during the eras of overt Western pillage; now we merely prop up and install dictators who continue to do unspeakable things that are rather convenient to Western powers.
It’s very easy to lump all of the Middle East revolutions into the basket of ‘things going on’; but every revolution – every citizen revolting – has their own story which is different to the next revolution, and the citizen next door. That said, unless we simplify the situation somewhat then we might not have any chance of understanding.
Broadly speaking, there are five reasons why governments get overthrown. The first reason is ‘bread and circuses’. A Roman satirist, Juvenal once wrote that to prevent revolution, dictators need only bread (food) and circuses (something to keep the masses busy). This isn’t always true, but often it is. In some of the countries – Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen and Oman to name a few – this is what’s going on. The people are sick to death of their corrupt and inefficient governments, and thanks to rises in global food prices, it has hit boiling point. The key point is that, by and large, the people just want an efficient government – they’d probably prefer a democracy – but if a dictator can get them jobs, and thus fed and housed, then they’ll settle for that as the next best alternative.
It’s a different dynamic that overthrew the governments of Egypt and Tunisia. On the streets of Cairo protesters cried ‘illegitimate’. The Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions had, as a far greater proportion of their membership, unemployed university graduates. With more middle class citizens than jobs, with more people seeking middle class lifestyles than resources available to provide, and a complete lack of liberal democracy, there’s just two viable outcomes: revolution or bloody rebellion.
Bordering Tunisia and Egypt is Libya, which demonstrates the third and fourth ways that a government might fall. Dictators rarely rule alone, more often they rule as an oligarchy: a collective band of authoritarian leaders. Libya is just like that. As a moderately tribal country, Gadaffi has relied on the support of regional leaders for all of his reign.
However, he is corrupt and inefficient, and many in the east (and some in the west) of the country want him out. Hence we see something more like a civil war dynamic; it’s not clear that the Revolutionary Council, who are directing the revolution are really pro-democracy, or if they’ll just say anything to get Gadaffi out and them in. Of course, nothing is ever quite a simple as that; there is also a significant grassroots element to the Libyan rebel army, so ultimately it’s not entirely clear if the Revolutionary Council can call the shots.
The rebels in Libya have not been alone. Outside powers topple governments, and it may well be that Gadaffi falls as a result of a combination of extra- and intra-Libyan factors. What’s interesting about the external actors is how selective they are. For example, ‘friendly’ countries that sell a lot of shiny black liquids to America are a lot less likely to find shiny black bombs falling on them from American planes. Take Bahrain; stable exports of 37,000,000 litres of oil per day buys you a lot of silence from Western leaders when it comes to shooting peaceful protesters with sniper rifles.
The final reason that dictators fall from power is because they rule ‘unfairly’. It seems perverse to rank rulers who shoot on how ‘fairly’ they rule. Most dictators will direct resources towards their own family, religious group, ethnic group, or a clique of close advisers. Those who do so too much can put themselves in the firing line. In Bahrain, the Sunni King rules over a largely Shi’ite population, but under the royal family’s rule, Sunnis have tended to get a majority of the top jobs and high pay packets.
Martin Luther King said that the arc of history bends towards justice. Fewer people live in less democratic regimes than their great-grandparents did a century ago. Dictatorships fall more rapidly than they rise. However, the arc of history does not bend towards justice because of some form of liberal democratic gravity. It bends towards justice because people make it do so. If we are to pressure our government into assisting the arc of history in its ineluctable curve, we must first understand why people are risking their lives to fight against their governments.
David Bender
Photo by: Alaa Isam
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