Georgi Plekhanov regarded individuals as little weights marching to the end of a see-saw impelled by some Law of History. When enough of these ants got far enough along the moment arm, the see-saw would fall as ordained. He would no doubt have asked himself whether the Arab Spring would have happened, or taken a different course, without Mohammed Bouazizi.
Bouazizi, says Daniel Pipes, was a 26-year old fruit vendor in Tunisia who supported an extended family of 8 people by selling apples in the marketplace. Every day a couple of beat cops took apples from him on the arm. Finally day his uncle complained to a police chief about it, but that was only the beginning and not the end of his problems.
The police chief told off the beat cops and one of them, a policewoman, decided to teach the troublemaker a lesson. She calmly went to his fruit stall and started loading his fruit into her car. And she kept loading and loading. Then she took away his weighing scale. When the impoverished vendor pleaded with her to stop, she beat him with a baton and slapped him in the face. An Arab man being beaten by an Arab woman in a public place. Bouazizi went down to the town hall and looked in vain for someone with whom he could lodge a complaint.
No, he was told: Everyone is in meetings. Go home. Forget it. Rather than let the matter go, however, he went to his fellow vendors and announced his intent to protest the injustice and corruption by setting himself on fire. True to his word, he doused himself with an inflammable liquid at 11:30 a.m., applied a match, and burst into flames.
Bystanders eventually put out the fire. But it was too late. The vendor was burned over large parts of his body. It took him 18 days to die.
But by that time his story had touched a chord. Political movements took up his story, perhaps adding a little here and a little there, but doubtless conscious they were dealing with an anecdote that spoke to the man in the Arab Street. Five thousand people attended his funeral. In two weeks President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali had left the country. The Arab Spring had begun.
The common face of totalitarianism is not, as cinema often depicts, that of uber-Nazis marching in satanic rows, or of cultured madmen planning the extinction of millions with violin music softly seething in the background. Its quotidian face is one of petty, arbitrary, unappealable abuse. For the average man life under tyranny consists of being precisely zero in a society that can do anything — anything at all — to him.
And usually the average man simply tries to forget. There is family, home, the television. There is drink. But for Mohammed Bouazizi, watching his pitiful baskets of fruit and cheap weighing scale being carted away and slapped as he groveled in the dust, there was no escape from reality into illusion. At that moment he knew exactly what he was. Not a man, nor even the mockery of a man. He was nothing. When city hall told him, “everyone is in meetings. Go home. Forget it,” he knew exactly what they meant.
If the “shot heard round the world” was fired at Concord, the cry of pain which set the Middle East aflame was uttered in Tunisia. One of Plekhanov’s ants had reached the magic line on the moment arm, and the slow movement began. But what did Bouazizi assert so emphatically by his immolation? Was it the lack of a “decent livelihood” or lack of access to Facebook? Earlier this year, Eric O’Keefe described the response of Levi Preston, the last survivor of the Battle of Concord at a speech to a Tea Party crowd. Preston was 91 and asked at school talk in 1842 why he and his fellows had fought the British. The teacher, Mellen Chamberlain, received a surprising answer.
He did not speak, for example, of the “intolerable oppressions” of British rule that Chamberlain had heard so much about.
“Oppressions?” Preston said. “I didn’t feel them.”
“Well,” Chamberlain said, “were you not oppressed by the Stamp Act?”
“I never saw one of those stamps,” Preston said. “I never paid a penny for one of them.”
“Well, what about the tea tax?”
“Tea tax! I never drank a drop of the stuff. The boys threw it all overboard.”
“Then I suppose you had been reading Locke on the principles of liberty?”
“Never heard of ‘im,” Preston said. “We only read the Bible and the Almanac.”
“Well, then,” Chamberlain asked, “why did you fight?”
And here’s where Preston summed up the crisis of his time.
“Young man, what we meant in going for those redcoats was this: We always had governed ourselves, and we always meant to. Those people did not believe we should.”
Bouazizi on that final day wanted to become something that his society would not allow. The desire for self-possession is a very powerful impulse. Causes like low-cost housing, the dole or state-paid education can be less impelling than the desire not to be controlled, than the need not to be humiliated. People don’t like to be told what to do, especially if they already know how to order their affairs. As Levi Preston explained, he did not fight for a political theory or to gain tax advantages; he was at Concord to limit the power of a regime over himself. He stood at the bridge because he wanted, in his words, to govern himself.
In the days that followed Bouazizi’s death, a number of copycat events took place all over the Middle East.
Mohsen Bouterfif, a 37-year-old father of two, set himself on fire when the mayor of Boukhadra refused to meet with him and others regarding employment and housing requests on January 13, 2011. According to a report in El-Watan, the mayor challenged him, saying if he had courage he would immolate himself by fire as Bouazizi had done.
He died on January 24. Maamir Lotfi, a 36-year-old unemployed father of six who was denied a meeting with the governor, burned himself in front of the El Oued town hall on January 17. He died on February 12.
Abdelhafid Boudechicha, a 29-year-old day laborer who lived with his parents and five siblings, burned himself in Medjana on January 28 over employment and housing issues. He died the following day.
In Egypt, Abdou Abdel-Moneim Jaafar, a 49-year-old restaurant owner, set himself alight in front of the Egyptian Parliament. His act of protest contributed to the instigation of weeks of protest and, later, the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011. In Saudi Arabia, an unidentified 65-year-old man died on January 21, 2011, after setting himself on fire in the town of Samtah, Jizan. This was apparently the kingdom’s first known case of self-immolation.
Whether any of the subsequent unrest would have happened without the Tunisian fruit vendor’s dramatic action is an open question. Louis Menand argued that we all like to believe that our lives make a difference. Because if nothing we do really changes things then our freedom wouldn’t be real. We only have the freedom of ants; and our only honor that of being the first insect to cross the line.
“There is history the way Tolstoy imagined it, as a great, slow-moving weather system in which even tsars and generals are just leaves before the storm. And there is history the way Hollywood imagines it, as a single story line in which the right move by the tsar or the wrong move by the general changes everything. Most of us, deep down, are probably Hollywood people. We like to invent “what if” scenarios–what if x had never happened, what if y had happened instead?–because we like to believe that individual decisions make a difference: that, if not for x, or if only there had been y, history might have plunged forever down a completely different path. Since we are agents, we have an interest in the efficacy of agency.”
If the evidence of totalitarian behavior means anything, then tyrants as a whole act like individuals matter. They don’t believe in ants. They fear men. Their entire apparatus of control is designed entirely to suppress individuals, lest one act of solitary freedom touch off a blaze. Although it was Anatoly Rybakov, in his book, Children of Arbat, who attributed to Stalin words he never said: “death solves all problems — no man, no problem”, Stalin himself said something similar. He regretted that Ivan the Terrible showed any mercy to women or children.
One of Ivan the Terrible’s mistakes was to overlook the five great feudal families. If he had annihilated those five families, there would definitely have been no Time of Troubles. But Ivan the Terrible would execute someone and then spend a long time repenting and praying. God got in his way in this matter. He ought to have been still more decisive!
There in different words is the same message. “No man, no problem.” In Stalin’s universe the answer to all Mohammed Bouazizis would be to cause their death before they caused trouble. What a tribute by the Locomotive of History to one of Plekhanov’s ants. For one thing, ants never self-consciously stand at bridges or set fire to themselves.
“No Way In” print edition at Amazon
Tip Jar or Subscribe for $5
Causes like low-cost housing, the dole or state-paid education can be less impelling than the desire not to be controlled, than the need not to be humiliated.
For whom?
Entire nations sit under the boot for decades.
If (you are told) it’s The Joos who are humiliating you, then you don’t overthrow the Sheik.
So then, when do things break, what did ignite the Arab Spring?
Well, we have yet to confirm this is a spring and not a fall.
But to answer the question – there is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come. The old systems fail and it’s hard to see just why.
Or maybe we don’t want to know.
Marvelous quote from Levi Preston. Thank you Wretchard.
Did you notice the stark difference in how Preston and his fellows responded as opposed to Bouazizi and his imitators?
Preston fought; Bouazizi resorted to helpless self-immolation.
The tragedy of modern America is that too many will not act until they feel as helpless as the Tunisian. Our forebears did not wait for actual oppression, but preferred to head it off through preemptive action.
The comments by “elites” about former leaders not being ruthless enough with the enemies of the regime is an old story and can be found through out history. The history of China is rife with these kinds of statements. The problem becomes if you kill “enough” you end up with one man standing in a country sized grave yard. The left is much enamored with execution and re-education camps for the good of mankind.
Watch now how the leadership of China tries to deal with the problem of “corruption” when the problem extends all the way into the top party leadership. Kill the petty ones, execute some in the middle, but off some Red Prince, not unless you eradicate the whole family. Then how do the other “families” react? Peasant revolts can be put down, middle class revolts are the dangerous ones.
People shooting people in the Middle East barely makes a ripple in the news or gossip. The poor bastards who self immolated was something different and extreme for that culture.
Over at “Curmudgeonly and Skeptical” I saw a joke:
“The new KFC offering is the Obama Cabinet Bucket, all left wings and assholes.”
“CAIRO — A Tunisian court on Tuesday dismissed the case against a policewoman accused of slapping the Tunisian street vendor whose subsequent self-immolation set off a wave of revolts across Tunisia and the Arab world,…According to the Tunisian news agency, Mr. Bouazizi’s mother “withdrew her complaint, ” and Ms. Hamdi denied the charges. The court’s ruling comes at a time of uncertainty for Tunisia as the new government investigates accusations of corruption and the excessive use of force against protesters. Tunisia’s official news agency, TAP, reported.”
Courtesy of the NYT.
Lâm Văn Tức was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. Thích Quảng Đức was protesting against the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam’s Ngô Đình Diệm administration. Photos of his self-immolation were circulated widely across the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diệm regime. Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his iconic photo of the monk’s death, as did David Halberstam for his written account. After his death, his body was re-cremated, but his heart remained intact.This was interpreted as a symbol of compassion and led Buddhists to revere him as a bodhisattva, heightening the impact of his death on the public psyche. [Wiki]
…but other fires burn in the hearts of men. Those who play the zero sum game think it is high time that Western man lie down and sleep in the folds of eternity…and a moral government will see to it that retribution is paid in blood and treasure until they procreate no more.
Being a government worker or its’ president is the highest credential and those without credentials need not apply, for equity is without merit and merit is without social justice when the higher purpose of civil society is to punish past inequities and coddle its eternal victims of fate.
These stories give a glimpse into the desperation of living under an all powerful government, like our leftist or Soros stateists want to establish. However, these incidents were seized upon by Obama friends and US leftists already in the area. Hard at work, after the failed Flotilla, to establish the Obama Mid East Spring.
Will they be radical islamic states or some form of peaceful marxist/OSI/sharia? To see who actually fomented the revolutions check out http://www.kovasboguta.com. Huffpro and friends are right in the center. At least the media is finally gingerly saying these revolutions are Obama’s. Peaceful democratic or radical Sharia nations, we will see. Hopefully before Nov 2012.
The US Government loves to push people around who can’t push back as well.
The difference I see between here and the man in Tunisia was that there, the cop was taking everything. Here they are still taking just short of enough to make it worth fighting back. Bureaucracies and regulatory agencies are very good at it.
One wonders how much more has to be taken before we collectively hollar, “Enough!’ here?
The female cop was obviously selected by the local station house as the most humiliating treatment they could come up with. Unmentioned are her fellow officers backing her up – but within the field of view.
Since her normal duties are restricted to policing women, Bouazizi was being ritually castrated, too.
Obviously, it was a station house wide move to put him out of business.
The Tunisian cops were practicing tax-farming in the literalist sense possible.
It’s interesting how the earliest versions portrayed Bouazizi as an licensed street vendor — not as a policing fleecing victim.
Again, the power of the narrative. An aggrieved man was cast as just a bum-loser: move on, move on….
OT but these days I look at the Tunisian cops and the Wisconsin cops and truly struggle to see much of a difference. And that sickens me. Unionized cops in this country will suffer ill effects from the recent Madison events for a decade or more, IMO.
the fire starters could have been al queda.
suicide is sop.
Jerry…
EVERYTHING about these events shows AQ to be behind the curve — wondering what happened.
They’re late on messaging, etc.
It’s a tough case to make.
Madison police
are oft maligned as leftists.
No one burned themselves.
emrys @ 12: Yet.
49D – “…these days I look at the Tunisian cops and the Wisconsin cops and truly struggle to see much of a difference.”
The difference is the Tunisian cops know they are putting it over on the common man. In Wisconsin, the cops are still seething with self indignation and we have not heard near the least of their perfidy. Unions are deep dens of hatred… they have to be, there is no other way to be immoral and insane without a Fuhrer to whip up the self-serving, undeserving, outrage.
The arts of tyranny were not well-practiced by the British. And the imbalance of power between the state and the citizen was not as wide in those olden days.
The modern man under tyranny has nowhere to run, nowhere to fight. He could find an AK-47, but in the absence of formal training and backed by heavy weaponry, he is merely about to become a statistic in the casualty lists. Didn’t we see that in Libya? Faith and determination are no match against well trained soldiers backed by organized state power.
It is somewhat to Ben Ali and Mubarak’s credit that they recognised that the costs of holding onto power are just not worth the price to their souls. The Duck of Death, alas, considered differently.
It is the essence of despotism that it can never afford to fail, and trips into greater danger when relenting.
12.emrys:Madison police are oft maligned as leftists. No one burned themselves.
Not knowingly; By supporting the progressives they are setting themselves up. Those same people are championing the appeal and release of a cop killer. They have no respect for the law and those who uphold it. Suicide through ignorance is still suicide.
Anybody know what happened to the woman cop?
Yes, the US government also likes to take away. And here they are better at defending themselves in terms of “safety” and “caring for children”
The problem with totalitarianism is that since it stamps out individuality and creativity the godlike leader becomes the Master of decline and poverty, and his servants do even worse. What Smith couldn’t get from O’Brien was what did the power for its own sake get in the end? More than others to be sure but more of less and in the end less than what even the ones with power started with. Satan in Paradise Lost proclaims it is better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. What was in it for his followers? They end up serving in hell. Even Satan couldn’t argue with a straight face that it is better to serve in hell than in heaven.