“The tree of liberty,” goes the Thomas Jefferson maxim, “must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” The quote has become a favorite of Tea Party supporters, cited at rallies of pistol-packing partisans.
The idea that an armed citizenry is the best assurance of freedom is deeply embedded in American thought, starting with the Second Amendment and those maddeningly imprecise words: “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
But this philosophy hasn’t been a good export. The Egyptian revolution is only the latest example of how people can bring down tyrants without firing a shot. A century of successful nonviolent mass movements, in fact, makes the case that America’s bloody insurrection against British rule was the anomaly, and perhaps not worthy of emulation.
Consider the uprisings thus far in a year that could end as a historic triumph for humane change, or might still spin off into new variants of police-state suppression. Tunisia, a small country, had its Jasmine Revolution. Though it was inspired by the self-immolation of a long-suffering merchant, the Tunisian rebellion succeeded because of new-century social networking and old-century demonstrations. Armed with information – in this case, leaks about corruption of the ruling party – people took to the streets en masse, with very little bloodletting.
Consider the uprisings thus far in a year that could end as a historic triumph for humane change, or might still spin off into new variants of police-state suppression. Tunisia, a small country, had its Jasmine Revolution. Though it was inspired by the self-immolation of a long-suffering merchant, the Tunisian rebellion succeeded because of new-century social networking and old-century demonstrations. Armed with information – in this case, leaks about corruption of the ruling party – people took to the streets en masse, with very little bloodletting.
Egypt, with its 80 million people, is the bigger miracle. Their 18 days that shook the world seemed to happen in some kind of medieval time warp. On the worst days, camels, swords, sticks and stones were used in skirmishes in Tahrir Square. But in the end, it was a sea of peaceful humanity that washed away Hosni Mubarak.
Of course, the big gun in the square was the Egyptian army, and had they turned their barrels on unarmed citizens, the country might well be in a civil war or state of chaos. But suppose the protestors had been armed, as residents of any American city might be? Would the army’s response have been the same?
The first successful Egyptian revolution was not without violence, but a series of strikes and nonviolent demonstrations against British occupation ultimately led to independence in 1922.
The 20th century is full of similar lessons from cooler heads. The best-known is Mohandas Gandhi’s epic crusade for India against a British occupier, a campaign by the world’s second most-populous nation for the right to rule themselves. (Are the Brits always on the wrong side of history?)
In India, there were massacres by colonial forces, and bloodshed from infighting, but eventually a free and independent nation was born, and the world was given a grand counter-narrative to violent revolution.
Gandhi inspired Martin Luther King Jr., in the American South. And both of them inspired Nelson Mandela in South Africa, and modern European revolts. The Czechs threw off a Soviet puppet with the peaceful Velvet Revolution of 1989. The Berlin Wall came down about the same time. Before then, it had been an article of faith among the right that no communist regime would ever peacefully cede power to democratic forces.
More recently, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and the Rose Revolution in Georgia showed how governments could change hands without putting a bullet to the head of a despot (see Romania, 1989).
Now look at the bloody revolutions. In France, what started with powerful Enlightenment ideas and storming of the hated Bastille broke down with a Reign of Terror that is still startling more than two centuries later. The Russian revolution — throw off your army uniforms, peasants, and rise up against the Czar! — was carnage on a horrid scale, and led to a 20th century of misery under homicidal dictators.
Iran is another negative role model, a revolt launched by students in 1979 that hardened into a theocracy of long-bearded thugs who torture their own people because they dare to ask for basic human rights. Bahrain, this week, seems determined to show that troops and tear gas will trump Facebook any day.
Such is the ceaseless struggle — fear against hope, blunt force against universal ideas. Into this mix, the United States should consider what we promote. A fascinating footnote to the Arab revolutions is the story, reported by my colleague Sheryl Gay Stolberg, of the quiet Boston scholar, Gene Sharp, whose ideas of focused pacifism were adopted by young Egyptians and Tunisians.
And Hillary Clinton this week said the State Department would spend $25 million next year supporting Internet freedom around the world. It’s small change, and a bargain should anything come of it, compared to the nearly $1 trillion we spent on the alternative: a bloody attempt to impose democracy in Iraq.
As for that Thomas Jefferson quote, which was in a letter written from France during the early days of tumult, even great minds produce a few clunkers. Remember Timothy McVeigh, the homegrown terrorist whose bombing in Oklahoma City killed 168 fellow Americans? When he was arrested, McVeigh was wearing a T-shirt with the Jefferson’s line about the tree of liberty written on the back.
