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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: revolution, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 26 - 40 of 40
26. In your face in Cairo

By Brian K. Barber

I had learned from Kholoud that Aly would be in Cairo this week. So, as soon as I arrived on Monday night I called while walking through Tahrir Square. He picked up but the reception wasn’t good. He said he was also in the Square, that he was headed to drop off his bags, and would call later. I didn’t hear back from him.

Several calls and SMSs went unanswered. I figured that he was simply busy and that we would eventually meet this week for the next in our series of interviews that we’ve held since I first met him in early March this year.

Aly, tall and burly with a handsome face, has shared passionately in these interviews his commitment to the revolution. He, along with Kholoud and so many others in Alexandria were direct participants in the events of January 25th and beyond. (The coverage of Alexandria’s role in the revolution has been pitifully inadequate). When I first met him, Aly had just been injured in his hand and shoulder in a battle with security forces as they attempted to destroy incriminating documents.

Over the months, he, like all other activists, expressed increasing disappointment with the lack of substantive change. Aly’s narrative was unique among those I’ve talked intensively with, however, in his growing conviction that real change would require an escalation in violence on the part of the protesters. In July, he labored heavily with his own growing awareness that the regime’s corruption extended far beyond its recently deposed leader. But, rather, the violence, exploitation, and abuses of power are endemic throughout all sectors of society. He articulated that one grave implication of that for him might be that he would end up having to fight those he knows and is close to, perhaps even his family members.

Just a few weeks ago he wrote in an email, “The situation is getting more complicated and I am not optimistic at all with the coming elections. . . I am wondering . . . how could we break this system, what else is needed? I am believing that we need more violence against these structures and those leading it.”

Then, two days ago here in Cairo, in classic revolutionary form he posted on Facebook: “It is by all means the time of revolution, emancipation(s), and …love. SO For God Sake Revolt or die in Shame. It is the correction of the Egyptian Revolution Path; from War/revolution to politics and Again in the correct road from politics of the coward elites to the WAR/REVOLUTION of brave young generation who fights in the first lines, behind the enemy lines and in front and against the heavy machines of war and suppression. They shoot by their heavy equipment and we shoot by faith, believe and anger. Tomorrow we will not die, tomorrow we will be emancipation from who we had been, a new life is going to born from the heart and mud of the battle field of our revolution.

I had an immediate sense that Aly would be acting out this admonition himself, and even wrote to a colleague that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that he would soon be a casualty of this newly reenergized revolution.

Last night at about 10pm I thought to try one more time to reach him. A voice picked up and identified himself as Aly’s friend. I could hear Aly in the background overruling his friend’s decision to turn me away and he took the phone. He was excited to talk, as was I to hear his voice. It wasn’t a surprise, but no less difficult, to hear from him that he lay in the hospital with bullet wounds to his head and body. He said that he “would love so much” a visit and, getting directions from Ayman, I hastened to

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27. Erdogan’s victory lap: Turkish domestic politics after the uprisings

By Steven A. Cook As Cairo's citizens drove along the Autostrad [last] week, they were greeted with four enormous billboards featuring pictures of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. With Turkish and Egyptian flags, the signs bore the message, "With United Hands for the Future." Erdogan's visit marks a bold development in Turkey's leadership in the region. The hero's welcome he received at the airport reinforced the popular perception: Turkey is a positive force, uniquely positioned to guide the Middle East's ongoing transformation.

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28. The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver: Review

 It was inevitable that a novel featuring my three favourite historic figures (Diego Riveira, Frida Kahlo and Leon Trotsky) should find its way into my supermarket basket. How glad I am that it did!


The Lacuna is a well-researched and beautifully written epic novel that captured my imagination and held my attention from its early pages. It combines modern and ancient Mexican history with modern US history and an anti-war message. It tells the life of Harrison Shepherd, an American boy growing up in Mexico, and later of his career and exile in the USA. His story is interwoven with that of famous artists Riveira and Kahlo, and the Bolshevik leader, Trotsky.


Chancing to meet Frida Kahlo in the market place one day, he offers to carry her basket, and not discouraged by her rather scornful reply, he follows her home – the start of a complicated life-long friendship and his first job in the Riveira/Kahlo home.


Shepherd makes himself indispensible as a mixer of the best plaster, a fine cook and a secretary. When the household takes in exiled Russian leader, Leon Trotsky, Shepherd becomes his main scribe and translator. His diaries give colourful descriptions of the vibrant personalities he lived amongst and of a life under constant threat of attack.

After Shepherd’s death, he makes his way to small-town American and establishes a new life as an author. He leads a reclusive life and tries as much as possible to be unnoticed, but his novels are overnight successes and draw a lot of attention from women (in which Shepherd) is not remotely interested) and from the media.

As McCarthy’s witch-hunt against Communism draws momentum, Shepherd comes under suspicion by his former association with Riveira, Kahlo and Trotsky and is drawn into an ugly legal battle.

Will he clear his name? You will just have to read this fascinating and entertaining story to find out.  Highly recommended.



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29. My Bookshelf: Revolution

For your reading pleasure, I present Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly.

Revolution

Revolution is an phenomenal story. I don’t use the word “phenomenal” often but, in this case, no other word would do. There are many things that make Revolution worthy of such praise: Andi, the protagonist; Paris, the setting; Virgil, the musician; just to name a few. However, I’m going to discuss Andi’s relationship with music.

On a technical level, I don’t know much about music having never learned to play an instrument. But, the thing is, Andi made me want to learn. She speaks of music with such immense passion and understanding that I wanted to feel and hear what she does.

Andi gives music dimension, history and life. Her passion for it is so great, that you, the reader, find yourself as captivated by it as she is. Beethoven and Radiohead are no longer simply names of famous musicians but geniuses of their craft.

Few novels can accomplish such a feat, and Revolution is one of them.


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30. The View from Cairo: Dispatch 3

When the demonstrations began in Cairo, communication with the staff at our newest distribution partner, American University in Cairo Press was immediately disrupted. AUCP editorial director Neil Hewison has been sending dispatches to update us on events and the state of the Press itself – which is situated close to Tahrir Square.  We continue to wish our colleagues in Cairo well, and hope to continue receiving periodic updates. You can read Neil’s previous accounts here and here.

Photo by Lesley Lababidi

The mood of celebration in Egypt after the resignation of the president is uncontainable. Egyptians know there are unanswered questions and uncertain times ahead, and the country’s woes have not been wiped out overnight, but they have achieved something that a few weeks ago was unthinkable, and they are proud not just of that achievement but of the way they did it: The 25 January Revolution, as it is being called here (from the date of the first protests), has been an incredibly impressive peaceful mass movement (sometimes confronted with sickening violence) of young and old, men and women, rich and poor, whole families, all out there day after day in Tahrir, a name now as familiar to the world as Tianenmen (though with happier connotations). The indomitable spirit of the people, cowed for thirty years by a coarse and brutal dictatorship, was humbling. The scenes of the protesters cleaning the square before leaving—sweeping up, clearing garbage, repainting fences and curbstones, washing graffiti off tanks and walls—were the sign of not just a new-found voice but a new-found pride and determination to clean up the country both literally and metaphorically.

One of our authors, Lesley Lababidi, posted this great collection of photographs on Picasa, which give a good idea of the message and the spirit.

And how’s this for a great song of the revolution? (Click on the cc button for English subtitles.)

Click here to view the embedded video.

In the meantime, we’re putting our vandalized offices that overlook Tahrir Square to rights and are very happy to be back at work since Wednesday, with great plans for a whole range of new books on the new Egypt that aim to reflect and catch up with the spirit of this extraordinarily intelligent, creative, pacifist, determined, patient, total people’s Revolution.

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31. #twitterrevolution reforming Egypt in 140 characters?

By Dennis Baron


Western observers have been celebrating the role of Twitter, Facebook, smartphones, and the internet in general in facilitating the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in Egypt last week. An Egyptian Google employee, imprisoned for rallying the opposition on Facebook, even became for a time a hero of the insurgency. The Twitter Revolution was similarly credited with fostering the earlier ousting of Tunisia’s Ben Ali, and supporting Iran’s green protests last year, and it’s been instrumental in other outbreaks of resistance in a variety of totalitarian states across the globe. If only Twitter had been around for Tiananmen Square, enthusiasts retweeted one another. Not bad for a site that started as a way to tell your friends what you had for breakfast.

But skeptics point out that the crowds in Cairo’s Tahrir Square continued to grow during the five days that the Mubarak government shut down the internet; that only nineteen percent of Tunisians have online access; that while the Iran protests may have been tweeted round the world, there were few Twitter users actually in-country; and that although Americans can’t seem to survive without the constant stimulus of digital multitasking, much of the rest of the world barely notices when the cable is down, being preoccupied instead with raising literacy rates, fighting famine and disease, and finding clean water, not to mention a source of electricity that works for more than an hour every day or two.

It’s true that the internet connects people, and it’s become an unbeatable source of information—the Egyptian revolution was up on Wikipedia faster than you could say Wolf Blitzer. The telephone also connected and informed faster than anything before it, and before the telephone the printing press was the agent of rapid-fire change. All these technologies can foment revolution, but they can also be used to suppress dissent.

You don’t have to master the laws of physics to observe that for every revolutionary manifesto there’s an equal and opposite volley of government propaganda. For every eye-opening book there’s an index librorum prohibitorum—an official do-not-read list—or worse yet, a bonfire. For every phone tree organizing a protest rally there’s a warrantless wiretap waiting to throw the rally-goers in jail. And for every revolutionary internet site there’s a firewall, or in the case of Egypt, a switch that shuts it all down. Cuba is a country well-known for blocking digital access, but responding to events in Egypt and the small but scary collection of island bloggers, El Lider’s government is sponsoring a dot gov rebuttal, a cadre of official counterbloggers spreading the party line to the still small number of Cubans able to get online—about ten percent can access the official government-controlled ’net—or get a cell phone signal in their ’55 Chevys.

All new means of communication bring with them an irrepressible excitement as they expand literacy and open up new knowledge, but in certain quarters they also spark fear and distrust. At the very least, civil and religious authorities start insisting on an imprimatur—literally, a permission to print—to license communication and censor content, channeling it al

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32. How Publius Might Counsel Egypt

By Elvin Lim


As the situation continues to unfold in Egypt, and as the White House continues to walk a fine line between support for democracy and support for a new regime which may not be as pro-American as Hosni Mubarak’s was, Publius, the author of the Federalist Papers may lend us some wisdom.

It may surprise some people, but Publius was no fan of democracy. “Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention,” Publius wrote in Number 10. The mob cannot rule, though the mob may delegate power to those who can. And that was the genius of 1787 – a full decade after the American revolution, it bears repeating. Revolutions are negative acts where old worlds are shattered; founding, on the other hand, is a positive act, where a new world is created. Egypt has had her fair share of revolutions, and it is high time for a founding that will make a future revolution unnecessary.

But who should the supporters at Tahrir Square anoint to be the leader of a new Egypt? Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm, Publius warned us. The irony of this weekend’s hagiographic celebration of Ronald Reagan’s 100th birthday is that the Framers of the US Constitution had hoped to create a system so that we did not have to wait for virtuous men any more, as the history of a capricious world had only done before. Egypt will become a republic when she no longer awaits a Nasser or a Sadat or a Mubarak. Even ElBaradei should not be mistaken for a messiah.

How would Publius have handled the Muslim Brotherhood? Certainly not by banning it, as Hosni Mubarak did. Instead, Publius would have proposed that Egypt bring as many political and religious groups as possible to the negotiating table, and let ambition counteract ambition. “A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy,” Publius wrote, “but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source.” If the Muslim Brotherhood supports suppression, then the solution to it is not more suppression, but to engulf it with groups who support liberty.

Finally, Publius’ greatest innovation arguably laid in the fact that he proposed an entirely new constitution, not a mere amendment to the Articles of Confederation, as was the charge of the Continental Congress in 1787. Vice-president Omar Suleiman is apparently now overseeing a committee to oversee amendments to the Constitution, focusing in particular on provisions that would allow the Opposition to run for the Egyptian presidency. This is not a good idea because the Egyptian constitution needs more than piecemeal change. In particular, even the Opposition has been co-opted into believing that Egypt’s problems could be solved by having the right person assume control of the presidency. But the problem lies not just in the manner by which the president is selected, but in the size of the office. Publius stated it well in Number 51, “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place

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33. The View from Cairo

When the demonstrations began in Cairo last week, communication with the staff at our newest distribution partner, American University in Cairo Press was immediately disrupted. As most of our readers know, the Egyptian government suspended internet and cell phone service in Cairo, and the only way the AUCP representative in New York could contact the home office was via a spotty land line connection. Fortunately, we’ve since learned that all AUCP staff are safe and sound, and communication has improved somewhat in recent days. But as you’ll see from AUCP editorial director Neil Hewison’s harrowing account below, the Press itself – which is situated close to Tahrir Square – was directly affected by the unrest. We continue to wish our colleagues in Cairo well, and hope to have periodic updates from Neil in the days ahead.

We are all fine. Many dramatic events over the last few days. Particularly disturbing was the battle for the Interior Ministry just up the road from my house, which went on for eight hours on Saturday: we heard and watched the police firing tear gas and live fire (including automatic weapons) and the protesters ducking into back alleys to make and throw Molotov cocktails. Also very disturbing the violent clashes that are happening right now on Tahrir Square, while the army stand and watch.

Feb. 2 - A crowd of 2 million at Tahrir Square (Credit: Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

I’ve been out each morning since Sunday, seen the destruction, the tanks on the streets, the neighborhood watch groups armed with sticks and knives, the civilians directing traffic rather more efficiently than the police ever did, and the protesters in Tahrir Square of all social hues, well organized, with their own food, drink, garbage, and security services in place, and with some very imaginative, witty placards: “Just go! My arms ache!” – held up by a 10-year old boy, “Talk to him in Hebrew, he might understand.” One man cradled a cat that carried its own mini-placard in English: “No Mubarak.” Another man sported a banner with the crescent and the cross and the simple statement “I am Egyptian.” They renamed the square Martyrs’ Square and painted the name in giant letters on the tarmac for the constantly circling helicopter to see. They set up a display of placards discarded as people went home at night, all set out on the pavement under the sign “Revolution Museum.”

via @muslimerican

Our AUC Press offices were trashed on Friday. The police had broken into the AUC to use the roof of our wing to fire on protesters at the junction of Sheikh Rihan and Qasr al-Aini (we found empty CS canisters and shotgun cartridges up there). And persons unknown ransacked our rooms. Drawers and files emptied, windows broken, cupboards and computers smashed. But it could have been much worse. Meanwhile, the violence may get worse before it gets better.

I’m well stocked with food and water, and there’s a good gang of neighborhood lads downstairs with makeshift weapons to keep our b

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34. The Red Umbrella by Christina Diaz Gonzalez






Cuba was an island playground for Lucia and her little brother Frankie, after school was disbanded by the new leader, Fidel Castro, until their parents insisted that they always stay at home. The revolution had begun with bloody evidence in plain view in the city squares. Her father lost his banking job. Valuables from their home were taken by the revolutionary soldier. Lucia’s parents pay to have her and Frankie flown to Miami, as part of Operation Pedro Pan in which parents sent around 14,000 of their children to Camelot (the term for the presidency of John F. Kennedy). For a while they are in an orphanage. But fortune shined on them as the director remembered a kindness that their father had done for his family. He knew of a home in Nebraska where the two of them could be together. They find themselves in the home of chatty Mrs. Baxter and not-so-chatty Mr. Baxter who introduce them to farm chores, hand-me-down repaired clothes, thrift and American Christmas. Lucia attends high school and experiences its cliques and first "like." Frankie is crazy about baseball and his new friends. Will he forget Spanish and his parents? Why are telephone calls so hard to complete and so expensive to Cuba? Will she ever see her parents, best friend or Cuba again?


ENDERS' Rating: *****

Christina's Website with Playlist

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35. Sliced Bread 2.0

Dennis Baron is Professor of English and Linguistics at the better pencilUniversity of Illinois. His book, A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution, looks at the evolution of communication technology, from pencils to pixels. In this post, also posted on Baron’s personal blog The Web of Language, he looks at the success of the internet.

You’ve heard the Luddite gripes about the digital age: computers dehumanize us; text messages are destroying the language; Facebook replaces real friends with imaginary ones; instant messages and blogs give people a voice who have nothing to say. But now a new set of complaints is emerging, this time from computer scientists, internet pioneers who once promised that the digital revolution was the best thing since sliced bread, no, that it was even better, Sliced Bread 2.0.

It started in the mid-1990s with Clifford Stoll. You may remember Stoll as the Berkeley programmer who tracked down a ring of eastern European hackers who were breaking into secure military computers, and wrote up the adventure in the 1990 best-seller, The Cuckoo’s Egg. But a mere five years later Stoll published Silicon Snake Oil, a condemnation of the internet as oversold and underperforming. In a 1995 Newsweek op-ed, Stoll summed up the internet’s failed promise of happy telecommuters, online libraries, media-rich classrooms, virtual communities, and democratic governments in one word: “Baloney.”

More nuanced is the critique of Jaron Lanier, the programmer who brought us virtual reality, but who now labels life online “digital maoism.” In a recent interview in the Guardian, Lanier charged that after thirty years the great promise of a free and open internet has brought us not burgeoning communities of online musicians, artists, and writers, but “mediocre mush”; a pack mentality; recreations of things that were better done with older technologies; an occasional Unix upgrade; and an online encyclopedia. His conclusion: it’s all “pretty boring.”

And although internet guru Jonathan Zittrain praises the first personal computers and the early days of the internet for promoting unlimited creativity and exploration, he warns that the generative systems which enabled users to create new ways of being and communicating are giving way to tethered devices like smart phones, Kindles, Tivos, and iPads, all of which channel our communications and program our entertainment along safe and familiar paths and prohibit inventive tinkering. Zittrain reminds us that the PC was a blank slate, a true tabula rasa that let imaginative, technically-accomplished users repurpose it over and over again, but he fears that the internet appliance of the future will be little more than a hi-tech toaster programmed to let us do only what the marketing departments at Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon want us to do.

It’s easy to ignore the Luddites. The internet isn’t destroying English (you’re reading this online, right?) or replacing face-to-face human interaction (Facebook or no Facebook, babies continue to be born). Plus, we’re all using computers and the ‘net, so how bad can they be?

But what about the informed critiques of experts like Stoll, Jaro

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36. Adams on Washington: “Charming” and “Noble”

by Lauren, Publicity Assistant

John Ferling is Professor of History Emeritus at the University of West Georgia and a leading authority on American Revolutionary history. His book, John Adams: A Life, offers a compelling portrait 9780195398663of a reluctant revolutionary, a leader who was deeply troubled by the warfare that he helped to make, and a fiercely independent statesman. In honor of Presidents’ Day, we present the following excerpt, in which Ferling details John Adams’ first impressions of George Washington, and what ultimately led to Washington’s nomination for Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army.  Read other posts by Ferling here.

Adams met Washington for the first time during the sessions of the First Congress. He found him handsome, elegant, graceful, noble, and selfless, and he was moved by the Virginian’s willingness to risk his great fortune in the rebellion. Washington, he also discovered, was cordial, but there was a grave, cold formality to him. He was, said one observer, “repulsively cold.” He distanced himself from others, as if he was wary lest they discover some flaw in his makeup. In the real sense of the word, Washington was friendless. He saw other men as either loyal followers or his foes, never as intimates in whom he could confided. Only with women, who of course would not have benne seen as competitors, could he relax and joke and appear to be fully human.

Adams was also impressed by Washington’s singular leadership abilities. By study and observation, and by the hard experience of having had power—real life-and-death responsibilities—thrust upon him when he was still an young man in his early twenties, Washington had learned the secrets of inducing others to follow his lead. Washington probably knew more about leadership before he celebrated his twenty-fifth birthday than John Adams discovered in his lifetime. Washington said his success sprang from his example of courage under fire, combined with an “easy, polite” manner of a “commanding countenance” and the maintenance of “a demeanor at all times composed and dignified.” He was formal, and that formality kept others at a distance; but when blended with his other attributes it led most observers to describe him as “stately,” a man who inspired their “love and reverence.” Adams, too, found “something charming…in the conduct of Washington.” Over the years he devoted considerable attention to the matter and frequently discovered qualities in Washington that he had not noticed previously.

But all the virtues exhibited by Washington, those impressing Adams most were his “noble and disinterested” tendencies. Adams was convinced that Washington understood fully the potential for harm that he would hold in his hands as a commander of the American army. After speaking with Washington and after quizzing his fellow Virginians about his mettle, Adams and others had reached the conclusion that Washington could be trusted with the command of the army, an awesome power to entrust to any mortal.

There were additional reasons for Adams’s support of Washington. A non-New Englander, his appointment would broaden support for the war, pulling the Chesapeake provinces and perhaps the more southerly ones into the fray. In addition, some colonies feared New England, a populous—indeed, overpopulated—region with a long military tradition; according to 0 Comments on Adams on Washington: “Charming” and “Noble” as of 1/1/1900

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37. The Iran-Syria Alliance

Ray Takeyh is a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.  His new book, Guardians of the Revoltion: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs, he traces the course of Iranian policy since the 1979 revolution.  In the excerpt below we learn about the relationship between Iran and Syria.

Among the most enduring yet anomalous alliances in the Middle East is the Syrian-Iranian relationship.  On the surface it may seem improbable for a Shiite regime determined to redeem the region for the forces of religious virtue and a secular state devoted to pan-Arabism to come together.  Yet a series of shared antagonisms led both sides to overlook the incongruity of their alliance and collaborate on a range of critical issues…In the end, a strategically opportunistic Hafiz al-Asad would find the fundamentalist Ayatollah Khomeini an uneasy partner.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution came at an opportune time for the Syrian regime…  The Camp David Accords had led Egypt’s defection from the struggle against Israel and left Syria to face a strengthened Jewish state on its periphery.  In Damascus the fear was that the Reagan administration was hoping to facilitate additional peace treaties…  In the meantime, the perennially bad relations between the two Ba’athist parties governing Syria and Iraq had only worsened amid charges of interference in each other’s internal politics.  Through its willingness to oppose Syria’s Israeli and Iraqi nemeses, Iran’s revolution altered the Middle East’s political configuration.  The Islamic Republic’s embrace of anti-Americanism as a core element of its foreign policy distanced Tehran not only from the United States but also from the conservative Arab states, which were wary of Syria.  In one fell swoop, the Middle East’s balance of power changed, leading Damascus to escape its insularity and become a more critical player in Arab politics.

For an Islamic Republic determined to both wage war against Iraq and pursue a harsher policy toward Israel, the alliance with Syria proved particularly valuable.  The Asad regime’s willingness to supply arms to Tehran came at a time when the American-led embargo was depleting Iran’s arsenal.  Moreover, an alignment with an Arab state fractured the wall of Arab solidarity and diminished Saddam’s ability to portray his war as a contest between Arabs and Persians.  The alliance also offered Iran a reach beyond its borders, as Tehran suddenly had access to Lebanon and could more vigorously pursue its anti-Israel campaign.  In perverse manner, in order for Iran to wage its Islamist crusade against Israel and displace Saddam’s regime, it had to forge a relationship with a state whose internal composition must have been anathema to the mullahs.

The ensuing association with Syria reflected the Islamic Republic’s propensity to prioritize its ideological antagonisms.  The contradictions between an Islamist regime predicating its policy on pristine religious values and a secular, Ba’athist state became starkly evident during the 1982 rebellion in the city of Hamah, when Asad viciously decimated his fundamentalist opposition…Iran’s response to the massacre was to denounce the Muslim Brotherhood “as a gang carrying out the Camp David conspiracy against Syria.”  A theocratic state ostensibly devoted to propagating its divine message not only stood by as fellow fundamentalists were annihilated but offered words of support to the offending regime as well.  …this was a question of priority.   Waging war again Iraq and weakening Israel ranked higher than the fate of Syria’s beleaguered Islamists.

The strategic tensions underlying the Syria-Iran alliance became evident in Iraq.  For Iran, the alliance proved nothing but beneficial.  Beyond gaining an important source of weaponry, Syria’s closure of Iraq’s oil pipeline, which traversed its territory, inflicted an economic penalty on Baghdad.  The support of a major Arab nationalist state allowed some of the Persian Gulf sheikdoms to hedge and not sever their ties to Tehran…It is arguable that, without the Arab cover provided by Damascus, these sheikdoms could not have disregarded the nearly uniform Arab consensus for isolation of Tehran.  As Rafsanjani recalled with gratitude, Asad did not disassociate “himself from a country that advocated Islam because this country is not an Arab country.”

As the war dragged on, the Syrian regime found it had to reconsider its approach to its problematic ally.  In Damascus, the initial justification for supporting Iran was that Saddam’s invasion had diverted the resources of an important Arab country from the main struggle against Israel.  Thus, Baghdad’s opportunistic designs were actually damaging the Arabs and constituted yet another defection from the main anti-Israeli cause.  Saddam’s invasion was even more egregious give that the state he targeted was willing to devote its national power to battling Israel.  It was Saddam who had destroyed the “eastern front” and prevented both Iran and Iraq from concentrating their resources on Jerusalem.  Beyond such assertions, Syria sought to further rationalize its alliance by suggesting that its close ties to the Islamic Republic gave it sufficient credibility to mediate the conflict and even impose restraint on the theocracy.

Syria’s claims became more difficult to justify as Iran appeared dogmatic in its pursuit of the war and seemed prone to expand the conflict into the Persian Gulf.  As a champion of Arab nationalism, Damascus could ill afford a prolonged alliance with a country that disregarded Arab sensibilities and was determined to dispatch its armies into Iraq and disrupt the Gulf commerce…Moreover, Asad’s reliance on aid from Saudi Arabia and Kuwait meant that he could not always ignore the estrangement of the oil-rich sheikdoms…The tensions between supporting Iran and sustaining a place in the Arab system led Damascus to oppose certain Iranian measures.  After 1982, when Iran successfully evicted Iraq from its territory and took the offensive, Syria disapproved of extending the war to the Gulf states and went so far as to promise to support Kuwait against Iranian aggression.  By the mid-1980s, Syria had come to oppose Iran’s appropriation of Arab lands, a policy that was articulated in a variety of Arab summits and emphasized to Iranian emissaries.  Had the war continued beyond 1988 or had Iran triumphed in the conflict, Asad might have been forced to make some fundamental choices and reassess his ties to the Islamic Republic…

…Nonetheless, the fact that the alliance has persisted for so long should not surprise us.  Indeed, it reflects the Middle East’s basic inability to resolve its conflicts, the continuance of which often serves Iran’s larger strategic ends…

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38. The Ghost of Tea Parties Past

Benjamin L. Carp is Assistant Professor of History at Tufts University.  In his book, Rebels Rising: Cities and the American Revolution, he shows how these various urban meeting places provided the tinder and spark for the American Revolution, focusing on colonial America’s five most populous cities.  Carp has also been paying attention to recent urban protests like the tea parties across America.  Check out his thoughts below and in this Washington Post article.

On April 15, I attended one of the conservative “tea parties” being held across the country to protest government spending (and a variety of other grievances). This particular protest was held along the Broadway side of Manhattan’s City Hall Park. In the eighteenth century, this area was known as “the Commons.” In 1766, New Yorkers erected a Liberty Pole in the Commons to celebrate the repeal of the Stamp Act, which would have taxed a variety of legal forms, newspapers, and other documents in the colonies. Over the next few years, the Liberty Pole became a battleground in the fight between British soldiers and New York City’s civilians. The troops would frequently try to cut down the pole, and New Yorkers fought like devils to keep their symbol standing tall. Indeed, on April 23, 1774, the day after New Yorkers held their own “tea party” and dumped tea from an English ship into the river, they celebrated by raising a flag atop the Liberty Pole.

At the modern tea party I deliberately interviewed a handful of different people who appeared to be thinking about the American Revolution—either because they were waving Christopher Gadsden’s rattlesnake flag (“Don’t Tread On Me”), were wearing tri-corn hats, Revolutionary reenactment dress, or Indian costumes, or because their signs reflected eighteenth-century rhetoric. In thinking about how political mobilization in 2009 echoed political mobilization in the 1760s and 1770s, I came to two additional conclusions.

First, the tea parties, even as they invoked the history of the American Revolution, missed an opportunity to fully engage the history. After all, the protesters were rallying next to City Hall Park, but I’ll bet that few of them knew of “the Commons” as a site of revolutionary protest. This isn’t the protesters’ fault, of course: New York City is one of the worst places to get a sense of the 1770s (compared to say, Charleston or Boston or Philadelphia), because almost all of the structures and landscapes have been destroyed or obscured. But a sense of our past can help guide us to better future. When the opportunity presents itself, Americans should do what they can to evoke the real history of the American Revolution.

Second, it’s true that many (though not all) of the conservative protesters were invoking the “tea party” mostly as empty symbolism and not as an explicit historical parallel. But such unthinking (not to say cheap) symbolism can be potentially dangerous. After all, the actual perpetrators of the Boston Tea Party destroyed over £9000 worth of goods (the equivalent of between $1 and $2 million dollars in today’s money), and this was after weeks of threatening the British tea agents at their homes and places of business. Perhaps we might agree today that the colonists were forced to resort to violence and destruction because they suffered under a “tyrannical” empire that ignored their arguments—but in a representative government, we have other alternatives. Despite the signs calling for “tarring and feathering,” in New York City, the strong police presence probably discouraged any real thoughts of violence. But will those protesters who were calling for “rebellion” be content with civil disobedience in the future?

After all, the Department of Homeland Security recently issued a warning to local law enforcement officials about evidence of potential violence associated with a rise in right-wing extremism. Certainly the tea party protests weren’t primarily populated by hate groups or domestic terrorists—but we still might want to be wary of “heritage” groups who take their revolutionary rhetoric too far. There were plenty of angry left-wing groups when the left was out of power, and now there are plenty of angry right-wing groups now that the right finds itself out in the cold. The vast majority of this anger will never be channeled into violence; but when protesters begin using “tea party” talk, we have to hope they’re not taking the analogy to an extreme.

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39. Early American Journalists: A Quiz

Megan Branch, Intern

In a time where newspapers are folding and cutting delivery days left and right, it’s easy to forget that the newspaper was once the favorite, and maybe only, way for people to get information. During the American Revolution, journalists were similar to modern-day bloggers. Everyone, it seemed, was starting a newspaper to bring his opinions to the public, including some people who might surprise you. In Scandal & Civility: Journalism and the Birth of American Democracy, Marcus Daniel, associate professor of American History at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, offers a new perspective on the most influential, partisan journalists of the 1790s. Daniel reminds us that journalists’ rejection of civility and their criticism of  the early American government were essential to the creation of modern-day politics.  Check back tomorrow for the answers.

1. What early American journalist studied epidemics while taking a break from politics and his newspaper?

2. What grandson of a certain Founding Father used his inheritance to start a newspaper?

3. Which former public-school student, after failing to successfully run a dry-goods shop, decided to “try his luck” at journalism?

4. What Princeton alumnus and early journalist wore homemade clothes to his commencement ceremony?

5. What journalist scandalized Philadelphia with the window dressing in his printing shop and bookstore?

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40. The Revolution Within

Gordon Thompson is Professor of Music at Skidmore College. His book, Please Please Me: Sixties British Pop, Inside Out, offers an insider’s view of the British pop-music recording industry, and will be published in August. In the article below he looks a Beatles’ revolution.

On 21 August 1940, Winston Churchill famously declared, “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” The RAF had been dominating the Luftwaffe in the air and Churchill saw an opportunity to bolster British morale amid the fire, smoke, and death on the ground. In Liverpool less than two months later and during the Blitz, a mother would celebrate the Prime Minister’s resolve by naming her son John Winston Lennon, someone else to whom many would owe much and no less so than for what he contributed in another turbulent August.

On 11 August 1968, the Beatles announced “National Apple Week” and launched their own label, Apple Records, as a declaration of independence from corporate media. In many respects, they were babes in the woods with the wolves of the industry at their heels, but during a summer of increasingly violent riots and protests, Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr defied expectations of their demise. In August 1967, their manager and friend Brian Epstein had died after naïvely mixing drugs and alcohol, leaving the band and their finances in shock and disarray. Almost immediately, the Beatles went into a brilliantly destructive tailspin, launching one ill-fated venture after another: a divisive retreat to India with the Maharishi, a clothing store on Baker Street renowned for shoplifting, and the Boxing Day disaster of their film, Magical Mystery Tour. A year after Epstein’s death, they returned to what they knew best: making records.

Apple released three charting records on 30 August 1968: Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were the Days” (produced by Paul McCartney), Jackie Lomax’s “Sour Milk Sea” (produced by George Harrison), and the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and “Revolution.” Both the Hopkin and Beatles disks would climb to the top of British charts, but where the former simply updated a nostalgic Russian ditty, the latter broke new ground in more ways that we can discuss here. In particular, Lennon’s “Revolution” challenged the violence that the Rolling Stones seemed to be embracing in “Street Fighting Man.” Although a master of obfuscation (consider “I Am the Walrus”), Lennon openly and plainly questions politicos of every stripe while striking down a path he would follow for most of his short life, his most poignant articulation coming with “Imagine” (1971).

Released a little over a week after soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia quashing the Prague Spring democracy and only days after Chicago police rioted against war protesters, “Revolution” scathingly chastised the chattering of authority, right and left. Rather than the catalyst for revolution that Richard Nixon had imagined Lennon to be, the Liverpudlian born in a milieu of bombs and death called upon a generation to stop and to consider the consequences of violence and demagoguery. Evoking his stature as a Beatle, he essentially asked everyone to step back and take a deep breath. He succeeded in taunting both conservatives and radicals, but he also gave voice to reason. In that summer of human conflict, his cynicism rang true.

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