Threat or Opportunity: non-violent protest?

[davidbfpo]

LBJ and Gandhi aside I do wonder as autocratic states look around the scene what are the lessons learnt?

First and foremost electronic communication is so dangerous. If you are a developing autocratic state, would you want to allow this to develop? I understand it is easy to switch off mobile phone networks, the UK has a preferential system in place for emergencies, so state mobiles work and for example others can only get calls in. Isolating international links, which are via a few nodes, unless you have a sat phone, appears to be easy.

Limited or slow communications would be attractive for an autocrat. In another thread on Burma I have commented that without imagery 24/7 news has a much reduced impact. Large chunks of the world are not on the 24/7 editors list.

Reducing international exposure is possible, although even the PRC has learnt not easy after rioting in Tibet was filmed by tourists and a BBC reporter on a holiday. Plus the ethnic rioting and state response in Urumchi.

Tourists are a mixed blessing, in Egypt the vast majority were miles away from the focal point, the cities, on beaches in Sinai and above all usually have little interaction with the locals. More problematic are the resident expats, especially if widely dispersed like preachers, NGO etc.

[davidbfpo]

From Open Democracy:

An audio interview in which Nabila Ramdani describes the role of the social networks in the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions – to what extent are Morozov's and Gladwell's arguments proved wrong by events?

Closing sentences:

There will be numerous attempts to re-impose autocracies dominated self-styled leaders of the people. However, the biggest historical change highlighted by revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia is that these people are nowadays hugely well informed, questioning and technologically savvy.

This should be our greatest cause for optimism as we consider the future of the Arab world.

Link:http://www.opendemocracy.net/tony-cu...-02-19%2005:30

[Bob's World]

Did Rome's roads matter in the rise of the Barbarians?

Did the invention of the printing press matter in the rise of the people of Europe against the Holy Roman Empire?

Did Britain's global telegraph network matter in the rise of her colonial populaces?

Did the internet matter in Tunisia and Egypt.

Answer to all: Yes.

When a state relies upon overt controls of a populace to maintain stability, the speed and availability of information is their greatest threat. As information and transportation technology continue to emerge, control-based systems of governance will continue to become less and less viable.

[Bill Moore]

Bob and David,

One of the points at least two leaders made about the recent uprisings in North Africa was that the people were no longer scared. I don't pretend to know why, but I think it is somewhat accurate that many Iranians and Chinese have access to information technology and are frustrated with their government, but are too scared to act due to the consequences. I think if these movements continue we'll see some rather harsh and bloody crackdowns.

I'm not sure any lessons have been learnt yet, but governments everywhere are probably considering strategies to counter this type of threat to their control. I think there are a lot of options, and again depending on the overall context of each situation those options will vary. In some cases as others have pointed out the government has already failed, it is like a rotten fruit that hasn't fallen from the tree yet and this tactic is the wind that brings it down.

[Fuchs]

LBJ and Gandhi aside I do wonder as autocratic states look around the scene what are the lessons learnt?

First and foremost electronic communication is so dangerous. If you are a developing autocratic state, would you want to allow this to develop?

related:
Trajan on the revolts in Tunisia (?)

It's not the communications, but the organising.

[Bill Moore]

Posted by Fuches,

It's not the communications, but the organising.

The organizers agree with you that organization was critical, but the means they used to form a community (organize) to mobilize was Facebook. Not only did they effectively garner support from within Egypt, they garnered international support, which limited the options for the Gov of Egypt.

IT is important, yes it just a tool, just like strategic bombers, satellite communications, nuclear weapons, submarines, etc., but it is apparent that tools can make things possible that were not previously possible.

[Fuchs]

It should nevertheless be understood that it's not the communication tool, but the organising that counts. The absence of communication tools does no suppress self-organisation. It merely reduces the options of the people for self-organising themselves.

[Dayuhan]

The organizers agree with you that organization was critical, but the means they used to form a community (organize) to mobilize was Facebook. Not only did they effectively garner support from within Egypt, they garnered international support, which limited the options for the Gov of Egypt.

IT is important, yes it just a tool, just like strategic bombers, satellite communications, nuclear weapons, submarines, etc., but it is apparent that tools can make things possible that were not previously possible.

These things were previously possible, and were previously accomplished. There was no Facebook during the fall of Marcos in the Philippines, or during the popular revolts in Poland, Romania, et al. No Facebook during the French Revolution.

People use the tools they have. Now that we have mobile phones and internet it's hard to believe that people ever lived or rebelled without them... but they did. Focusing on Facebook and Twitter as enablers makes it all seem very modern, 5G, and open source, but they were and are only tools, and looking too much at the tools can distract from equally important factors.

Loss of fear is critical. These events typically start with small rallies, marches, etc. If the populace perceives that the government is not cracking down and that security forces seem reluctant to break up actions, the size rapidly surges, in a process that can take only days, even hours. These things don't just happen because popular disaffection rises, they happen because government control wanes. Both factors have to be in place for success.

[Jedburgh]

These things were previously possible, and were previously accomplished. There was no Facebook during the fall of Marcos in the Philippines, or during the popular revolts in Poland, Romania, et al. No Facebook during the French Revolution.

People use the tools they have. Now that we have mobile phones and internet it's hard to believe that people ever lived or rebelled without them... but they did. Focusing on Facebook and Twitter as enablers makes it all seem very modern, 5G, and open source, but they were and are only tools, and looking too much at the tools can distract from equally important factors....

The Economist, 17 Dec 11: How Luther went viral: Five centuries before Facebook and the Arab spring, social media helped bring about the Reformation

Modern society tends to regard itself as somehow better than previous ones, and technological advance reinforces that sense of superiority. But history teaches us that there is nothing new under the sun. Robert Darnton, an historian at Harvard University, who has studied information-sharing networks in pre-revolutionary France, argues that “the marvels of communication technology in the present have produced a false consciousness about the past—even a sense that communication has no history, or had nothing of importance to consider before the days of television and the internet.” Social media are not unprecedented: rather, they are the continuation of a long tradition. Modern digital networks may be able to do it more quickly, but even 500 years ago the sharing of media could play a supporting role in precipitating a revolution. Today’s social-media systems do not just connect us to each other: they also link us to the past.

[Bob's World]

Its the breakthroughs in technology that are relevant in their time to disrupt the status quo.

Roman Roads allowed Legions to march and counter-march about the empire; and connected disparate populaces in unprecedented ways. All roads led to Rome, and the Barbarians followed them there...

Gutenberg invents a printing press, and a European populace controlled through ignorance and the Catholic Church was able to soon read, write and think for themselves; and those with political agendas soon recognized the power in Luther's work and converted it to their purpose. Within 200 years Western Europeans had developed the concept of the modern nation-state and had leveraged associated breakthroughs in technology to conquer and dominate the globe. The Holy Roman Empire faded from the scene.

A global grid of telegraph cables allowed Britain to dominate the second half of the 19th Century; but as populaces read of revolts in one corner of the empire in their own corner a day later, the costs of controlling such a vast empire soon came to exceed the benefit. Information could be everywhere at once, but the Army still moved at the speed of horse and steam.

The Soviets dominated post-WWII Eastern Europe, but could not control the information flowing from Satellites into the homes of the populaces they sought to divide, suppress and exploit. It shocked the world when those populaces so empowered rose up in a wave the Soviets declined to put down.

Following collapse of the Soviets tensions among the many populaces of the Middle East began to slowly build. Western manipulations of legitimacy and sovereignty of governance to contain the Soviets were benign in comparison, but faced increasing resistance as they shifted from being "the lesser of two evils" to simply being "the evil." Cellular phones, wireless Internet, social media all served to not only share grievances and motivation, but also allowed savvy insurgents to develop new tactics of networked operations and provided the ability to skip the time-honored (and highly vulnerable and dangerous) organization phase of insurgency. "Flash Mobs" and instantaneous and continuous global news cycle quickly put tired and despotic regimes on their back foot, and left Western powers in shock as their carefully crafted schemes of influence and manipulation began to unravel.

Over the years, these breakthroughs always precede change where change is needed. An associated shift of sovereignty being vested in one man, one family or one class and a trend to distribute it back across the people follows. Such changes are typically resisted, and almost always slow and messy. They are also unstoppable.

[Bill Moore]

Its the breakthroughs in technology that are relevant in their time to disrupt the status quo.

Precisely, the world changes constantly, even as certain aspects remain consistent. There were wars before we had gun powder, but I wouldn't recommend showing up to a conflict today with a shield and sword. I wouldn't recommend developing a defense strategy based on the fact that wars have always existed, but rather design a strategy based on how your projected adversaries will fight. You can't live in the real world and reject the impact of new technologies. If a State wants to compete for influence, then it better appreciate the new technologies that its citizens are using.

Technology more than anything else has disrupted the status quo throughout history, and those who have failed to adapt generally fell.