Popular rebellion, state response and our failure to date: a debate

[davidbfpo]

There is a similar thread 'Threat or Opportunity: non-violent protest?':http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=12546

How do external states, for the SWJ community often not regional states, respond to a 'popular rebellion' in the early stages? For a moment ignore recent events in some Arab states. How about South Africa, post-Sharpeville or Rhodesia post-UDI? More recently Iran, Poland, Ukraine and many more.

Western diplomats have claimed their pre-regime change establishment of relations with internal and external opposition in South Africa was important in facilitating change. There was little or none in Iran and in Poland there was an attempt to over considerable support to Solidarity.

In an earlier thread on 'kith & kin' we debated that factor, prompted by the situation in Haiti: http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ead.php?t=8829

How legitimate can a Western state response be to a 'popular rebellion'? Legitimate to us, probably a few within the rebellion, not at all for the state concerned and quite possibly for many in the affected state.

[Marc]

How do external states, for the SWJ community often not regional states, respond to a 'popular rebellion' in the early stages?

To answer this question, it is necessary to understand the essence of popular rebellion. Popular rebellions revolve around mobilisation power. American sociologist Talcott Parsons likened uprisings to "A Run on the Power Bank". Popular rebellion succeeds if a defiant mass swamps a regime's instruments of repression. Regimes only have so many police officers, prison cells, torture chambers etc. When the masses keep crowding the streets despite of repression, the regime collapses.

This means that our attention should not focus on the crowds, but on the organizations that mobilize and sustain them. Raising a crowd of a hundred thousand people and maintaining its presence on a city square is an exercise in communication, transportation, finance, and logistics. The organization that leads this undertaking will almost invariably take the forefront when the regime crumbles.

Take Iran, though all factions of the population participated in the 1978 revolution (Liberals, Socialists and the Shi'i clergy), the clergy took the forefront because of their organizational infrastructure (mosques where they could adress groups of people, charitable branches that could manage distribution of food and water, financial reserves from religious fundraising, etc.) A similar thing happened in Iraq in the wake of OIF. In 2003, Moqtada al-Sadr took control of the remains of the organization that organized the (failed) 1991 Shi'i uprising. This organization allowed him to organize the first free Shi'i pilgrimage in southern Iraq, mobilising half a million people. Similarly, the 1987 Intifada put the organization that was able to sustain it logistically (the Muslim Brotherhood, which evolved later into Hamas) to the forefront.

In summary, for an effective response to a 'popular rebellion' in the early stages, we should NOT focus on the rebellion, but on the organization that SUSTAINS it.

[Fuchs]

A) States can choose to recognise a rebel government as the legitimate government, as France did with the Libyan rebels iirc.

B) There's non need to get involved in others' internal affairs in most cases. Whatever problem our governments have in dealing with foreign rebels in distant places, it's probably not important.

[TheCurmudgeon]

In summary, for an effective response to a 'popular rebellion' in the early stages, we should NOT focus on the rebellion, but on the organization that SUSTAINS it.

I respectfully disagree. I think, since the end of WWII we have entered into an era where popular rebellions can be (or have been) sustained by ideas, not organizations. Ideas have no structure. The right idea at the right time is like a match in a field of dry grass, it rapidly can turn into a wildfire if not suppressed early. "An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not an idea whose time has come" Victor Hugo. In my mind the change has occurred for three reasons. First, communications is so much faster now than it had been in the past. Second, the mechanisms of state repression so popular prior to WWII are no longer viable in the international community. The third has to do with why the popular uprising happens, that is an entirely different theory.


I also think that it is human nature to want to put a face with a name (or in this case, a revolution). Even with faceless ones, we tend to put an person, in an iconic image, at the center of the storm. A man standing in front of a tank. Otherwise it is just too confusing, to hard to gauge who to trust. Plus, since so much of modern politics is business, too hard to figure out who is going to sell me the oil.

I don't know the answer. There was a time when a foreign power would send in military envoys to determine the likelihood of a revolution's success. Perhaps that is an idea whose time has come again.

[Fuchs]

I respectfully disagree. I think, since the end of WWII we have entered into an era where popular rebellions can be (or have been) sustained by ideas, not organizations.

Europe has a history of hundreds of years of rebellions based on ideas (even as simple as the idea that you have hunger), not organisations. We certainly didn't enter anything like that.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Europe has a history of hundreds of years of rebellions based on ideas (even as simple as the idea that you have hunger), not organisations. We certainly didn't enter anything like that.

At the risk of discussing areas of agreement, I agree that Europe, in particular, has a longer history of ideas being central to rebellions and revolutions (although to me, hunger is a lot more than an idea, or at least it is an idea with a much higher likelihood to motivate people to take risks to satiate it). However, in the good old days the king of England was probably not going to call for the ouster of the King of France because he decided to torture, kill off or banish all the Huguenots. Today, with the idea that legitimacy comes from the people it has become harder (although certainly not impossible) for a dictator to take repressive action against his people to suppress an idea.

[Fuchs]

The religious wars of the 16th and 17th century delegitimised the princes as well - in the eyes of those who chose the other faith. The whole 30 years war was about princes waging war against each other in denial of the other's attempt to set the faith for his realm.

China also has a huge history of rebellions that did not necessarily rest on organisations.

Decolonialisation rebellions were also often rather based on the idea of sovereignty than on organisations.


It was never easily tolerated when rulers killed off troves of dissenters. That's now a new thing. Today we bother more about it because of the media (nobody cared about Japanese imprisoning Koreans in 1920, but now we care about the gulags of the North Korean regime).
The people in the country themselves don't need mass media to learn about what happens with their neighbours, of course.


In the end, rebellions succeed when a regime is ripe for failure. I'm not even sure organisations are helpful against such regimes because organisations are usually badly infiltrated and can be destroyed much more easily than ideas.

[TheCurmudgeon]

Yeah, but you didn't see this kind of thing happening during the 30 year war.

Libya: ICC prosecutor seeks warrant for Gaddafi
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13408931

It just aint as easy to treat your population like subjects instead of citizens as it used to be...

.. although, not impossible (ala Saudi Arabia and Bahrain).

Interesting to see the rift begin to form between the new Arab "republics" and the old Arab monarchies.

[Fuchs]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rebellion_of_1857

[davidbfpo]

Moderator adds:

We appear to be in historical mode with FDR and Empire's dissolution. Later today I will start a new thread on that theme, in the history arena; meantime please keep Empire matters on hold.

Update

New thread started 'End of Empires: who was responsible?' (post WW2) and a few posts relocated. See:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=13335

[JMA]

... Second, the mechanisms of state repression so popular prior to WWII are no longer viable in the international community. ...

This is the key.

... and knowing this the US has introduced through the "pop-centric" approach to counter insurgency the alternative of throwing massive amounts of money at the problem. Doesn't work.

This is the problem Syria faces as there is no doubt that had they clamped down on the unrest on the scale Assad senior had done in 1982 with the Hama massacre where tens of thousands of people were killed in a short time it would be all quiet now.