Wind of democracy in Egypt

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Opinion

Michael Breen

Wind of democracy in Egypt

Posted : 2011-02-10 17:11

Updated : 2011-02-10 17:11

Protests against repressive rule in Tunisia and Egypt have sparked global excitement about the possibility of democracy in the Arab world.

By Michael Breen

Protests against repressive rule in Tunisia and Egypt have sparked global excitement about the possibility of democracy in the Arab world.

``The political message is clear,” one expert wrote in The New York Times. ``With nonviolent mass protest, anything is possible and no autocratic government is safe and secure any longer.”

This sentiment is borne by the unpredictable way in which freedom arrives in repressive places. A minor incident emboldens the citizenry which faces down the dictator’s legions. Then, both sides feel, it is as if the breath of God blows with hurricane force in one direction, for the good against the bad. In a few thrilling days the world has forever changed.

It happened in the Philippines in 1986, in Korea in 1987, and central Europe in 1989. But, at other times, autocratic governments have fought back and won.

In Gwangju in 1980, troops launched a military operation to retake control of the entire city from protestors and killed 200 students and citizens. In Beijing in 1989, tanks rolled over democracy protestors who had occupied Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds, possibly thousands. More recently, in Burma in 2007, protests led by monks were put down.

Popular protest, then, does not always win.

Several key factors need to come together. First, the leadership and its soldiers need to know the real nature of the protest and that their opponents are ``the people” and not enemies of the state.

That is not as easy as it may appear. In North Korea, for example, even if 90 percent of the entire population turned out waving North Korean flags, the leadership might genuinely believe that the state was being threatened.

Dictators do not conceive of themselves as anti-democratic. Nor do they see opponents as ``democrats.” Throughout the 1980s, government officials here referred to the country as a liberal democracy. Protest, in their opinion, was neither popular nor democratic. It was a force for instability, encouraged by self-serving politicians, that weakened the country in the face-off with North Korea and which typified, experts said, countries at the $5,000 –$10,000 per capita income stage of economic growth. It was in the national interest, and therefore virtuous and necessary, to control it.

In Gwangju, special forces units were told they were putting down riots (true), that rioters had seized weapons (true), and that they were protecting national security (not true). This untruth ensured that the army went at their task with the same vigor as if a real enemy had taken over the city.

By 1987, police had been battling student protestors in what had become a ritualized routine for years. The Washington Post was the first to report after a week of demonstration in June that year that something had changed and that the middle class was now on the streets. To his credit, the Minister of Culture and Information went to Myeongdong Cathedral, the focal point of refuge for protestors, to check for himself whether this was true. He was recognized and chased down the street, an example of the kind of hotheadedness than can convince authorities that the protestors are ``rioters.”

Second, the leader must want something more than power, be it his life, fortune or his country’s stable future. Chun Doo-hwan in 1987 did not want to wreck his legacy as the first president to voluntarily step down after his term ― the election to choose his successor had been set for December that year. (The protestors’ demand was for a constitutional change allowing a direct popular vote). That legacy included a successful Summer Olympic in Seoul in 1988.

Third, some people must be able to talk to the leader, be they political aides or foreign allies. In Chun’s case, his best friend, Roh Tae-woo, was his party’s candidate to replace him. Also, of course, U.S. president Ronald Reagan had a direct line.

Above all, there needs to be communication. The president and his people need to know what’s going on. So do the people, who might join or oppose the protests. And so do the country’s influential allies, (hence the Egyptian government’s attempt to close the Internet and block international correspondents from covering the protests).

For now, the events are by no means over in Egypt or elsewhere in the Arab world. What’s happening serves as a reminder that, one way or another, if not now then later, democracy will eventually come to that region, just as it will come to Burma, to China, and ― one day, before we have all left to seek other planets ― to North Korea.

Michael Breen is an author, former foreign correspondent and the chairman of Insight Communications, a public relations consulting company. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.