Revolution in Tunisia–A Good Thing?

While I want to be optimistic about the recent Tunisian overthrow of its dictatorial ruling family, I also appreciate Anne Appelbaum’s pessimistic assessment in a Washington Post column. Her caution brings to mind one of my father’s witty animal fables entitled “The Revolutionary Mice.”  You can read it below.

Appelbaum succinctly expresses her concern thus:

Violent street demonstrations, followed by the toppling of a dictator, are an exhilarating way to bring democracy to an authoritarian society. They are not, however, the best way to bring democracy to an authoritarian society.

Applebaum goes on to examine why some revolutions usher in democratic societies and others don’t:

While watching Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution” unfold, remember this: Street demonstrations can unexpectedly bring extremists into power, as they did in Iran in 1979. They can create unrealistic expectations and then unravel, as did the Orange Revolution that began in Ukraine in 2004. And they can end badly, with reactionary violence, like the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square.

By contrast, the most successful transitions to democracy are often undramatic. Consider Spain, after the death of Franco; Chile, after the resignation of Pinochet; Poland, which negotiated its way out of communism; all of these democratic transitions dragged on, created few spectacular photographs – and ultimately led to stable political systems.

William Blake, who was hopeful when the French Revolution broke out and then became disillusioned when it turned bloody and when Napoleon came to power, put it this way:

The iron hand crush’d the Tyrant’s head
And became a Tyrant in his stead

The same sentiment is the theme of this Aesop-like fable:

The Revolutionary Mice

To Albert Camus

By Scott Bates

The Mice rose up and slew the Cat
They pushed her into a dairy vat

Mice will be Mice and that was that
It was the end of the reign of Cat

They burned her bed they broke her bowl
They stuck her head upon a pole

They hung her tail upon a tree
And spread the tidings Mice are free!

And the happy news resounded
To the citizens astounded

Who crept forth with joy unbounded
And a Catfree Kingdom founded

Celebrating their historical emancipation
With vigorous anti-feline legislation

They jailed the Mice who failed to spit
Upon the spot she used to sit

They flogged the Mice who failed to say
Down with the Cats! three times a day

They purged the priests who would not tell
Their flocks that Cats all go to Hell

They hanged a Mouse who once had said
Forgive us our Cats their daily bread

They warred upon a neighboring state
To force it to decatestrate

They outlawed milk they banished cream
They killed the Catfish in the stream

They gnawed holes in the Persian pillows
They dug up all the Pussy Willows

They purged from their vocabulary
Cato Catssup catenary

Kitchen and cultivate the Muse
They shot the Catholics jailed the Jews

Burned all the books where Cats were found
Drove all dissenters underground

Destroyed their mouseholes raped their wives
Detached their Kinsmice from their live

Burned purged and pillaged tortured stole
To make the State One Catless Whole

x x x x x

A group of Mice who’d lost their homes
Assembled in the Catacombs

Led by the reckless Catiline
They swore great oaths in cheese and wine

To bring down Justice on the State
And slipped out through a secret gate.

Mice will be Mice and that was that
They went to get another Cat