this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
1 points (100.0% liked)
World News
2308 readers
16 users here now
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Eh. Arab Spring was US color revolution and pressure campaign. Their big success of course was Egypt, kicking out the Muslim Brotherhood who risked having a bit more solidarity with the Palestinian people and against occupied Palestine's zionist colonization and being slightly more skeptical of the US, so in goes Generalisimo-strongman.
Any time you shuffle the deck where the US is still the reigning hegemon, still has had schools of the americas up and running for decades with people all over having attended (and black books full of blackmail, weak points, lists of bribes taken, etc), still controls the global media landscape, still sells an image of successful liberalism being a lackey for them, and so on you risk losing progress towards a more multi-polar world. You risk trading imperfect, deeply flawed, but old, somewhat entrenched and strong groups and movements with the potential to be friendly to China and Russia for their own interests and to see in some ways the flaws of the US-led order, of US-exported and espoused liberalism and capitalism and austerity and avoid it, be skeptical of it, take a middle road if not one straight to BRICS and trading that for western lapdogs with friends waiting in the wings, with networks waiting in the wings, a media apparatus waiting in the wings, a protest apparatus waiting in the wings, corrupt and indoctrinated military officers waiting in the wings who will sell their country out and devastate it, weaken multi-polarity and strengthen the US position for another 20 years or more.
We've seen it before in Asia, in the crushing of the pink tide in Latin America. Hell the only reason they didn't need to do it Europe is because they had boots on the ground from invading and had set up Gladio and run it with the help of fascist government officials.
For the sake of the proletariat in Africa of course it would be nice if some of the more corrupt governments could be toppled, concessions won, etc. But the truth is those who most benefit from the collapse of governments are powers waiting to fill that space and right now the only one this describes is the US. Who have spent billions, decades, countless resources, NGOs, spying so they know all the dirts and secrets, bot armies to stir people up online, influencers who act in person knowingly or unknowingly to benefit and push for a western-friendly order. But I am skeptical and I am hardened by past experiences, failures, and sabotage of popular movements too countless to name. In other words we should be wary and skeptical of lending support and hope to any uprising that spouts vaguely populist messages like food prices, western capitalist lackeys too do that when there's someone getting too close to the enemy in government.
Caution, caution in action, caution in optimism, skepticism. Dare to hope, but also dare to question being led astray by such hope. Traditionally successes against capitalism were followed by claw-backs, by retribution, by losses.
I know Libya and Syria were obvious color revolutions, but plenty of the uprising in the Arab Spring was legit, no? Tunisia, Bahrain, even the harshly suppressed and limited version in Saudi Arabia?
I also have trouble believing the US could have pulled off the scale of the uprising in Egypt. As much as 25% of the country was out protesting on Mubarak's final day.
Not to mention that the State Department and even Obama himself were openly supporting Mubarak until it became clear it was untenable to continue. Only then, as Chomsky pointed out is the pattern of the US, did they flip the script and say they supported the demands of the democratic movement all along.
True, but I prefer Mao's version: dare to struggle, dare to win.