History may remember the Arab Spring’s “noble revolutionaries” in the same terms as those of the French Revolution \u2014 utopian and doomed to failure<\/p>\n
Joseph Loconte<\/a><\/p>\n 28 April, 2011<\/p>\n News of the ousting of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak could not have arrived at a better time. It provided, literally, a teaching moment.<\/p>\n In the Western Civilisation course that I teach at the King\u2019s College in the Empire State Building, New York, we were discussing the bloodsoaked saga of the French Revolution, circa 1790. Halfway through the lecture, on February 11, we got word of Mubarak\u2019s departure. Students who doubted the relevance of any historical event before the arrival of smartphones were in for a shock.\u00a0Like the revolution unfolding on the streets of Cairo, the French version was steeped in the language of \u201cjustice\u201d, \u201cfreedom\u201d, and \u201cthe rights of man\u201d. As in Egypt, an ageing and despotic monarch was toppled by a popular rebellion in which the military chose not to intervene. Among the French revolutionaries were the Jacobins, ideological zealots whose radicalism was not fully appreciated. Like Egypt\u2019s Muslim Brotherhood, they were a minority party but they were better organised and disciplined than their competitors. <\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a><\/i><\/a> No related posts.<\/p>\n YARPP Thumbnails <\/p>\n No related posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" History may remember the Arab Spring’s “noble revolutionaries” in the same terms as those of the French Revolution \u2014 utopian and doomed to failure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ondrocks2000.com\/standpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
We all know the rest of the story: the Jacobins seized control of the National Assembly and set up the Committee of Public Safety \u2014 the organ that launched the Reign of Terror. Within a year, at least 30,000 people were dispatched by the guillotine. This \u201cdemocratic revolution\u201d was applauded by many enlightened minds of the day, including Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. Others, such as Edmund Burke, saw in the French experience a rapid descent from freedom to barbarism. This is a major theme of his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
Burke\u2019s work is noted for its conservatism, but it was a conservatism that went much deeper than a regard for the monarchy. He praised the \u201clittle platoons\u201d \u2014 the civic and religious institutions outside the State \u2014 that produce citizens capable of representative government. \u201cBy this means,\u201d he wrote, \u201cour liberty becomes noble freedom.\u201d By contrast, a revolution with no respect for custom, tradition or fundamental rights will not create a more just society. For Burke, without a realistic view of human nature \u2014 without the Christian concept of sin \u2014 liberty becomes a dangerous metaphysical abstraction.
Now that Mubarak is under arrest, will he share the fate of Louis XVI? \u201cKings will be tyrants from policy when subjects are rebels from principle,\u201d wrote Burke. What would Burke say about the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and other Muslim states? He might warn that a revolution launched by utopians \u2014 secular or religious \u2014 will lead only to grief. The lust for power will overwhelm good intentions. \u201cThe effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWe ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations, which may be soon turned into complaints.\u201d<\/p>\n
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