Critique of modern revolutions: on leadership and violence.
Modern revolutions are flawed. We’ve seen a few over the years that claim to want to up end the system and bring change in favour of the people. These so called revolutions includes the thawra, in Lebanon that occurred in 2019, the BLM movements that rocked the US and parts of the world in 2020, the multiple movements in the Middle East and North Africa that happened during the Arab Spring and so on. These so called revolutions were failures for the most part, rather than crushing those they were fighting, the movements settle for crumbs or are stuck in a worse position.
On leadership:
The one big flaw with these revolutions is they all lacked a leader or leading party. They all had a direction in a sense but all favoured reform over revolution. As history proves, reform doesn’t lead to meaningful change and at its worse, if people are taking a revolutionary means to achieve said reform, may bring an even more unstable situation.
Libya, the country that had an actual sense of revolution, all be it a corrupt one, failed and now the nation is in deeper trouble that what was believed. The movement in Libya was hijacked by terrorists who took hold of the power vacuum and ruined the country. The same happened in Syria, people protested but with no leader and the opposition was overrun with terrorist forces. The oppositions forces are a conglomerate of multiple anti-government groups who each have a different view of the end result. One must ask what would’ve happened if their revolution went through and they succeeded, Iraq is a good example as to what would happen. Saddam was killed and left behind a power vacuum leading to the most dangerous militant group of our time and the country is struggling to bring back what it once had.
Revolutions with no leader or leading party that will ensure a transfer of power will fail. No revolution succeeds without the guarantee that power will transfer from the previous administration to the new one. Russian revolution succeeded because of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Cuban Revolution succeeded because of Fidel and Che and so on.
Movements in this modern age are quick to get their meaning stripped. BLM movements are in essence revolutionary egalitarian movements but they get watered down to reforms that won’t have any real change. That’s the issue of modern movements, revolution turns to reform, reform under neoliberalism is almost useless, asking a capitalist for change with no profit is like asking a cat to bark, it won’t happen.
BLM led to a number of corporations hiring BIPOC in higher up positions but that doesn’t mean it stands for minorities. It’s just there to aid a spectacle. People are now supposed to live vicariously through that BIPOC CEO where instead there should’ve been change to better society, a change that will lead to the police being less corrupt, a change that will see for profit prisons abolished.
Violence:
We’ve been brought up to think that peace creates change and that violence is a barbaric thing that is pointless if used. On the contrary, violence is a necessary aspect of revolution, not just by those who you’re against but it should be used as a tool to create change. The French know this with their almost opera like protests where chaos fills the streets.
peaceful revolutions don’t work. You will never achieve change through peace alone. “Peaceful” revolutions, emphasis on the quotations, only work due to an air of violence. Sure there may not have been bloodshed on the streets but that doesn’t mean that violence was ever opposed. What we see with modern movements, mostly in North America, is this trend that calls for peace and nothing else, we see protesters get assaulted by police showing that peace doesn’t work. “No justice, no peace,” the last part is always somehow forgotten in modern movements
Violence, and the aspect of violence, should be used a tactic, not a last resort.
If violence is present at movements, it’s directed at protesters and in some cases, cops. Violence should be towards those who the police are protecting, towards those who control and are the reason for injustice.
Politicians, Bankers, cops, and all others of the political elite or who are exempt from crime should be in fear of mass uprising, not just send goons in riot gear to calm them down. People should get the fear of violence out of their head and instead of falling victim to violence, people should use it as a means to an end.
