“Revolutions or Uprisings?

: A Comparative Analysis of

The French Revolution and Contemporary Social Upheavals”

David Michael M. San Juan

De La Salle University-Manila

dmmsanjuan@gmail.com

March 2011

A tide of seemingly spontaneous uprisings and people-powered revolts have

swept (or threaten to sweep) old autocratic regimes from Tunisia to Egypt, from Yemen

to Bahrain, from Saudi Arabia to Libya, and other African and Middle Eastern countries.

Al Jazeera, a Qatar-based international news network and a popular alternative to CNN

and BBC in the Third World, especially in Arabian countries, consistently labels these

revolts as “revolutions.” Indeed, a cursory look at the websites of dominant Western

media outfits will prove that even CNN and BBC now use the term “revolution” to refer

to the ouster of formerly US-backed autocrats Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in Tunisia and

Hosni Mubarak in Egypt. Strictly speaking though, these popular anti-dictatorship revolts

are not genuine revolutions. There can be no revolution without a revolutionary

movement. James DeFronzo (1996, p 8) defines a revolutionary movement as “a social

movement in which participants are organized to alter drastically or replace totally

existing social, economic or political institutions.” In the classic revolutionary treatise

“Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei” (“The Communist Manifesto”), Karl Marx and

Friedrich Engels (1848) depicted “the most general phases of the development of the
proletariat,” from civil war into open revolution “where the violent overthrow of the

bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat....” Marx and Engels

further assert that “the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the

proletariat to the position of the ruling class to win the battle of democracy...The

proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the

bourgeoisie, to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i.e., of

the proletariat organized as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces

as rapidly as possible." Simply put, like DeFronzo, Marx and Engels emphasize that a

“revolution” is not a revolution without the total overthrow of the ruling class and the

system that it used to impose its rule on the people. Marx and Engels further assert that

a genuine revolution is a revolution in all aspects which encompass the political,

economic and social system of a nation. Considering that in Tunisia and Egypt, the

superstructure that Ben Ali and Mubarak used to maintain their autocratic rule for

decades remains unchanged, the mass protests that drove them out of power are mere

revolts or uprisings at the very most. Nearly two months after the Tunisian “Revolution,”

a recent news item quoted a student activist in Tunisia as saying “Nothing has changed”

(Bennett-Jones 2011) since the autocratic system and the socio-economic problems left

by Ben Ali remain intact. Writing from Egypt, analyst Abu Atris (2011), lauds the

Egyptian “Revolution” as a victory against US-backed economic neoliberalism (which

was implemented both by Ben Ali and Mubarak) yet he fears that “(i)f the January 25th

revolution results in no more than a retrenchment of neoliberalism, or even its

intensification,” millions who joined the protests “will have been cheated. The rest of the

world could be cheated as well.” Atris’ apprehension proves that both the Tunisian and
Egyptian “revolutions” are yet to actually replace the socio-economic and political

systems adopted by the fallen dictators, with (a) new one(s). As Falk (2011) remarks,

“...Tunisia faces formidable challenges in this period of transition. As yet, there has

been no displacement of the Ben Ali bureaucratic forces in the government, including

the police and security forces that for decades terrorized the population. There were an

estimated 40,000 police (2/3 in plainclothes, mingling with the population to monitor and

intimidate).” In Egypt, Mubarak’s own security apparatus remains intact, save for the

dismantling of the much-feared and much-reviled intelligence agency. Hence, the

much-touted “revolutions” are not revolutions, after all, if DeFronzo’s and Marx and

Engels’ view of what a revolution is would be taken into account. Nevertheless, the fact

remains that the whole wide world, especially in the information highway, considers and

labels these mass anti-dictatorship protests as “revolutions.” From Al Jazeera to

Wikipedia, and from BBC to The Huffington Post, the world (except in countries where

censorship remains a government priority) has come to a consensus on this matter.

To highlight the role that social media played in stimulating and reporting these

“revolutions,” some commentators have dubbed the whole phenomenon as a

“Facebook Revolution” (Taylor 2011), with some analysts claiming that in these times,

“the revolution will be...tweeted” (Rapley 2011). Other sceptics like Gideon Rachman

(2011) blasts the hype of “Facebook revolutions” by reminding people that “the French

managed to storm the Bastille without the help of Twitter – and the Bolsheviks took the

Winter Palace without pausing to post photos of each other on Facebook.” Rachman’s

reminder impliedly invites independent observers to take a look at the contemporary

“online revolutions” vis-à-vis the genuine revolutions in history, such as the French
Revolution, to determine whether the former are indeed revolutions. With these things in

mind, a comparative analysis of the French Revolution, the world’s first modern

revolution, and the contemporary “Facebook Revolutions” is in order.

Diseases to Which the Ancien Régime Succumbed: Poverty, Social Inequalities

and Tyranny

The French revolution influenced many liberal and radical-democratic parties,

social movements and governments in the world. It is the first truly mass social

revolution in Europe – powered by the combined proletarian and middle class urban

masses of Paris and the French peasants who suffered from the deprivations imposed

by feudalism (Hobsbawm 1962). Subsequent social and revolutionary movements

viewed the French Revolution as an inspiration, if not a pattern, for their own struggles

for national and/or social liberation. It is thus not surprising that contemporary

revolutions and uprisings are still compared and contrasted with the French Revolution.

Years before the French Revolution, the conflict between the old order and the

new social forces who clamored for moderate reforms had become so acute to be set

aside. While nobles and clergymen enjoyed their privileged status in the old order (in

the form of feudal rents and tax exemptions), they were politically sidelined by the

absolute monarchy. The nobles and the clergy were thus seeking ways to slightly

weaken the king’s power for their own gain. Meanwhile, the deprivation of peasants

under the old order was heightened due to soaring inflation caused by the king’s failure

to institute financial reforms. Moreover, majority of the peasants remained largely

landless or land-hungry. Feudal dues, church tithes and taxes took a large and rising
proportion of the peasant’s income. Simply put, the huge gap between the socio-

economic condition of the poor peasants and the middle class on the one hand, and the

opulent monarch, nobles and clergymen on the other, made France a potential powder

keg for a radical social upheaval. Such yawning socio-economic divide brought an

intense feeling of injustice and oppression to those who suffer from extreme

deprivations. In the words of the great political thinker Alexis de Tocqueville (trans.

Gilbert 1955, p 204), “it is easy to see why the privileges enjoyed by this small section of

the community seemed so unwarranted and so odious to the French people and why

they developed that intense jealousy of the “upper” class which rankles today.”

In the case of Tunisia and Egypt, a similar socio-economic crisis was present.

There are no reports of landless and starving peasants or angry women demanding for

bread in Tunisia and Egypt, as in pre-revolutionary France, but Tunisia is ranked 81

while Egypt is ranked 101 among 169 countries in the 2010 Human Development Index

published by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). According to the

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook, Tunisia’s unemployment rate is at

14%, while Egypt’s is at 10%. Though such unemployment rates seem relatively small,

it should be noted that youth unemployment rates in both Tunisia and Egypt are pegged

at about 30% and more than 30%, respectively. Thus, it’s no coincidence that youth

activists provided the bulk of the needed “warm bodies” for the “Facebook revolutions”

to succeed. Beyond youth unemployment, data on household income by percentage

share exposes the huge gap between the poorest and the richest segments of these

two countries. In Tunisia, the income of the poorest 10% is only 2.3% of the total pie,

while the share of the richest 10% is at 31.5%! To put a human face on these otherwise
dispassionate numerical figures, it is instructive to remember that the Tunisian

revolution was sparked by the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, a young vendor who burned

himself to protest his sudden unemployment (after the local police confiscated his

merchandise), at a time when the then first-lady of Tunisia, Ben Ali’s wife Leila Trabelsi

and their relatives lived in pompous villas. Meanwhile, in Egypt, the poorest 10%

receive 3.9% of the pie while the richest 10% monopolize 27.6% of the nation’s wealth.

In Yemen (ranked 133 in the 2010 Human Development Index), where massive

peaceful anti-government protests have persisted despite the sitting president’s violent

crackdown which caused close to a hundred civilian deaths, the unemployment rate is

at 35%; 45.2% of the population are poor; and the household income share of the

poorest 10% of the population comprise a meager 2.9% of the national income while the

richest 10% greedily control more than 30% of the nation’s wealth. Such quantitatively

and qualitatively huge gap between the rich and the poor fuelled and still fuels current

social tensions in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries where massive protests versus the

local rulers still persist. Indeed, as has been said by various social reformers and sundry

radicals, socio-economic injustices – real and imagined – provide the ammunition for

every revolution. In a related development, to reduce the possibility of popular revolts

spontaneously exploding under their watch, some Arabian leaders like Saudi Arabia’s

King Abdullah announced generous financial packages for their citizens. In Saudi

Arabia, the package includes an additional two months'wages for all government

workers and two extra payments for university students worth around $500; raising of

the monthly minimum wage to $800; a monthly payment of around $260 to the country'
s

unemployed; $70 billion to build 500,000 apartments for low-income residents; millions
more capital for the government'
s housing loan fund; raising of the maximum loan for

homes to around $130,000; an extra $40 million for private hospitals; around $130

million to build and renovate mosques and around $50 million each for Islamic centers

and the country'

s religious police (Hadid 2011).

Nevertheless, it will be the height of naivete to claim that the past and current

uprisings and revolutions are solely and/or mainly driven by socio-economic demands.

Libya’s unique case should be mentioned to bolster this point. In the 2010 Human

Development Index Report, Libya is ranked 53. It is hands down the richest and most

developed country in Africa. Thus, it seems that instead of economic insecurity, the

Libyans’ main reason for rebelling against Colonel Gaddafi is the rigid autocracy that he

has led for more than four decades now. Like Gaddafi and Louis XVI, Ben Ali and

Mubarak used various tools of political repression to maintain their grip on power in their

heydays. Alexis de Tocqueville, one of the greatest political thinkers of the nineteenth

century, asserted in his milestone book “The Old Regime and The French Revolution”

(trans. Gilbert 1955, p 97) that “the suppression of political freedom and the barriers set

up between classes brought on most of the diseases to which the old regime

succumbed.” The same observation applies to the current uprisings and “revolutions.”

Ben Ali and Mubarak were able to command the loyalty of their countries’ security

apparatuses through corruption, until millions of civilians overcome their fear of

policemen and soldiers who were usually utilized by the entrenched tyrants in brutally

suppressing protest actions. This explains why Ben Ali and Mubarak treated their

various national treasuries as their private slush funds: they needed “grease” money to

keep the machines of their security apparatuses well-oiled and working.

Elite Rule Then and Now: Monarchy and Superficial Democracy

A closer look at the tyrants is necessary to scrutinize the parallelisms and

differences between the contemporary social upheavals and the French Revolution.

Instead of an ostentatious monarch, Tunisia and Egypt were ruled by autocratic

“leaders” who maintained some sort of superficial democracy through rigged elections

(The Star 2011 and The Economist Online 2010). Thus, whereas Louis XVI of France

ruled as an absolute monarch albeit one who says he “must always consult public

opinion” for “it is never wrong” (Andress 2005, p 13), the regimes of Ben Ali and

Mubarak attempted to maintain some semblance of legality through various ways such

as elections. Tunisia’s Ben Ali “came to power through a coup in 1987” (Miladi 2011)

and was subsequently and continuously “re-elected,” the last time on October 2009. He

ruled Tunisia until his ouster in January 2011. Meanwhile, Egypt’s Mubarak came to

power as president in 1981 and was subsequently and continuously “re-elected” (the

last time on September 2005). He ruled Egypt until he was ousted from office in January

2011, after 18 days of relatively peaceful massive protests.

Like France’s King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette, both Ben Ali and

Mubarak have been accused of opulence and corruption. According to Global Financial

Integrity, a Washington-based government financial watchdog group, “the Egyptian

economy has hemorrhaged to the tune of more than $6 billion per year” and that from

“2000 to 2008, the loss from the Mubarak shakedown operation totaled a staggering

$57.2 billion flood of money to illicit financial activities and official government

corruption” (Hutchinson 2011). Meanwhile, Sherpa (a French human rights

organization), Transparency International-France and the Arab Commission for Human

Rights revealed that “the wealth amassed by the former leader (Ben Ali) and his

entourage” could reach as high as £3 billion or $5 billion (BBC News 2011). Such

greedy accumulation of wealth by the tyrants all the more infuriated the common folks

as many citizens suffer from daily deprivations such as chronic unemployment, soaring

prices etc., while their rulers lived the good life of luxury at the people’s expense. On a

practical note, such abominable levels of corruption made it possible for these tyrants to

buy the support and loyalty of policemen, soldiers, spies and bureaucrats for decades –

at least for a time – until the citizens marched in their millions against the ruling despots.

Unlike Louis XVI who was fiercely independent and who relied on no foreign

power (France being a powerful international player in those times), both Mubarak and

Ben Ali were close allies, if not lackeys of the United States of America, prompting many

progressives to label them as US-sponsored or US-backed dictators. As Falk (2011)

argues, the Bush administration and the “supposedly milder” Obama presidency never

complained about Mubarak’s dictatorial tricks such as the “outlawing of opposition

parties and locking up their leaders” until the eleventh hour that heralded the victory of

the Egyptian uprising. In the words of former US Vice-President Dick Cheney, Mubarak

was a “good friend and ally” of the USA (Blood 2011). Indeed, the Obama

administration was markedly slow and cautious in calling for reforms in Egypt, as

compared to the way America swiftly acted to bolster the protests against Libyan leader

and residual anti-imperialist Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, through forcing a United

Nations Security Council vote on foreign intervention in Libya. Meanwhile, Ben Ali’s

Tunisia was considered as “an ideal US ally” due to Ben Ali’s adherence to “a blend of
neoliberalism that is open to foreign investment, cooperation with American anti-

terrorism by way of extreme rendition of suspects, and strict secularism that translates

into the repression of political expression” which largely benefited US dominance in the

region (Falk, 2011). It is thus not surprising as Yvonne Ridley, a British journalist and

activist who supports the Palestinian struggle for an independent homeland, has

remarked on the American response to the police-directed violence against Tunisians

who rose up against Ben Ali, that "(n)ot one word of condemnation, not one word of

criticism, not one word urging restraint came from Barack Obama or Hilary Clinton as

live ammunition was fired into crowds of unarmed men, women, and children." Prior to

Obama’s election, former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld even considered Tunisia

as a “democracy.”

Armed Forces of Whom?: Tyrants, Soldiers and the People

Aside from the long-time backing of successive US regimes (which was

withdrawn only after protests against the two dictatorships have become too massive to

be ignored), the tyrannies of Ben Ali and Mubarak were propped up by a small elite akin

to Louis XVI’s French First Estate. However, it must be emphasized that in the case of

the French Revolution, segments of the First Estate clamored for reforms even before

the Revolution, unlike the elite of Egypt and Tunisia who belatedly joined the chorus of

the uprisings after everyone’s sure that the dictators are about to fall from power. In the

case of Egypt, “the military and internal security, along with the ruling party and an

emerging business elite, have formed the core of an establishment” that provided solid

support for Mubarak’s dictatorship to last for more than three decades (Al Jazeera
2011). In the last days of the Mubarak regime, the Egyptian military declared its

neutrality, in contrast with the Parisian National Guard which immediately sided with the

French revolutionaries. Until now, a number of Egyptians remain apprehensive that the

generals (who were appointed by Mubarak) are still influenced by the old regime’s

autocratic schemes.

Mubarak relied mainly on the then highly-efficient State Security Investigation

Service (SSI) to maintain his tight grip on power. The SSI has at least 100,000

employees and “a large network of informants” (Al Jazeera 2011). Like the infamous

royal prison in Bastille in Louis XVI’s France, the SSI symbolizes the political repression

which Mubarak unleashed for decades against his own people. On March 2011, due to

the Egyptian people’s resolute demands, the post-Mubarak regime was compelled to

dissolve the SSI which the Mubarak dictatorship utilized to gather intelligence data on

dissenters. SSI offices were also used to subject dissenters to torture and long-term

imprisonment. Along with “the annulment of (the) emergency law, the parliamentary

oversight of security apparatuses, and the formation of a reconciliation commission,” the

“dismantling of the SSI,” is a necessary step to enable Egypt to undergo democratic

transition (Ashour 2011). Prior to the dissolution of the dreaded SSI, Egyptian citizens

raided various SSI offices and seized vital documents and other pieces of evidences

which will be used to prosecute Mubarak and his proteges for human rights violations

and electoral fraud. The successful prosecution of people identified with the Mubarak

dictatorship will help future academics decide whether the Egyptian revolution is a

genuine one. As of this writing, Egyptian prosecutors are yet to indict Mubarak and his
men, except for Habib al-Adly, the former interior minister who’s “now on trial for

corruption” (Carlstrom 2011).

Meanwhile, to provide a tinge of legality to his totally outrageous tyranny, Ben Ali

used a draconian Anti-Terrorism Law to jail his opponents. Furthermore, his regime

curtailed the people’s internet access by engaging in a wholesale blockade of websites

seen as critical of Ben Ali or were utilized by dissenters in their various campaigns. An

Agence France Presse (AFP) report (2011) observed that Ben Ali “consolidated his rule

by muzzling the opposition, keeping strong control of the media and armed forces and

gradually extending the number of terms he is allowed to serve under the constitution.”

Ben Ali’s tyrannical apparatus was so effective that even after his ouster, it was never

hurled aside by the “national coalition government” formed by main opposition parties

who battled Ben Ali. Indeed, the national coalition government seemed to utilize Ben

Ali’s very own “repressive apparatuses” in preventing the fiercely anti-dictatorship

Communist Workers’ Party of Tunisia (PCOT) and Tunisia’s largest Islamist party, al-

Nahda, which also mobilized its forces against Ben Ali, from joining the so-called

“national coalition government” (Ryan 2011).

Political Reforms and Economic Stagnation

To ultimately judge the legitimacy of a revolution, its immediate effects must be

brought to light. In the case of the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings, political reforms

have been implemented but the huge socio-economic gap between the richest and the

poorest segments of the populace remains unchanged. Tunisia is now ruled by aging

interim civilian officials and handpicked cabinet members while Egypt is governed by a
military junta that made a promise to hold a parliamentary election a few months after

Mubarak’s ouster. In Egypt, the much dreaded Mubarak-era State Security Investigation

Service (SSI) was dismantled while in Tunisia, Ben Ali’s party, the “Rally for

Constitutional Democracy (RCD)” was dissolved by a Tunisian court more than a month

after Ben Ali’s ouster. Furthermore, under the military junta’s leadership, Egyptian

voters approved a nine-item package of constitutional amendments which include the

restoration of full judicial oversight for the entire electoral process, from voter

registration to the announcement of results; setting of a maximum of two terms for the

president; establishment of safeguards on the declaration of a state of emergency (the

president can still declare a state of emergency but a parliamentary majority would have

to approve the declaration within seven days; and, if the president seeks to extend it

beyond six months, it would be subject to a public referendum); and scrapping of a

constitutional provision which Mubarak used to justify arrests and interrogations

conducted without any judicial oversight (Al Jazeera 2011). Seven months after

Mubarak’s ouster, Egypt is set to hold a parliamentary election and the ruling military

junta promised to lift the country’s Mubarak-era emergency laws before the vote.

Meanwhile, in the second week of March, the interim president of Tunisia, Fouad

Mebazza announced that his countrymen will elect members of a constituent assembly

tasked to rewrite the constitution and usher the era of transition to democracy after Ben

Ali’s ouster. These calculated political reforms are reminiscent of the very political

reforms implemented by French revolutionaries to safeguard the rights of the common

man. Unfortunately, the pressing need to defend the French Revolution against the

reactionary forces bolstered by foreign troops from Louis XVI’s fellow reactionary
monarchs in Europe, compelled the French revolutionaries to temporarily set aside

some of these political reforms (such as the democratization of government). A similar

penchant for prioritizing national interest, security and stability exists in the mindsets of

interim Egyptian and Tunisian officials who are very reluctant in accelerating the

democratization of government through the total and complete obliteration of the

security apparatuses established by the ousted despots. Just like the leaders of the

then-fledgling French Republic, they seem to be willing to sacrifice a few political

liberties for the sake of national stability. It must be noted that in Egypt, Mubarak’s

emergency laws are still in effect and the Constitution is virtually suspended (for military

rule is technically prohibited in the Mubarak Constitution), while in Tunisia, the national

military and the police are yet to be cleansed of die-hard Ben Ali loyalists.

Meanwhile, in the economic aspect, the Egyptian and Tunisian uprisings have

failed or at least are failing. Al Jazeera'

s Nazanine Moshiri, in a video report, remarked

that “little has changed,” and “rebellion still hangs in the air” in the town of Gafsa, a

phosphate-rich region where citizens revolted against Ben Ali in 2008 due to lack of

progress and development despite the superficial industrialization of the Tunisian

countryside. Fast forward to 2011, after the Tunisian uprising, citizens of Gafsa “feel

disconnected” from the developments in the capital city of Tunis and they still “feel a

deep sense of injustice,” for, while Ben Ali’s hated policemen and soldiers were gone (or

have at least become civil and docile), poverty, unemployment and lack of financial

opportunities remain. In Egypt, even after the ouster of Mubarak, labor organizations

hold mobilizations for better wages and working conditions. Workers held strikes in

textile mills, banks, public transportation and several other sectors of the economy,
highlighting the inconvenient truth that the insufficient minimum monthly wage of just six

dollars remains stagnant. Carlstrom (2011) theorizes that in the coming weeks and

months, the tension between the military that “has promised changes,” with a"back to

work" order to “restore much of the status quo” on the one hand, and the “energetic,

organised protest movement, which does not entirely trust the military and will continue

to agitate for far-reaching reforms” such as what labor organizations have been

demanding on the other hand, will definitely explode and consequently determine the

direction that the new Egyptian society will take.

Thus, it is now clear that while politically, reforms have been implemented in

Egypt and Tunisia after the ouster of Ben Ali and Mubarak, economically, the social

upheavals in these two countries remain inutile in addressing the pressing need for

economic reforms that will once and for all wipe out or at least, bridge the gap between

the richest and the poorest segments of the populace. The Egyptians and Tunisians

have achieved “freedom” so far, but the battle for “bread” is yet to be won. De

Tocqueville’s statement (trans. Gilbert 1955, p 169) on why some people enjoy and/or

can endure “freedom” (political democratization) even without “bread” (economic

democratization) is instructive: “Some nations have freedom in the blood and are ready

to face the greatest perils and hardships in its defense. It is not for what it offers on the

material plane that they love it; they regard freedom itself as something so precious, so

needful to their happiness that no other boon could compensate for its loss, and its

enjoyment consoles them even in their darkest hours.” Within the context of the

definition of revolution given by DeFronzo, Marx and Engels, the Egyptian and Tunisian

upheavals are uprisings at the very least or incomplete revolutions at the very most.
Perhaps at this time, the Tunisians and Egyptians are contented with their “freedom”

and the battle for “bread” could wait, or will that final battle come unexpected and in a

spontaneous manner just the way the current upheavals caught most people

unprepared and left them baffled? Whatever happens, Vive la Révolution!

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