

The Arab uprisings of 2011 are like the European revolutions of 1848 - JacobAldridge
http://www.slate.com/id/2285696/

======
jsm386
Instead of trying to draw parallels to one wave or another, just recognize
that it seems like we are in the midst of a revolutionary wave. These things
happen every so often: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_wave>

The Wiki article is in the context of Marxism; I never learned this concept
from that POV but the concept holds.

It's interesting to see the roles different technologies have played in these
waves. Go back to 1848 and the industrial revolution and resulting
urbanization are certainly one of many causes.

SMS played a key organizing role in the Color revolutions, especially in
Ukraine. And now we're seeing Twitter/Facebook play a role. I think some
people are exaggerating that role, but the role is there.

------
valjavec
In 1848 people were just tired and full of anger for the "world" they were
living in.

In 2011 people are not just tired and full of anger for the countries they're
living in, but they also have communication they never had before, which means
they can work with each other, and organize efficiently as they never could in
past (anyone watched 300 movie how small but coordinated army defeated big
one?).

I wouldn't dare to predict what will happened in those countries after
revolutions, but I dare to predict many more countries where people are tired
of same bullshit years over years will take same path.

~~~
tarmstrong
> but they also have communication they never had before

Funny you say that. People in 1848 also had "communication they never had
before," and they could "organize efficiently as they never could in past".

From _1848: Year of Revolution_ by Mike Rapport:

> The speed with which the wave of revolutions swept across

> Europe was due to the wonders of modern technology. In

> 1789 it took weeks for news – carried, at its fastest, on

> horseback or under sail – for the fall of the Bastille to

> be relayed across Central and Eastern Europe. In 1848,

> thanks to steamships and a nascent telegraph system,

> reports were being heard within days or even minutes.

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jleyank
Hopefully, not quite like 1848, as those revolutions didn't go anywhere.
Things are different now (more religious issues, more communication, ...), and
they seem to go faster. Hopefully, people there get what they want (and
remember, it might not be what YOU want).

~~~
lkozma
In most of Central-Eastern Europe 1848 removed the last traces of feudalism,
catalysed the "awakening" of nations, leading to the formation of nation-
states some decades later. The nationalism ignited in 1848 is such a strong
force until today that we find it hard to imagine what was before that. 1848
in Hungary turned into a war of independence from Austria, which although
defeated, led to the formation of Austria-Hungary, a largely multiethnic
entity, with relative stability and strong growth for half a century, but
which proved to be unsustainable and whose breakup ignited the first world war
(EDIT: the end of which sew the seeds of a further world war which had inside
the germs of the cold war that would follow, etc. etc.)

~~~
yread
Austria-Hungary was established in 1867

~~~
Vivtek
That was the formalization. Hungarian independence in 1848 was the catalyst
(and is still celebrated today; I'm pretty sure that's March 17, but there are
so damn many significant dates in 1000 years of Hungarian history that I
frankly can't remember half of them).

The Hungarian independence of 1848 was really pretty damned cool, actually. It
would have changed the world had it survived.

------
Vivtek
A single event in Europe two decades ago? "The abrupt withdrawal of Soviet
support for the local dictator?" True of, what, _one country_? Romania?

Bah. The European 80's/90's were just as complex and messy as 1848.

~~~
ugh
The point is probably that the withdrawal of Soviet support is what connects
all the revolutions in 1989 and 1990. Soviet tanks no longer came rolling in
and crushed the revolts like before, in 1953 (East Germany), 1956 (Hungary)
and 1968 (Czechoslovakia). There is, like in 1848, no such a central fact that
connects all Arab revolutions.

I think that’s a pretty superficial search for similarities. We don’t yet know
how the revolutions will work out and there are not that many examples in the
history of revolutions spreading from one country to the next like wildfire.
(I can actually only think of 1848 and 1989/1990. Does anyone know more?) To
what extent comparisons to 1848 and 1989/1990 make sense at all is certainly
questionable.

~~~
Vivtek
I know that's the point, but it's wrong - nobody knew what the USSR was going
to do in 1989. I know, I was living in Germany and marrying a Hungarian wife
that year, and when the border guards in Hungary said to each other one fine
summer day that it wasn't their job to keep vacationing East Germans bottled
up away from Western Europe, and that if East Germany had a problem with that
they could just come over here and say that, neener neener - none of that had
anything to do with the USSR.

And aside from Romania, there _weren't_ any dictators in the story. Hungary
had had something like a Brezhnev figure in the 70's, but he was long gone by
1989 and there was just a Parliament. Same with East Germany - there was a
Heimatssicherheitsamt (just a little joke there) but there was certainly no
dictator.

And the crucial point is this - nobody knew that the USSR was going to wither
up and blow away. This _caused_ the USSR to wither up and blow away - it could
very well have happened that the tanks _would_ have rolled in by Christmas,
but instead, the trucks rolled out and east.

In 1956, things worked exactly in this same manner - the people revolted, and
only after a couple of months did the tanks roll in. (My mother-in-law was 10.
She told me some stories. It will fry your American brain to realize your
mother-in-law was playing next to stacked bodies one winter).

And actually in 1848 it was a similar situation.

Here, the expectation is that America's tanks will roll in - or at least their
bombers will scream by overhead. They're not going to, though - and in that
point, this wave is very, very much like 1989/90 in Europe. Each individual
country has its own story. Some had people with their backs up against the
wall, others just ... merged with their cousins.

To your second point - our own Revolution sparked off a few, France being one
of them. And the European empires in Africa all fell within a few years of one
another. When it happens, it changes maps.

~~~
MaysonL
Actually, Gorbachev had given a speech at the previous Warsaw Pact convention
where he explicitly said that the USSR would no longer give military support
to other Pact countries facing uprisings. After that, it was just a matter of
time till the Iron Curtain fell (or Gorbachev was deposed).

~~~
Vivtek
Well, Gorbachev had said so, sure. And Gorbachev could _very_ well have come
down with a really bad cold that autumn. Lucky for all of us (Gorbachev
included), he actually managed to convince his hardliners - or things really
_were_ that iffy in the Soviet Union.

------
JacobAldridge
When I studied modern history in High School our text book was called
'Frankfurt to Fra Mauro'. Fra Mauro was a landing site on the moon (where
Apollo 13 was headed, iirc); Frankfurt referred to the convention in 1848
which attempted to combine the German-speaking principalities and
nationalities into a unified 'Germany'.

While it didn't create that outcome (it took 23 more years), I guess the book
saw that event (and similar European attempts in the same time period, with
less alliteration) as being a key starting point. Of course, I'm not convinced
current uprisings are comparable, (or aren't comparable for that matter, see
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2239018>) but it's an interesting
discussion.

------
phreeza
Cringely made a similar point last week.
<http://www.cringely.com/2011/02/metternich-and-mubarak/>

------
wazoox
Similar reference to 1848 here: <http://www.amconmag.com/blog/dont-party-like-
its-1989/>

------
presidentender
I wrote about this last week: <http://zerogov.com/?p=1538>

------
petervandijck
There's a kind of hidden sense of superiority in this statement. Plus, it's
wrong.

~~~
allenp
The opening paragraph of the article (since you just read the headline on
hackernews apparently):

"Each revolution must be assessed in its own context, each had a distinctive
impact. The revolutions spread from one point to another. They interacted to a
limited extent. … The drama of each revolution unfolded separately. Each had
its own heroes, its own crises. Each therefore demands its own narrative …"

~~~
petervandijck
I was referring to the statement in the title, yes - it makes it seem as if
those countries are now finally having the revolutions we had a long time ago,
which is not what's going on (clearly).

