Last week, I posted a long piece in which I argued that the accelerating collapse of the authoritarian regimes across the Arab world was grounded not—as Glenn Beck would have it—on some well-organized conspiracy run by Google and Facebook, but on the collapse of the legitimacy of those regimes.
And now we have, perhaps, Libya. One thing I did not mention last week, but am reminded of today, is the endurance of these regimes. Mubarak succeeded Sadat who had succeeded Nasser for a span of over 50 years. The ruler of Tunisia had lasted for 23 years. The leader of Yemen has been in power for more than 30 years. And now, Qadaffi, has been in power for 40 years.
One interesting component of this list is that in demographic terms, all of these people came to power over a generation—or more—ago. More than half of their citizens have likely never known a different leader. More, they have no emotional connection to the regime’s founding myth: its story of colonial resistance, or of shared sacrifice in wars with Israel or other nations, or any other narrative the regime has used to ground its legitimacy.
Instead, all such persons know is the regime’s corruption and repression. They know they have to give bribes to get anything, and that their prospects in life are never going to get any better. All they know is that the regime operates as George Orwell has O’Brien describe Big Brother operating: “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.” (George Orwell, 1984.)
I hope Libya can break that image, and with as little violence as might be even imaginable. Those old regimes have lost whatever vestige of legitimacy they had left. Now it’s just a matter of whether or not the thugs win.
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