The Arab Spring and our lingering hangover

As everyone knows by now, with snickering glee, Mitt Romney rushed to the microphones to blame Barack Obama for the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi and the death of American Ambassador Chris Stevens.  The initial reaction to Romney's opportunistic attack was swift and condemning.  The media and even members of Romney's own party cringed and criticized Romney.

But now, a new wave of commentary has begun to wonder if Obama did, in fact, fail in some way.  That, through a mishandling of the Arab Spring, Obama, without intending to, laid a foundation for the violence in Benghazi and Cairo.    In his speech to the U.N. General Assembly today, Obama's begins to provide an answer, and that answer, while incomplete, for obvious political and diplomatic reasons, is worth paying attention to.  Obama said:

(T)here will be huge challenges to come with a transition to democracy, I am convinced that ultimately government of the people, by the people, and for the people is more likely to bring about the stability, prosperity, and individual opportunity that serve as a basis for peace in our world....And yet the turmoil of recent weeks reminds us that the path to democracy does not end with the casting of a ballot...That brand of politics -- one that pits East against West, and South against North, Muslims against Christians and Hindu and Jews -- can’t deliver on the promise of freedom. To the youth, it offers only false hope. Burning an American flag does nothing to provide a child an education. Smashing apart a restaurant does not fill an empty stomach. Attacking an embassy won’t create a single job. That brand of politics only makes it harder to achieve what we must do together: educating our children, and creating the opportunities that they deserve; protecting human rights, and extending democracy’s promise. 

What Obama doesn't unpack with care is that this type of politics almost always follows a transition to democracy, and the proper reaction to it isn't disengagement, or knee-jerk defensive posturing, but stepping forward to help build institutions and civil society.   

Jack Snyder, a political scientist at Columbia University, has argued with eloquence and effective evidence that new democracies often produce violence, rather than harmony, at least in the span of their initial, difficult years.  As Snyder phrases it:

(U)nder conditions of incipient democratization, the increased openness of public debate often fosters nationalist mythmaking and ethnic conflict because opportunistic governmental and nongovernmental elites exploit partial monopolies of supply, segmented demand, and the weakness of regulatory institutions in the marketplace of ideas.

In other words, politicians, seeking votes from anxious and inexperienced voters, choose to play on the passions and fears of the population, to exaggerate and exploit divisions between groups.  To build electoral majorities, unprincipled political elites position themselves as protectors of a way of life, a set of cultural traditions, that, in their self-serving narrative, are portrayed as threatened by political opponents.  Examples are everywhere.  In 1995, as Yugoslavia came apart, Serbian politicians seized on economic crisis and political uncertainty to promote the ethnic scapegoating of Bosnian Muslims and Croatians. One year before, in 1994, Hutus in Rwanda, faced with the prospect of democratizing reforms, initiated a genocidal campaign that killed 800,000 Rwandans.

The Arusha Accords in August 1993 brought an agreement for peace between warring factions – mainly Hutus and Tutsis - in Rwanda. The agreement created the promise of a new, open competitive political system with free elections.  It also provided for the return of Rwandan expatriates in neighboring countries.

These two developments threatened to overturn the political rule of the ruling Hutu political elite. The Hutu government was corrupt; its rule was based on the distribution of benefits to political mediators who rallied support in the rank-and-file. Much like today's Republican Party.  The Hutu leadership held no genuine ideals. If political competition in the new landscape mapped out by the peace accords was based on ideals and the redemption of politics, the ruling elites were doomed. To survive, they had to shift the terms of debate to identity and authenticity: Who was more genuinely "Rwandan?" Who was most authentically "like" the great majority of the population?  This meant creating a link between Hutu identity and the "authenticity" of Rwandaness. This was the origin of Hutu Power. The state and its allies in civil society converted all types of social institutions - local government, churches, soccer clubs, radio stations, and so forth - into outlets for mobilizing support for Hutu Power, which was actually designed to be a force for preserving the rule of the existing, narrowly-constituted political leadership.

What this history, and many other examples, should show us is that democracy, when new, is tumultuous and violent, and unpredictable.  We shouldn't be surprised that the Arab Spring has brought with it a Summer, Autumn, and, very likely, Winter of discontent.  Our response should be an international aid campaign, designed to build new political institutions, civility, and new expectations about what politics should aim to achieve.