Anne Applebaum: Channeling Egypt's Energy of the Crowd into Positive Change
[Anne Applebaum is a columnist for the WaPo.]
I didn't have a pen in hand when I heard the broadcast from Cairo over the weekend, and I didn't write down the precise words used by a woman demonstrator, interviewed at length by a BBC radio journalist, just after she heard the news of Hosni Mubarak's resignation. But I remember the sentiments with great precision: Exhilaration, excitement, elation, euphoria. She was proud to be an Egyptian. She had never thought it was possible that Egyptians could achieve so much. Her life had changed forever: She had helped force the Egyptian dictator from office, and nothing would ever be the same again....
A letdown is inevitable. Disappointment in the slow pace of post-revolutionary change cannot be avoided. Historically, the months following a revolution can therefore be more dangerous than the revolution itself. The dissatisfaction with the February Russian revolution of 1917 led to the Bolshevik coup d'etat in October. In France, the mob kept resurrecting itself in the years following 1789 (a tradition which continues into the present).
Disaster and dictatorship are not inevitable, but if Egypt is to avoid either a coup d'etat or a return to mob rule, the soldiers now ruling the country will have to do more than send everyone home. As Le Bon understood, the essence of crowd euphoria is the feeling that one is part of something greater than oneself. Now the country's leaders must help channel all of that enthusiasm into institutional change, not next month or next year but right now....
Read entire article at WaPo
I didn't have a pen in hand when I heard the broadcast from Cairo over the weekend, and I didn't write down the precise words used by a woman demonstrator, interviewed at length by a BBC radio journalist, just after she heard the news of Hosni Mubarak's resignation. But I remember the sentiments with great precision: Exhilaration, excitement, elation, euphoria. She was proud to be an Egyptian. She had never thought it was possible that Egyptians could achieve so much. Her life had changed forever: She had helped force the Egyptian dictator from office, and nothing would ever be the same again....
A letdown is inevitable. Disappointment in the slow pace of post-revolutionary change cannot be avoided. Historically, the months following a revolution can therefore be more dangerous than the revolution itself. The dissatisfaction with the February Russian revolution of 1917 led to the Bolshevik coup d'etat in October. In France, the mob kept resurrecting itself in the years following 1789 (a tradition which continues into the present).
Disaster and dictatorship are not inevitable, but if Egypt is to avoid either a coup d'etat or a return to mob rule, the soldiers now ruling the country will have to do more than send everyone home. As Le Bon understood, the essence of crowd euphoria is the feeling that one is part of something greater than oneself. Now the country's leaders must help channel all of that enthusiasm into institutional change, not next month or next year but right now....