Watching the dominoes of corrupt regimes topple in and around north Africa has been fun. Tunisians got their regime change; Egyptians got their regime change; Libyans got a murderous reaction, but one which promises to harden the opposition rather than destroy it; Saudis are now gathering to make their push.
It’s fun, upbeat news for the US populace! As long as events remain far away, it’s easy to glance over and decide it’s all a narrative of the unstoppable force of popular democracy. Popular democracy is a virtue we like to pretend this country still embraces, rather than leaving it ignored on a shelf of memorabilia, and it’s easy to pretend that the US is still the shining beacon of inspiration for democracy everywhere, so their victory is really our victory. As long as the violence and disruptions and very real fears that come with enacting revolution are far away, along with the frustrations of rebuilding a toppled government, it’s all happy news.
And that’s fine, as far as it goes. Populist democracy should be celebrated wherever it grows. That’s no excuse, however, for overlooking the far more important narrative of how the rebuilding goes. Tunisians got their regime change, yes. But did it work? Does it look likely to work, since it’s early yet for the whole governmental infrastructure to be reworked? And how will the democratic movements tackle the underlying economic problems that triggered revolution, presuming they get a working government in place? Those are issues every bit as important, interesting, and above all instructive as the initial question of whether the corrupt old tyrant gets swept out of office. Yet news concerning these matters is disappointingly difficult to come buy, here in America.
It’s symptomatic of a general public retreat from participation in our own government and our own social policy, and most especially of the shallowness of news coverage deriving from the pressures of the 24-hour news cycle and the monetizing of journalism, that we should hear delighted reports of good guys winning in north Africa, yet no reports of what they won. Watching good guys kick out the bad guys is fun; watching how to make democracy work isn’t fun. Or, if your of a cynical turn of mind, dangerous information, even here in America, for the rubes to have.
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