From 2012: A little patience, please, for the Arab Spring vs the French Revolution

[pampango]

If there was one thing Barack Obama and Mitt Romney agreed on in their foreign policy debate on Monday it was that the Arab Spring has raised a great deal of hope for the cause of world democracy. Where they differed, though, was that while Obama saw the situation as the glass of democracy filling up, Romney saw it as leaking fast. What both Obama and Romney were trying to deal with was the sense of disappointment within the U.S. electorate — and shared throughout much of the West — with the rising chaos in some of the new democracies of the Middle East compounded by the murderousness of the civil war in Syria.

The closest thing to an answer may be found not by looking at Russia, Libya or the new Muslim Brotherhood government in Egypt, but by taking a look back at the history of Western democracies. They didn't exactly grow up overnight.

Take the French Revolution in 1789. With the overthrow of the Bourbon monarchy, freedom beckoned. But political squabbling quickly put an end to democracy and it was overtaken by the Reign of Terror in which tens of thousands were executed, usually by having their heads chopped off. Altogether, since the Revolution, the French have had two emperors, three kings and five republics. France is now a great democracy. But getting there was neither quick nor easy.

So, yes, you Arab Spring watchers, democracies do take time to develop. ... They will not have democracy tomorrow. It may take many years. But it won't take centuries as it has in the past. The trumpets of freedom from cyberspace are simply too strong to be stilled.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/10/24/f-vp-schlesinger.html

It would have been interesting to have a 24-hour news cycle with talking heads and an internet site where we could laugh or cry at the futility of the French as they struggled to overthrow authoritarianism in one form or another for decades after 1789.

[riderinthestorm]

1. But France embraced secularism with a vengeance after their Revolution

I dont think we know how a fascist, theocratic Islamic revolution will play put.

Since Islam is enshrined in virtually all of the new constitutions of those countries who have had an "Arab Spring", its not at all certain that their fate eill be similar to France.

France also didn't have anything like a Wahhabist Saudi Arabia pushing for regressive hyper-religious authoritarian regimes to replace former strong arm, but secular, dictators.