The question that sits most on my mind is one of the roles that icons and idols play in the revolutionary memory, and in the success (or failure) of revolt. This line from the Kapuscinski’s Shah of Shahs especially stands out when considering the idea: “He did not understand that even though you can destroy a man, destroying him does not make him cease to exist. On the contrary, if I can put it this way, he begins to exist all the more.” (Kapuscinski 32)
Gandhi, the icon of Indian independence and the Partition of India. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, icons of the Civil Rights movement. Khomeini and Mossadegh, icons of opposing sides of Iranian politics. My question is two-fold: first, would these movements have had the impact they did without these icons at the head of the movements? And second, would these movements have the legacy that they do today without these iconic names to tie these histories to? It’s a question of hope and of memory, of how challenging, chaotic events find the hope necessary to continue fighting, and how we remember these events happening.
These names serve as cues that spark a certain emotion, one that changes as time and place do. The name George Washington may incite a sense of American pride, of the founding of an American Dream, as much as it may provoke a memory of the racist, genocidal foundation that the dream is founded on. I always heard of Mahatma Gandhi as an icon of peace and unity but gained an interesting perspective on the controversy behind his legacy while living in India with a Sikh Punjabi family.
I don’t yet know how to answer my own questions, but the evidence seems to point towards icons and especially those who witness these icons and idols as a crucial and ubiquitous element of any mass revolt, both in the moment of revolt and in the memory of that moment.
“You are witnesses of these things.” Luke 24:48
The thought of whether or not a solid central leader or symbol is necessary for a successful revolution is something I’ve been thinking about also and have not been able to solve.
In the case of the Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King Jr., maybe MLK is stronger in association to the success of the movement the longer time passes, due to how much easier it is to look at changes in history attributed to individuals rather than the combination of many efforts. I would argue that the strength of the movement was the work done by various grassroots organizations with projects across the south working to educate African Americans and empower them to start voting. Ella Baker was a strong proponent of these small, grassroots movements on a community level having the greatest influence on the overall success of the movement. After all, while MLK’s “I Have a Dream Speech,” was compelling, that in itself surely was not enough to convince African Americans in the South to risk their lives to vote or to protest.
However, though MLK’s work may not have mobilized the movement for those involved or directly impacted the movement, his ability to symbolize the movement and paint it in a non-violent light did impact the way the movement was received by the white population and popular media, which may have had a significant effect on the success of the movement (ie Johnson’s willingness to support the movement and create the Civil Rights Act of 1964).
http://www.azquotes.com/author/795-Ella_Baker
http://izquotes.com/quote/337642
I like yourself, find these questions interesting. I find your use of the term “revolutionary memory” in framing your post very apt. The deification of revolutionary idols is a process that occurs both during and after a revolution.
During a revolution, this sort of mythmaking surrounding a cult of personality clearly has practical use in mobilizing support for a movement. People are drawn to other people, especially charismatic and courageous individuals, and often find more strength in other people than a specific ideology. The mythmaking surrounding the magical slave Makandal in this week’s reading about Haiti presents an apt example of how the tales, fiction or not, surrounding one individual served as a powerful motivating force for other slaves.
As our class discussed last week, when the revolution ends, a whole new set of trials and tribulations begin. The task of solidifying a political and social structure among a populace that still has the aftertaste of radical change in its mouth is daunting. In this scenario, the deification of revolutionary figures serves create a sense of reverence in the population for the revolutionary or the organization associated with them. Khomeini’s post-revolutionary, government in Iran, for example, clearly is incredibly incentivized to downplay factions like the leftists’ contribution to the revolutionary effort in exchange for self-glorification to centralize authority within his control. History is, as the classic phrase goes, written by the winners, and in an authority vacuum following a revolution the winners certainly have a strong incentive to.