I do not like the concept of anything being inevitable. To an extent, revolutions (or any other past event) seem destined to occur because–well–they did occur. But even the things this class has thus far identified as making a revolution successful are so circumstantial despite appearing across multiple case studies that they should not be treated as part of a universal pattern.
While the case of Iran presents us with an unstable regime making poor long term decisions, it took the shady death of Ayatollah Khomeini’s eldest son, a long, public mourning process, and the political will of individuals to turn such protected processes into agents of political change in order to spark revolution. In Haiti, it took a unique set of social and economic circumstances that placed large amounts of slaves (many of whom were belligerents recently in Africa) alongside a free black population that was treated unequally from its white counterparts along with a revolution back in France to make change viable. Though these descriptions are simplistic and generalize the narratives, they begin to demonstrate how revolutions are products of situationally unique circumstances.
However, such a feeling is hard to reconcile with arguments like Camu’s, which appeal to a latent universal liberal humanity that part of me wants to exist. Yet Haiti proves all to quickly that belligerents on the same side of a revolutionary war can have vastly different interests and motivations. While linked by experience and race, free blacks in Haiti and the elite black class in general saw a post 1791 Haiti that was far different than the image rebelling slaves had. As Jake said in his blog post, the events that prompt revolutionary action are far too “fluid” to categorize them as binary.
I’m curious–and this is cynical–about the extent to which the language of revolution (in the moment) is clouded in universalism as a political ploy to gain support. Do we hear this language because the interests of revolution are far more selfish in nature and thus less accessible to a population large enough to make needed change happen? Is this rhetoric responsible for how we think about revolutions?
“I’m curious–and this is cynical–about the extent to which the language of revolution (in the moment) is clouded in universalism as a political ploy to gain support.”
Wait until we read Havel’s “Power of the Powerless.” There we might make the argument that Havel’s de-revolutionizing rhetoric is in fact a ploy to disguise politics and the mobilization of a despairing public, sick and tired of politics!
I find your critique interesting, and share your cynicism, especially in regards to regimes co-opting the aesthetics of revolutions past in order to fortify their own often despotic rule. These revolutionary ideals serve as perhaps the simplest method to unify a population (as you note even factors like race in post-colonial societies can lead to sharp divisions) and push them to buy into what you describe aptly as “universalism”.
However, I am less skeptical of the presence of this universalism itself than I am of the motives of those currently in power have of instrumentalizing it. I think that a) the at least partial truth of general unifying theories of revolution, such as Camus’ universal human desire for a free existence and b) the tendency of post-revolutionary leaders to arbitrarily justify their regimes actions in revolutionary teleology are not mutually exclusive.
I outline further my concept of revolutions being born out of both universal and individual motivations in my own original post this week. Relevant to this discussion, I think that rulers invoke the often true presence of universal motivators, such as Camu’s description of the desire for emancipation in the context of Haiti being inexplicitly evoked in further Haitian regimes likening their rule to a continuation of this emancipation. However, they simply do this incredibly facetiously. In the end, the sum of these ruling class universalizing rhetorics probably leads to the false aggrandizement of these concepts in the histories of revolutions, but I still think they often did play a significant role outside of being simple tools of propaganda.