{"id":2025,"date":"2011-03-06T18:03:19","date_gmt":"2011-03-06T23:03:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=2025"},"modified":"2011-04-03T20:14:27","modified_gmt":"2011-04-04T00:14:27","slug":"tiananmen-to-tahrir-to-capitol-square","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/?p=2025","title":{"rendered":"Tiananmen to Tahrir to … Capitol Square?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Big Picture Home Page<\/a>\u00a0| Previous Big Picture Column<\/a>\u00a0| Next Big Picture Column<\/a><\/p>\n

Tiananmen to Tahrir to … Capitol Square?<\/h2>\n

Published in the Maryland Daily Record March 14, 2011<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 However it turns out, the confrontation between numberless hordes of demonstrators and the governor at the Wisconsin State Capitol these last couple of weeks illustrates how thoroughly imitation flatters.\u00a0 Undoubtedly the non-stop cast-of-thousands demonstration was modeled on the street uprisings that have swept the Arab world in the last couple of months.\u00a0 But Wisconsin is an adaptation, just as the gatherings at Tahrir Square in Cairo and Pearl Square in Bahrain were adaptations of the unsuccessful Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989<\/a>.\u00a0 For the Capitol Square demonstrators, it is more than a case of using what works; their quotation from the Arabs is also a deliberate rhetorical choice.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Lessons of Tiananmen and Tahrir<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At Tiananmen, the world learned that in a contest between large masses and a government that is willing to massacre its own citizens and has all social institutions behind it, particularly the military, the government wins.\u00a0 Tahrir illustrates the opposite point: the military broke in favor of the demonstrators, and the government fell.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The military was pivotal in each case because in a totalitarian state the laws are always set up so that anyone seeking regime change will have no legitimate means to effect it.\u00a0 One cannot appeal to any independent social institution or branch of government because there are none.\u00a0 There nonetheless has to be a real military in most countries, including, if not particularly, totalitarian ones because almost every country has enemies.\u00a0 So you can dispense with or fake a constitution, a legislature, a supreme court, an electoral commission, but it\u2019s hard to fake an army.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But real militaries tend to be closed societies; once established, they hew to their own mores and rules.\u00a0 Even in totalitarian countries, they function independently to some extent.\u00a0 That\u2019s one reason Stalin put political commissars in each Red Army unit<\/a>, to try to maintain his control.\u00a0 If uncontrolled, the military has veto power over every government.\u00a0 (Just ask Salvador Allende.)<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 However, where the military is neutral, then the people can, as we have witnessed, mobilize themselves as their own branch of government, at least for a while.\u00a0 And I suspect that the visionaries behind the recent Arab uprisings made the bold and correct calculation that the armies in their countries would not act as the Chinese army did at Tiananmen.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Dialogue\u00a0About Legitimacy<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The consistent reaction of the dictators to these uprisings has been furious and dismissive.\u00a0 And the indignation is not all for show; one senses that the despots have come to believe in their own legitimacy.\u00a0 They may well agree with pretty much the entire world that the bedrock source of legitimacy is popular will; they simply believe that they have the popular will at their back.\u00a0 This may seem hard to fathom, since dictators so assiduously cut off all means of bona fide popular political expression.\u00a0 Having disabled the independence of each organ of government to which citizens desiring regime change might turn, having silenced, murdered, or exiled all potential challengers, the despots have still somehow convinced themselves that they speak for their subjects.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This leads to a fascinating dialogue in which the critical argument by the people is the sheer number and representativeness of the crowds which appear on the street.\u00a0 They tell the dictator and his supporters: How can you claim popular support when all of the people are out here?\u00a0 What segment of society, other than your paid cronies, desires that you continue<\/em>?\u00a0 If divisive tactics, ridicule, thugs and weaponry do not dispatch the crowds, if, in other words, the public demonstrates constancy in demanding that the regime go, the regime falls.\u00a0 Once the illegitimacy of the regime has been so forcibly shown, it must go.\u00a0 All social institutions that, had they been independent, might have protected the regime are useless to the regime then, as they have no greater power, authority, or legitimacy than that of the regime which had coopted them.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Thus in the last few weeks we have seen, in a number of countries, the example of extremely large crowds \u2013 call them hypercrowds \u2013 demonstrating, by their sheer bulk and inclusiveness of all of the society\u2019s constituents, that the existing regime speaks for none of then, and hence lacks all legitimacy.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The innovation of the Wisconsin demonstrators has been to take this model and apply it in a situation where the illegitimacy of the regime is a harder case to make.\u00a0 No one can make a serious argument that Gov. Walker or the Republican-led legislature was not duly elected; no one can doubt that if they lost at the next elections, they would step down.\u00a0 Nonetheless, the rhetoric of the hypercrowds borrows from that of the Arab world: If we\u2019re all out here, you must be illegitimate.<\/em>\u00a0 What then is the inchoate theory of illegitimacy?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Union-Busting As A\u00a0Human Rights Violation<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I think the theory comes down to this: in attempting to break the public employee unions, the demonstrators are implicitly arguing, Gov. Walker and the legislature exceed some unstated limitation on their powers.\u00a0 This limitation is not, at least formally speaking, constitutional.\u00a0 No one has suggested that there is anything in the federal or state constitution which prohibits disabling public employee unions.\u00a0 Rather, the demonstrators must be relying a notion that worker organizing is a fundamental human right, akin to expression or association.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This is by no means universally accepted.\u00a0 True, the right to unionize is explicitly recognized in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights<\/a>, a compact the United States has entered.\u00a0 But the Declaration has been deemed precatory only<\/a>, and beyond the power of any court to enforce.\u00a0 (We are, all too frequently, delighted to sign on to ideals with the proviso that we don\u2019t actually plan to live by them.)\u00a0 The Catholic Church also has a century-old tradition of viewing union association as a human right<\/a>.\u00a0 It seems the unionists want the right recognized as fundamental.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If this view prevails, then, whatever is or is not in the constitution, the right to unionize will be recognized as beyond the power of the state to destroy, and not as one of the things Gov. Walker was or could have been elected to obliterate.\u00a0 Hence, to the extent he tries to do so, he will in fact be seen as illegitimate.\u00a0 This is the point the Capitol Square crowds are trying to make with their quotation from the Middle East uprisings.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The opposing viewpoint also supports a fundamental right widely recognized: the right of the populace to control its government.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s a truism most lawyers recognize early on: there\u2019s no such thing as an absolute right, because every right collides with some other right sooner or later.\u00a0 Wisconsin is one of those sooner or laters.\u00a0 Another thing lawyers know is that when rights conflict, a solution that annihilates one of the rights is almost certainly wrong.\u00a0 That is what Gov. Walker is seeking, and why his goal is<\/em> illegitimate.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Might union rights need to be exercised more compliantly with the will of the Wisconsin voters?\u00a0 Most likely.\u00a0 But is it legitimate to destroy the unions in the process?\u00a0 Not if unionizing is a human right.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 And that is the point the Capitol Square crowds are making, as they play by Tahrir Square rules.<\/p>\n

Copyright (c) Jack L. B. Gohn<\/p>\n

The Big Picture Home Page<\/a>\u00a0| Previous Big Picture Column<\/a>\u00a0| Next Big Picture Column<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If the right of public employees to unionize is recognized as a human right, whatever is or is not in the constitution, then it cannot legitimately be one of the things Gov. Walker was elected to obliterate. Hence, to the extent he tries to do so, he will in fact be seen as illegitimate, no matter how legitimately elected. This is the point the Capitol Square crowds are trying to make with their quotation from the Middle East uprisings. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2394,2408,2390,2401,2389,2392,863,630,1798,2397,2406,2396,2402,1763,2404,2400,2403,269,388,877,2391,2405,2398,2399,2387,2386,2388,2407,2395,2393],"class_list":["post-2025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bigpicture","tag-2394","tag-article-23-of-the-universal-declaration-of-human-rights","tag-bahrain","tag-branches-of-government","tag-cairo","tag-capitol-square","tag-catholic-church","tag-chile","tag-china","tag-commisars","tag-constitutional-limitations","tag-demonstrations","tag-despotism","tag-egypt","tag-gov-walker","tag-governmental-legitimacy","tag-governor-scott-walker","tag-human-rights","tag-joseph-stalin","tag-military","tag-pearl-square","tag-public-employee-unions","tag-red-army","tag-salvador-allende","tag-tahrir-square","tag-tiananmen-square","tag-tinanmen-square-uprising","tag-universal-declaration-of-human-rights","tag-wisconsin-state-capitol","tag-wisonsin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2025"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2058,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2025\/revisions\/2058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebigpictureandthecloseup.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}