Stop Seeking To Claim Arab Revolution

Reading much of the commentary on the revolutions in the Arab world I have grown irate at the insolent effort by the far-left and fanatical Islamists to claim the popular uprisings for their own fringe causes.

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The impertinence of such a claim is an affront to the decent people in Egypt and Tunisia who have given their lives and the countless more who braved brutal oppression to stand for their freedom and dignity.

But the far-left and fundamentalists groups have both immediately seized on such revolutions to claim them as their victories. It is not surprising why. Such extreme groups have no mainstream followers anywhere and cannot point to popular momentum in any nation so they opportunistically seek to put their stamp on popular revolutions which are undefined in their ideology. Since the people or Tunisia and Egypt spoke only in general terms about justice, freedom and dignity without claiming a left, or right, or fundamentalist vision every single lackey can come along and say that talk about justice was really all about opposition to neo-liberalism, as the far-left would have it, and the Islamists and say that justice really means a longing for Shari'a or Islamic law.

This is, of course, absurd. What allowed the demonstrators to gain strength in both nations was precisely because they were not ideologically driven. A fundamentalist or far-left movement would have scared off the middle class, women and minorities and without their support such a revolution would have never happened. The protests were driven by average people who, akin to most, are not ideologically fanatics. Only a few in every society will ever be devoted to the writings of Marx or Hassan al-Banna. Most will never even read them. The protests were not about ideology, the people do not care about this or that extreme vision, they were revolutions were people wanted basic freedom so breath as their conscience permits and to improve their lot in life: rule of law, civil liberties, economic opportunity and democracy. These were not revolutions of the French order, a radical reworking of society, but of the more modest American variety: maintaining customs and institutions but liberalizing them in accordance with democratic principles.

The overwhelming majority of the people are not looking for an Iranian or Cuban-style revolution, but simply a liberal cleft in the nation alongside economic reform. It is about transition not a radical overhaul.

But the far-left are Utopians and the Islamists are fanatics who dream of remaking whole societies in their image, no matter the death and destruction along that path. So they cling to their delusions that these revolutions are about them. It is anything but. No one is clamoring for such nightmares.

And it is about time that they show some common decency and not seek to audaciously and opportunistically claim that these revolutions vindicate any of their beliefs. As if to usurp something which they had no role in making happen. It is simply grotesque to pretend that such extremists speak for the will of the people, and made egregious still considering that many people lost their lives. But that's what extremists do.

The rest of us should let them know where to get off. Tunisians have already dismissed the far-left and Islamists as the kooks they are. Egyptians likewise.