‘Once Upon a Revolution,’ by Thanassis Cambanis
Western coverage of the Arab Spring was often simple-minded, as journalists focused on the dramatic confrontations between the police and protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo or on Libyan militiamen fighting Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s soldiers on the road south of Benghazi. Uprisings were reported like scenes out of “Les Misérables,” with an oppressed people battling a brutal tyranny everywhere from Tunis to Bahrain.
There was nothing culpable about this. Genuine revolutions may seem to succeed at first because they are the unexpected outcome of contradictory forces coming together almost by chance. When the first protest began in Cairo on the morning of Jan. 25, 2011, the demonstrators chanted: “Bread! Freedom! Social Justice! The people demand the fall of the regime.” Up to the last moment the organizers were uncertain that anybody would dare come out onto the streets to support them.
Source: www.nytimes.com