Euro-Asian Jewish Congress (EAJC) Secretary General, Professor Michael Chlenov on the roots and possible consequences of the revolutions in Arabic countries.

For the last month, the entire world, including its Jewish sector, has been intensely and worriedly watching the storm of revolutions that has engulfed the Near East, The old liberal and democratic background of Russian Jews prompts many to sympathize with the masses that suddenly dared to go out onto the streets and yell menacingly to their rulers, “Away with you!” In this manner, Natan Sharansky, a one-man symbol of the wonderful, if almost entirely forgotten here, independent Jewish movement of the USSR, is one of the few Israelis who sees in these events a democratic impulse, the will of the people, which is beautiful in itself despite its consequences.

For many others, worry takes precedence over euphoria. Everyone is wondering about the answer to the question, “what it will all end with?” Nobody knows the answer yet, including the dramatis personae of the Arabic drama. It should be noted that revolutions have their own rules – they almost never end with the victory of freedom, equality, and brotherhood. To use the terms of the mother of all revolutions, the French revolution of 1793, after the first Jacobite explosion, which can be more or less bloody, follows a corrupted Thermidorian reaction, and after it, to the blaring of brass trumpets of war, Brumaire; after Brumaire there is usually a Restoration, and after that, no less often the next stage of the revolution. There are many examples – and the three Russian revolutions, one in 1905, and two more in 1917, and the Soviet revolution of 1988-1992, which had the same scenario, and the Ukrainian Orange revolution of 2004, which ended in a Brumaire-Thermidorc farce, and the Iranian revolution of 1979, and many, many others.

On those rare occasions when revolutions end well and more or less correspond to the goals of those who inspired them, like the Portugal Carnation Revolution of 1974, an external power must exist that would “involve” the revolutionary country, invite and integrate it into an existing democratic structure, in this case, the European Union. It is unlikely that the yet-raging hurricane of Arabian revolution will end in this manner.

What draws attention to itself in this situation is that this does not look like a prepared event, but as a real explosion of the people's anger. The absence of meaningful political, or even social or economic slogans, of organized political forces, parties, or movements with their own demands and programs is astounding. There is only a scream, “Enough! Out with you!” What does this scream mean for us? Is it good or bad for the Jews, as the wise Jewish grandmother, heroine of our tales, always asks? These is no clear answer to this question yet, either.

Many are afraid that Islamists will come to power. Many think – and not without reason – that it will all end in the appearance of new military juntas and dictatorships. Many are afraid that the new Near East will be even more hostile to Israel than the current one, that the peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan will be denounced. Many await the collapse of the entire world system of distribution of hydrocarbonic energy materials, the closing of the Suez Canal, and other possible catastrophic consequences... Today it is too early to speak of this in particular. One thing is clear – the geopolitical situation in the Near East that formed after World War II is rapidly changing. And the Jewish world must be, as it has often been in our history, ready for anything. For now we must follow what is happening.