You Say You Want a Revolution?

No matter how hard I try, I can never spell Kyrgyzstan correctly without checking first. I also can't look at the name of the country without at least a little amusement, because I speak English and we have a different consonants-to-vowels ratio in our language than it seems like most central Asian countries have. It would be interesting to do some kind of historical-sociological-linguistical-biological study to determine if there is any reason why some languages have grown up preferring to use the vocal chords to make vowels, while others demonstrate a preference for using teeth, tongue, and lips to make as many consonants in their words as possible. It could be just random.

But the point is that I should put all my amusement aside, because what's going on in this central Asian country that no one can spell is deadly serious. Revolutions always are. I think that, these days, this is an important point to make, because lately it seems like lots of people are in love with the idea of a revolution, worldwide revolution, that will wash away tyranny and install democracy.

With luck, Kyrgyzstan will have a Velvet Revolution, with little or no violence and a seemingly spontaneous installation of a regime that is much better than the one that existed before. Most of the time, though, Jefferson was wrong: a little revolution is usually an ambiguous thing.

Now, you can't help but feel terrific when a popular revolt like this storms the corrupt president's office and throws his presidential chair out the window. It's a terrific story, and, like the people spontaneously tearing down the Berlin Wall in 1989, the pictures are beautiful to look at, not just because they inspire, but because they show courage and hope. They show us at our best.

But you have to be realistic about these revolutions, for the sake of the people that actually live in the places they happen. There will be a government; it will be new, but it will still be a government. Governments are usually corrupt, and often behave violently. It is a rare government that restrains greed and rewards compromise; often, a government is mostly about giving away money to whomever controls the men with guns.

Making a semi-decent government, the kind that won't lock up dissidents without trial and massacre ethnic minorities, is work that cannot be done by throwing anyone's chair out the window. The work of crafting a government that does not suck is done mostly by people arguing at meetings. These meetings are never as inspiring as a man staring down a tank; how could they be? Revolutions are about aspiration and ideals; the work of putting together a government is about compromising away those aspirations and ideals so that people with differing needs and desires can live together. Revolutions are what we dream of being; governance is who we are.

The reason I am always a little scared of revolutions is that, often, the frustration that comes from trying to put a good government together after the revolution leads to more violence. Moreover, tyrants, though evil, are sometimes better than those who replace them at making the milk trucks deliver on time. So there's always the possibility that the old regime will come back; after all, nostalgia can be just as powerful a force as aspiration, especially when your family used to be hungry but now they are starving.

Maybe it really is time, finally, for revolution all over the world. Maybe it's time for a domino effect of democracy, of peaceful revolutions at every corner of the globe. Maybe the twentieth century's growing pains were just the storm the rest of the world had to endure in order to get what we in America have: relative peace, relative welfare, despite our troubles. There's nothing wrong with hoping so.

And it's the privilege of an observer to be skeptical of a revolution; you don't get to choose the times you live in, and no one person creates a revolution. Therefore, I'll hold out hope for Kyrgyzstan, and for another peaceful transition in this season of revolutions in former Soviet republics. I hope they all end in boring meetings. Because you have to fear the day the twenty-first century's version of the guillotine comes rolling down the street; we're a lot better at killing people than we were two hundred years ago.