Reform, revolt, revolutions - Lessons from 1989 (Feature)

By Basil Wegener Feb 2, 2011, 2:06 GMT

Berlin - If the Egyptian government falls, will the revolution be complete?

No one knows for certain what will happen, but the developments in Egypt have awakened memories of the regime changes that took place in East Germany and Eastern Europe in 1989. Demonstrators there also had to overcome their fear of dictators. Some conditions for a successful change can be ascertained in hindsight, even when the circumstances, such as the poverty in Egypt, are completely different.

'Violence appears where power is in jeopardy,' wrote German- American political scientist Hannah Arendt. Is power emerging from the opposition movement that the regime could only confront with sheer violence? Or will the protests ebb away? Can the people ultimately liberate themselves?

Revolutions proceed in phases of mobilization. In the German Democratic Republic a demonstration involving about 500 people in Leipzig on January 15, 1989 marked a change. They gathered in the city's market plaza to demand freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in the first demonstration in years to take place without government permission.

Initially, the East German opposition used the shelter of the church under which they tentatively, but unflinchingly gathered. There was no Facebook or Twitter back then. Instead word-of-mouth propaganda and secretly produced leaflets accelerated the uprising and kept it well lubricated.

Egypt had already taken the step toward mass protest ahead of the current violent demonstrations. Small opposition movements have existed deep in the political landscape for some time. They have been very tentative, but visible. There was a small demonstration at the end of 2004 in front of Cairo University, for example. Tunisia's recent jasmine revolution gave the opposition movement pivotal momentum from the outside.

It was similar in East Germany. Protests there became massive by October 1989 after Poland and Hungary bit by bit cleared old rulers away. The Poles had the Solidarity labour movement, the experience of countrywide strikes and finally a political roundtable from February 1989. By comparison change occurred much more quietly in Hungary where reforms were accompanied by negotiations between those in power and the opposition.

The British historian Timothy Garton Ash attests to the mixture of revolution and reform - what he calls 'refolution' - that took place in those two countries. Many observers say the beginnings of reforms dating back to 2004 are little else than an attempt to solidify power. Can anything different come out of the reform promises of the politically boxed-in President Hosny Mubarak?

In East Germany an westward exodus of tens of thousands of refugees played a role. Their departure from the communist country coincided with demonstrations every Monday in Leipzig that grew larger and larger until October when East German leader Erich Honecker and his closest political allies resigned. Fears that the new leaders would seek a violent end to the protests as the communist government of China had done in June of 1989 at Tiananmen Square turned out to be unfounded.

When the rulers of then Czechoslovakia tried to hold on to power by ordering security forces to beat down a student demonstration in November of 1989, the result was a massive protest and general strike. The government gave in.

What were the reasons for the success of demonstrations in Eastern Europe? Kai-Olaf Lang, a researcher in Berlin, cites several. The protests didn't get out of hand, there was no violence that hardened the opposing sides and no bloody chaos on the streets as in past days in Cairo, Suez, Alexandria and other cities - partially steered from above. And there were no groups with goals outside the desire to form a democratic republic, which might not be the case in Egypt where the Muslim Brotherhood is politically active.

More often movements and new parties in Eastern Europe found themselves successfully able to contain their resentment and form groups that pull the rug from under the radical currents - post communists as reformers, for example. Despite all heterogeneity, the goal of removing the old system united them. And there also was also the closeness of the west, an undertow that came from the European community and that gained strength through cooperation that crossed over borders.

Will the Arab dictators fall like the communists dictators fell? There is no clear answer. 'If Egypt falls, then it is very likely other countries will follow,' said Guido Steinberg, an expert on the Middle East, in an interview. In light of the intransigence of Mubarak, the emphasis is on the word 'if.' Another question is whether dispensing of the old regime would be followed by freedom for the people of Egypt under a democratic system.

Read more about Egypt Unrest

Read more about History