Theodicy attempts for revolution

The peoples of the Arab world seem to have lined up, one after another, for revolution in their own countries. From Tunisia to Egypt, from Libya to Bahrain, from Yemen to Algeria, while demonstrations continue at full intensity in all the countries, each is going through an intensification that will take its place on the world's agenda at the moment of producing a result, as if taking its turn.

These days all eyes are on Libya. Libya's 42-year dictator had advised Mubarak, who had undergone revolution just before him, not to treat the demonstrations with so much tolerance and to punish the demonstrators with the violence they deserved. When his own turn came, he tried to show what he meant. But he showed, as he saw himself, and to everyone, that the road he had chosen only hastened his own departure.

So it turns out that even if the army in Egypt had behaved differently, a different outcome would not have been possible at all. First, it is no longer possible after a certain point to make the soldier to whom the order to display violence has been given obey, because the soldier who is the addressee of this irrational order hesitates to carry it out and gradually changes sides. Second, with the demonstrators' demands having reached this stage, trying to suppress them with violence means nothing other than adding bellows to a fire.

First of all, the people of Libya live in a place where tribal culture is still very intensely lived. In tribal culture, shedding blood has an absolute price, and from the moment blood is shed, cleansing the blood becomes a separate cause. If Qaddafi has been able to maintain his authority, for better or worse, until now, it is thanks to having somehow respected the law, traditions and customs of the tribes. The anger of the tribes whose blood he has shed will not subside until he is brought down from his throne.

Moreover, one should not simply pass over tribal culture in Libya. When the pride carried by this tribal culture combines with religious zeal, it produces a desert lion like Omar Mukhtar, who for thirty years made Italy's powerful armies uproot. The religious verdict has also been given on Qaddafi, who until now had somehow employed an awful religious ideology to legitimize his own authority. He has been sentenced to take his place in history as a Pharaoh among Pharaohs.

Looking at Qaddafi's isolation by the international community these days and again searching for the finger of others behind all that is happening is futile. From this point on, of course, nobody will be able to stand behind what Qaddafi has done. But this does not mean that there was discomfort with the order he built, and a wish for him to go, while he was playing the madman. Had Libya gone on for another century under such a rule, nobody would have cared. What matters is that interests not be harmed and, perhaps, that those interests be sustainable.

These days, starting from WikiLeaks documents or the analyses of some think tanks, we can often hear comments that the US foresaw all this beforehand. It was no secret to anyone that there was a tremendous accumulation of energy in the Arab world. It is not even conceivable that the US or some other countries were not making some calculations about the post-Mubarak period, with Mubarak aged 82 and known to suffer from an illness growing heavier both physically and mentally.

As things stand, it is truly strange to present some assessments made beforehand that Mubarak was about to go as great miracles or foresights, and to offer them as evidence that everything that is happening was planned in advance. There are countless think tanks in the US, and a great many early-warning or forecast reports that create the impression of a verified prophecy about all that is happening can be pointed to, just as reports to the contrary can be pointed to. But all of these can only be predictions. To see developments of such enormous size on the ground as the result of a social engineering operation rests on excessively naive expectations about the nature of social engineering efforts. A short tour of the general history of these social engineering operations could greatly disappoint such people.

Worse, all of this rests on, or feeds, an understanding of theodicy in favor of certain powers, exaggerating them to the point of deifying them.

Since what is happening now is relatively better, whoever is behind this is good. Since that one is good, everything it does is good in the end.

Was this how the theodicy mind worked, or what? Does the US come out good or bad from this theodicy?