Club Med and Civic Discourse

I talked a little about Italy in my last blog post and was reminded of that country again today in a radio piece on the country and how it seems more divided today than when unification first happened almost 130 years ago. Regional pride and identities are still very strong, but are being challenged by new rising immigration and the deterioration of respect for the central government, a situation that may sound all too familiar to Americans. The recent unrest in Tunisian has created an influx of refugees and job seekers across southern Italy. As Tunisia, Egypt and other countries struggle to redefine themselves as free societies, I wondered what allowed America to survive so long and come out public discourses like the Florida ballot challenge relatively unscathed. The civic epistemologies that define American life include the understanding that our leadership will change every four years and the people have the chance to change out government slowly or en masse as the challenges that capture the public attention arise.

In the Middle East, I was struck by the longevity of the leaders being replaced, 20-40 years is not uncommon for an Arab despot apparently, but the public waited until these leaders were advanced in years and probably on the way to retirement before choosing to assert themselves. This cultural dynamic is based on a traditional form of government, not on elected officials I know, but still it seemed that they are reacting forces outside their borders as much as the frustration within their borders. The rise of knowledge and the capability for the population to gain an understanding of other forms of government may be the catalyst that is sparking this surge in revolutions.

As in the US election process in Bush vs Gore, the population seemed to be encouraged by the medias desire to say something. The constant drone of reporters saying that protests are occurring, but nothing is coming from them creates a vacuum that needed to be filled, much as the creation of the Phillipines was created from the vacuum of blank space on the map in Anderson’s assessment of the rise of nationalism in last week’s reading. As new knowledge creeps into the public sphere in these nations, their civic epistemologies will change to demand new proof that their governments are acting in the people’s interests. In the Miller article this week, he described how communities construct and validate their politically relevant information. This production of knowledge encourages the co-production of new social order and drives the desire for new forms of government.

The transition of the Middle Eastern autocratic state appears to be following the same transition to nation state that we saw in other nations as their citizenry express desires for social development for all and this calls for the creation of new institutional structures to meet those desires.