Plain Talk
Mursi Saad El-Din
July is the month of revolutions. At least two July revolutions have changed the face, indeed the very structure, of their respective countries. Fourteen July was the anniversary of the French Revolution and the 23rd of Egypt.
While the French Revolution was a bloody one, with at least 3000 killed, the Egyptian Revolution was carried out without bloodshed. And yet both of them achieved the same aim: changing their countries from kingdoms to republics. The French guillotined the king, while the Egyptians allowed theirs to leave on his yacht Al- Mahrousa.
Like all revolutions, these two have their supporters and opponents. They also had their own victims.
In this column I intend to write about these two opposed camps in relation to the French Revolution, since a great deal has been written about the 23rd of July Revolution. One of the greatest eulogists of the French Revolution was Thomas Rané and one of its meanest attackers was Burke who wrote a booklet denouncing it. Paine answered him in his book Right of Man with the sub- title Answer to Mr Burke's Attack on the French Revolution. Paine dedicated his book to George Washington saying "I present you a small treatise in defence of those principles of freedom which your exemplary virtue hath so eminently contributed to establish. That the Right of Man may become as universal as your benevolence can wish, and that you may enjoy the happiness of seeing the New World regenerate the old, is the prayer of your much obliged and obedient humble servant Thomas Paine."
The French Revolution was hailed by such poets as Wordsworth who at that time wrote "Bliss was it that dawn to be alive." It also inspired others such as Lake, Coleridge, Burns, Southby, Shelley, and Byron.
In a newly published book Vive la Revolution, a stand- up history of the French Revolution, Mark Steel celebrates the glorious moment when the have-nots seized control of their world. He seems to be a great enthusiast of the revolution: "The French Revolution," he writes "shaped millions of minds into looking the opposite direction. It created a world of boundless possibilities. It allowed millions of people to see all matters, whether personal, political, grand or minute, as connected and depending on each other; it allowed every concept to be open to question."
Steel goes on to say that the French Revolution allowed the imagination to rule and unleashed the full potential of human creativity. This was not confined only to France but went across continents, across the world of slavery and into every corner that could receive the news. It was the polar opposite, he writes "of a society ruled by those who have forgotten how to dream". This is a clear reference to the statement by Tony Blair when asked what he dreamed about: "These days I don't have much time to sleep, let alone to dream."
Steel sums up his argument thus: "The French Revolution is a cracking tale in which every human emotion and experience, every quirk and eccentricity, every friendship, argument, love affair, every human frailty was at its most intense, as almost every idea assumed to be eternal was swept away."
Yet with enthusiasts like Paine, Steel and the English poets we find those who attack the revolution and describe it as a reign of terror. Apart from what some historians like Stanley Loomis in his book Paris in the Terror, and Simon Schama in Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, we find novels such as A Tale of Two Cities or The Scarlett Pimpernel attacking the revolution and its leaders.
However, in the final analysis, the French Revolution inspired masses of human beings who, in the words of Steel, "felt that they were taking part in the construction of a society based on values of fairness, equality and democracy, that the notion of what it meant to be a human being was transformed."
