authoritarian governments

Laura Secor writes in the New Yorker about the bass-ackward effects of the Iranian government's decision to televise the show trials.  I think she misses a key point, however: 

Since the disputed Presidential elections of June 12th, about a hundred reformist politicians, journalists, student activists, and other dissidents have been accused of colluding with Western powers to overthrow the Islamic Republic. This month, a number of the accused have made videotaped confessions. But the spectacle has found a subversive afterlife on the Internet. One image that has gone viral is a split frame showing two photographs of former Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi. Before his arrest, on June 16th, he is a rotund, smiling cleric; in court on August 1st, he is drawn and sweat-soaked, his face a mask of apprehension. The juxtaposition belies the courtroom video, making the point that the only genuine thing about Abtahi’s confession is that it was coerced through torture.

Show trials have been staged before, most notably in Moscow in the nineteen-thirties. Typically, such rituals purge élites and scare the populace. They are the prelude to submission. Iran’s show trials, so far, have failed to accrue this fearsome power. In part, this is because the accused are connected to a mass movement: Iranians whose democratic aspirations have evolved organically within the culture of the Islamic Republic. It is one thing to persuade citizens that a narrow band of apparatchiks are enemies of the state. It is quite another to claim that a political agenda with broad support—for popular sovereignty, human rights, due process, freedom of speech—has been covertly planted by foreigners.

I don't doubt that the broad-based nature of support for change is one reason the show trials have rung hollow.  Still, isn't this a case where the medium is the message? 

Stalin's show trials were not broadcast on television -- they were reported in state-run newspapers or aired, edited, over state-run radio.  This gives the state much greater editorial powers than a live television transmission.  Furthermore, as Secor's first paragraph suggests, it's the non-verbal cues that come from television that completely undermine the intended effect of the spectacle. 

It is possible that, in the future, more sophisticated CGI effects will allow governments the capacity to digitally edit these images, a la The Running Man, to maximize the desired effect (i.e., making Abtahi look as healthy as he did pre-incarceration).  For now, however, such efforts would only look like bad plastic surgery.  No, I don't think televised show trials really work at all. 

Beyond Iran, have show trials ever worked in the television era?  This is a real question, readers.  About the only modern example I can think of where a televised trial of a political leader has broken the back of a movement was Turkey's capture and trial of Kurdish Worker's Party (PKK) leader Abdullah (“Apo”) Öcalan.  Öcalan's complete about-face and rejection of violence during his trial had an effect on the PKK. 

I'm not sure the parallel holds up, since most Turks held genuine antipathy for Öcalan and the Kurds.  So, the question remains open -- can show trials ever cement an authoritarian government's legitimacy? 

Last month 303 prominent Chinese intellectuals signed Charter 08, a document consciously designed to evoke Czechoslovakia's Charter 77. The content of the charter itself, as well as the government's reaction to it, can provide a few hints about what to expect from the Middle Kingdom this year.

Reading the two charters back-to-back is revealing. The Czech document was clear in detailing the repressive nature of the government, but ended on a conciliatory note: "It does not aim, then, to set out its own programmes for political or social reforms or changes, but within its own sphere of activity it wishes to conduct a constructive dialogue with the political and state authorities."

Charter 08, in contrast, says nothing about dialogue. The charter does say quite a bit about the nature of Beijing's regime:

In 1998 the Chinese government signed two important international human rights conventions; in 2004 it amended its constitution to include the phrase "respect and protect human rights"; and this year, 2008, it has promised to promote a "national human rights action plan." Unfortunately most of this political progress has extended no further than the paper on which it is written. The political reality, which is plain for anyone to see, is that China has many laws but no rule of law; it has a constitution but no constitutional government. The ruling elite continues to cling to its authoritarian power and fights off any move toward political change.

The stultifying results are endemic official corruption, an undermining of the rule of law, weak human rights, decay in public ethics, crony capitalism, growing inequality between the wealthy and the poor, pillage of the natural environment as well as of the human and historical environments, and the exacerbation of a long list of social conflicts, especially, in recent times, a sharpening animosity between officials and ordinary people.

The document then goes on to offer a concrete program for political and social reform. It's an ambitious list. These Chartists are not only asking for political and civil liberties. They also want private property rights, separation of powers, a federated republic, social security, and environmental protection.

The tone of the document also makes it clear that these Chartists do not expect to achieve their goals not through a constructive dialogue. Instead, they appear to be banking on a mass social movement that forces the government in Beijing to capitulate to its demands.

According to the New York Times Book Review's Perry Link, "Chinese authorities were apparently unaware of [Charter 08] or unconcerned by it until several days before it was announced on December 10." This might explain their initial reaction, which, by Beijing's standards, was relatively tame. As Charter 08 picked up more online signatures, however, the government's reaction has hardened. The government is also upgrading the software it uses to censor the Internet on issues like this.

So, it would appear that the Chinese government and the Charter 08 dissidents do agree on one thing: a dialogue between the two sides is not going to happen. Absent that option, will there be a mass social movement. Could it topple the communist government?

Authoritarian governments always look like they can maintain their grip on power -- right up until the moment that the coercive apparatus falls apart. Beijing's coercive apparatus has a track record of not falling apart, so the smart money might be on the government. Still, as industrial production in the country continues to tank, the implicit social compact trading political quiescence for rapid economic growth appears to be cracking.

Furthermore, the dissidents are getting cheekier. In addition to Charter 08, China's highest-ranking dissident, Bao Tong, just leveled a broadside against Deng Xiaoping, timed to disrupt the regime's 30th anniversary celebration of the economic reforms launched by Deng. 2009 also marks the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests/crackdown -- and the Chinese love to mark anniversaries.

Question to readers: is 2009 the year that China's government collapses? Or is it just another year in which there will be a crackdown of a mass uprising? Because those may be the only two options.