Successful Revolutions Are Paid For In Blood

Revolution 2.0 has already thrown up one apparent hero—Wael Ghonim. Like Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. before him, Ghonim is both passionate and articulate about the current human rights issues facing ordinary citizens in the Muslim world. Thanks to CNN, Twitter and Facebook, everyone knows Ghonim's name.

It is an unfortunate truth that revolutions for core civil rights are often earned over many years and with the blood of their heroes and proponents. American rights were demanded from the beginning of the history of the American colonies, and some would argue that we still don't enjoy all of them. The American Revolution cost 4,435 killed in action.

Mahatma Gandhi's revolution against British rule in India took a lifetime. It took Gandhi many years to convince Indians of the logic of non-violence in their revolution. In March of 1919 the British passed the Rowlatt Act, which was an extension of emergency measures adopted during World War I to control public unrest in India.

Gandhi called for the Rowlatt Satyagraha, a non-violent protest in which all Indians would close their businesses and fast, but he called it off when he was convinced that Indians were not ready for his non-violent strategy. The British intentionally provoked violent reaction. They may have realized that their 200,000 British administrators could not control 350,000,000 Indians if those Indians simply refused to be governed non-violently.

On April 13, 1919, thousands of non-violent Sikhs gathered at Jalianwala Bagh Garden for a religious festival. Led by Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, British Army soldiers surrounded them with a small force of about 50 rifles, and fired upon them until all of their ammunition was expended. Reports say 379 people were killed and 1,100 wounded in what is known as the Amritsar Massacre.

Both Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. did live to see the beginnings of their success. India became independent from Britain on August 15, 1947, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 came before Dr. King was assassinated. But both heroes became martyrs for their causes, and are honored widely by their countrymen today.

Today's revolutionaries have powerful non-violent weapons at their disposal. They have Gandhi's and King's examples from history, not to mention the courageous example of many Egyptians, Tunisians, Bahrainis, Yemenis, Algerians, Libyans, and Iranians; and they have social networks, which allow them to quickly bring the condemnation of the world when their rulers behave cruelly. No, the social networks are not perfect, as the plug pulling regimes of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen have proven, but they are ultimately effective. Revolution 2.0 has shown that the news will leak out, and repression can be stopped.

Were the blood and the extended struggle of earlier revolutions worth the sacrifice? Essentially all living Americans and Indians surely think so. We reverently honor our fallen heroes, who died for and defended our human rights. Their sacrifice made it possible for our countries to become among the most successful in the world.

Our Freedoms make it possible for us to succeed with the ideas and energies of all of our citizens. Repressive regimes delay the development of their countries, and keep them weak. You only need to look at the relative economic success of countries throughout the world to see that repression means limited prospects for a society. The rich get richer, but the poor stay poor.