“Democratic Revolutions Can Be Betrayed”

I have always compared Lebanon’s Cedar revolution (and its aftermath) to Ukraine’s Orange revolution. This is why, when Yulia Tymoshenko, one the heroines of that orange revolution, gives advice to Egypt and Tunisia on how revolutions can be betrayed and reversed, I listen:

as someone who led a peaceful revolution, I hope that pride is tempered by pragmatism, because a change of regime is only the first step in establishing a democracy backed by the rule of law. Indeed, as my country, Ukraine, is now demonstrating, after revolutionary euphoria fades and normality returns, democratic revolutions can be betrayed and reversed.

I’ve been trying to put into words the Lebanese experience of post-revolution malaise, so that I could offer advice to my Egyptian friends.

I’m talking about the feeling that comes after people realize that they were only united by an enemy, and that the same people who were chanting together should-to-shoulder in freedom square (Lebanon), Independence square (Ukraine) and Liberation square (Egypt) will eventually sober up and realize that they have different visions and different dreams that can only be reconciliated in the nity-gritty of a sometimes boring democratic processes.