Liberalism, Revolution, and Dr. Zhivago

From my latest column for Maclean's:

There’s a great scene at the beginning of Doctor Zhivago when the Bolsheviks are marching through town in peaceful protest, singing songs of freedom and brotherhood while the aristocrats dance and drink in a ballroom that overlooks the street. The party goes uncomfortably quiet as the singing builds in volume, until Mr. Komarovsky, the high-born villain of the story, cracks a joke: “But will they still sing in tune after the revolution?” Everyone laughs, the band starts back up, and the party resumes.

It is increasingly obvious that the outcome of the popular uprisings hopscotching their way across the Middle East will be far messier and uncertain than the fall of Communism two decades ago. While virtually all of the former Soviet Bloc states in Eastern Europe quickly reverted to some form of liberal democracy, none of the countries in the Middle East has any comparable tradition to fall back on. That is why, when it comes to the ongoing turmoil in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and elsewhere, the worry is not that the protesters won’t manage to sing in tune once they’ve got rid of the strongmen, dictators and corrupt monarchs, it is that they will...