The French Revolution Again

The French Revolution of 1789 was like the Big Bang of the modern political era. There have been two major reenactments of the French Revolution, and many minor ones. In the French Revolution the king and queen, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, were overthrown and guillotined. The chaos of the revolution eventually ended in the rule of Napoleon, although he had nothing to do with initiating the revolution or executing the king and queen. The revolutionaries were obsessed with the number ten, and the measurement system that they developed is what we refer to today as the Metric System. 

The first major reenactment of the French Revolution was the October Revolution of 1917. Tsar Nicholas was overthrown and the family ultimately executed. Every reenactment of the revolution has it's own version of the Storming of the Bastille, which was the signature event of the French Revolution. In 1917 it was the Storming of the Winter Palace. The conquests of Napoleon had earlier spread the ideals of the revolution, the modern secular republic. While his invasion of Russia was ultimately unsuccessful could Napoleon have imagined that, just over a century later, the tsars would be overthrown by a reenactment of the revolution that had brought him to power?

The second major reenactment of the French Revolution was the Iranian Revolution of 1979. The revolutionaries, led by Ayatollah Khomeini, were in exile in France not far from Versailles, which was the home of the French monarchy that was overthrown. Khomeini returned home, after the royal family had fled into exile, on an Air France jet which has the revolutionary tricolor painted on it. The Iranian version of the Storming of the Bastille was the Storming of the U.S. Embassy, which resulted in the Hostage Crisis. The reenactments are not exactly the same as the original French Revolution, each rearranges the pieces in it's own way. The Iranian Revolution, in contrast to the French and October Revolutions, was a move back toward religion. The Eiffel Tower was a monument of the centennial of the French Revolution but the Iranian version of the tower, the Azadi Tower, was a monument of the 2500 year anniversary of the monarchy that would be overthrown by the reenactment of the French Revolution. 

This week we saw yet another reenactment of the French Revolution. It was the overthrow of Sheikh Hasina in Bangladesh. The founder of Bangladesh is considered to be Mujibar Rahman. Bangladesh used to be half of Pakistan, and called East Pakistan. But the capital city, and all of the presidents since independence in 1947, had been from West Pakistan. Rahman supposedly won a presidential election but was not allowed to take office. This resulted in East Pakistan declaring independence as Bangladesh, with Rahman as it's first president. Sheikh Hasina was his daughter. The family was assassinated in 1975 but Sheikh Hasina and her sister survived because they were abroad. The elements of the French Revolution that were seen are the Storming of the Bastille being replaced by the storming, by a crowd of people, the residence of Sheikh Hasina. The anti-monarchical destructiveness of the French Revolution were seen in attempts to destroy statues of her father. Just as Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette attempted to flee in a carriage, Sheikh Hasina fled in a helicopter. 

Does anyone remember another reenactment of the French Revolution, the overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania in 1989? He and his wife also reenacted the attempt to flee, by helicopter, but, unlike Hasina, their attempt was unsuccessful. The revolutions in Eastern Europe in 1989 were on the bicentennial year of the French Revolution, and Romania has it's own version of Napoleon's Arc De Triomphe, so everything was ready for a reenactment of the French Revolution.