Idiot Savant? Well, he's half right.

Just pawns in their game: Ukrainie's "Orange" revolutionaries march through Kiev to the beat of drums and drummers manufactured in and trained by the USA. So-called "people's power" is seldom what it seems. Calls by the Niuean premier and blogger Idiot Savant for the Fijian people to "rise up", if not part of a similar deception instigated by Canberra and Wellington, are likely to end in tragedy.

RESPONDING to the call by the Niuean premier, Toke Talagi, that the people of Fiji should "rise up" against the government of Commodore Frank Bainimarama, Idiot Savant of the "No Right Turn" blogsite writes:

"[I]t’s a good idea. From the Philippines to Serbia to the Ukraine, mass non-violent public protest has been a very successful tactic in evicting undemocratic, dictatorial regimes. If Fijians want their democracy back, taking to the streets and refusing to move is probably the best way to do it."

Really?

If Idiot Savant had taken the time to properly investigate the examples of "people power" cited in his posting, he would have discovered that what the world thought was happening – ordinary people heroically "rising up" against a hated regime – was very different from what was actually taking place.

In every case, the events on the street masked a much more subtle political game being played out by individuals and groups either directly, or indirectly, beholden to the United States.

While the Philippines president, Ferdinand Marcos, remained a valued "asset" of the US military, the CIA and the State Department, no amount of "people power" would have been permitted to dislodge him. Following the very public assassination of Ninoy Aquino, however, the US (Aquino’s protector) decided that Marcos's usefulness had come to an end, and that US interests would be best served by replacing him with someone possessing a more credible claim to democratic legitimacy. Accordingly, the word was spread – through the Filipino security forces, the Catholic Church, the US-aligned trade unions and the news media – that Marcos would have to go.

In an attempt to hold on to power, Marcos called a snap presidential election, which he then, very clumsily, attempted to steal. Cory Aquino, Ninoy’s widow, backed by the Americans, was told that she had lost the election. Her response was to call upon the people to demonstrate their support. When Marcos attempted to suppress the demonstrations, key military commanders based in or near the capital mutinied. As it became clear that the police, the army, and the notorious death squads responsible for the murder of hundreds of Marcos’s opponents, were not going to stop them, millions of people poured onto the streets of Manila in a mass outpouring of opposition to the detested regime. Inevitably, Marcos was forced to "concede" the election to Aquino.

The more-or-less bloodless "regime-change" effected in the Philippines became the template for other US interventions – most notably in Serbia, the Ukraine and Georgia. In the case of the "colour revolutions" (so called because the demonstrators took to wearing a single, identifying colour: "Rose" in Georgia, "Orange" in the Ukraine) what appeared to be spontaneous popular uprisings were in fact carefully planned and flawlessly executed political mobilisations engineered by individuals and groups expertly trained and lavishly funded by the United States.

The artificiality and hollowness of these colour revolts is exposed by the fact that none of them produced the sort of significant and broadly uplifting social and economic changes that would have indicated a genuine revolution, but merely a reshuffling of the political elites at the summit of the state – elites who turned out to be, in every case, strong supporters of US policy, and Western interests generally.

Which is not to say that the individuals brought down by these US-inspired uprisings didn’t deserve to be toppled from power. Nor that by acting corruptly, attempting to steal elections and even asassinating (or, in the case of the Ukraine, trying to assassinate) their political rivals, they didn’t themselves contribute the final straws that broke the camel’s back. All I’m suggesting is that the people who poured onto the streets turned out to be pawns in a game they did not control, and whose ultimate instigators were never revealed.

Now it is just possible that something akin to the US colour revolutions is either being planned by the Australian and New Zealand governments, or has already been set in motion. Like the Filipino military commanders, senior Fijian military and police officers may already be preparing to lead a mutiny against Commodore Bainimarama. The harassed and harried Fijian news media may already be primed to provide their readers, listeners and viewers with helpful insurrectionary instructions. The Great Council of Chiefs may already have been bought and sold and bought and sold. And the sexist, racist and homophobic Fijian Methodist Church may already be poised to give yet another coup-d’étât its blessing. If so, "taking to the streets" will prove to be a surprisingly effective tactic – but not a revolution.

Nor, almost certainly, will it be good news for the Indo-Fijians still living in Fiji. On the basis of historical precedent, they can expect to be beaten up, raped – even murdered – and to see their homes and businesses broken into, looted and torched by out-of-control gangs of "revolutionary" indigenous Fijians.

On the other hand, Kevin Rudd and John Key may be genuine in their expressions of alarm at the Niuean premier’s suggestion. And they are absolutely right to be worried. Because, if there is no fake revolution planned, and the police and soldiers haven’t been suborned, and the long-suffering Fijians do follow Talagi’s and Idiot Savant’s advice and "take to the streets", the Commodore’s men will crush them like bugs.

But then, those who cry "Let justice be done, though the heavens fall!", are almost never the ones who have to live among the ruins.

Idiot Savant? Well, he’s half right.