RoboCop and the Arab Spring

This publication will compare how the 1987 Sci-Fi Action film RoboCop and events that would unfold during the Arab spring, specifically what would happen to Arab states and their militaries, have a striking amount of similarities and how the academic community observing it could have learned from RoboCop. In the reference article by F. Gregory Gause III, he states that academics were under the impression that the Arab world countries had developed superior methods to squash dissent amongst their citizens. That being coupled with the majority of Arab dictators having had prior military service within their countries, giving the impression that the relationship between authoritarian rulers and their militaries or security services was unbreakable.

RoboCop 1987 occurs in a futuristic dystopian Detroit, Michigan; the city is run and owned by OCP (Omni Consumer Products), whose chairman has complete authoritarian control of the company and Detroit. The story follows Alex Murphy, a cop in the Detroit City Police who is brutally murdered by a gang while on duty. After his death, the company OCP is looking for a solution to Detroit’s ever staggering crime problem. One of the board members suggests creating a RoboCop, a cyborg that will patrol Detroit’s streets as an urban protector, ridding the city of crime. Alex Murphy’s recently deceased body is used to create RoboCop. He is implemented with three prime detectives, 1: Serve the public trust, 2: Protect the innocent, and 3: Uphold the law. RoboCop’s adventures through the city of Detroit while riding the city of crime leads him to find out that OCP has been the cause of all the city’s troubles, as they have been secretly paying all the gangs to partake in targeted crimes for their own monetary benefit. RoboCop’s prime directives kick in, and he must destroy the company to fulfill his directives.

Middle Eastern authoritarian regimes, including those of Assad, Muammar Al-Qaddafi and Hosni Mubarak, had been in control since the early 70s and 80s. There were decades of sustaining political stability among their citizens through the use of militaristic applications of force. Arab citizens did not accept authoritarianism; however, any attempt to break free had been suppressed with no remorse. The Arab regimes believed that they had solved the problem of any attempt at popular dissent. Institutions established to protect the people, such as police and military, were brought under the thumb of Arab authoritarianism, being administered by family members or close friends of rulers. Muammar Al-Qaddafi showed a prime example of this type of distribution of power. In contrast, other countries such as Tunisia and Egypt had already established professional armies, but at the same time, they were also under the same type of rule.

In hindsight, if academics had watched or remembered RoboCop’s plot, they would have noticed similarities between the two. Omni Consumer Products and Arab countries before the uprising of the Arab Spring were run in a similar fashion, as an authoritarian CEO controlled everything in Detroit through brutal suppression and squashing any dissent. This is shown by the company’s use of RoboCop as their iron fist of justice. Arab rulers used the same tactics as seen in RoboCop; through their use of personal security forces and militaries, they would exert control over the county and its citizens. RoboCop was efficient in creating order and instilled fear amongst Detroit residents to avoid breaking the law, as did Arab authoritarian nations’ militaries. Furthermore, RoboCop shows Detroit full of corruption and in a desolate state; this state is shared by countries that partook in the Arab Spring. The parallels drawn between RoboCops actions to go against the OCP as they themselves were breaking the prime directives that RoboCop was programmed with, is exactly how the professional militaries of Egypt and Tunisia reacted to the civil uprising within their countries, choosing to support the side of the people and support the protesters. They decided that they were not just there to support the country’s leader but also its inhabitants.

In conclusion, the reasons why RoboCop revolted against Omni Consumer Products directly related to the companies of RoboCop’s prime directives that the company instilled in him. Similarly, the militaries of Arab leaders fragmented to opposing sides because of conflicting values regarding the population’s treatment. If academics would have continued to study the militaries of the region and not continue to assume that they would follow their leaders blindly, the start of the Arab spring could have been predicted. Omni Consumer Products CEO made the same fatal mistake by assuming RoboCop’s allegiance was to the company and not the prime directives. In a clear reference to the course, Bernard Lewis’s arrogant perception of the orient, attests and dare I say, strengthens my point that not taking heed to the capillaries of the heart of the people of the orient, so too was that mistake clearly made by the CEO in RoboCop. Fiction and reality ironically had something very much in common in this case.

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