In
responding to my article titled “How Rujumbura’s Bairu got impoverished”, The
Weekly Observer December 4-10, 2008, Dr. Ephraim R. Kamuhangire raised issues
such as social classes which, when closely analyzed, are reminiscent of some factors
that contributed to the French Revolution of 1789. By analyzing these factors,
lessons could be drawn for corrective and preventive action.
The
Revolution was triggered by many factors including a bankrupt government and
enormous differences between social classes – the rich and the poor. The
Revolution was encouraged by enlightenment ideas of liberty and equality and
the American Revolution. The Revolution ended feudal privileges and the
relationship of peasant to lord. It established freedom and equality of all
citizens before the law, freedom of speech, the press and religion, limited
monarchy and introduced a capitalist system.
Since
the middle ages,
Estate (clergy), Second Estate (nobility) and Third Estate (commoners).
The
First Estate, with a population of 0.5 percent, owned 10 percent of the
nation’s land and was exempt from taxes. The Second Estate, with less than 2
percent of the population held 25 percent of the best land and was also exempt
from taxes. Over 97 percent of the French people belonged to the Third Estate (urban
middle class, urban poor and peasants) which paid taxes. Over 80 percent of the
Third Estate was peasants residing on 33 percent of the land. They paid a wide
range of taxes and duties on land, income, salt, labor, tithes and local
levies. While the First and Second Estates wanted to maintain their privileged
positions, the Third Estate wanted a major change. By the 1780s, the Old Regime
had ceased to correspond with reality.
Louis
XIV exercised divine right of kings making him only answerable to God as
proclaimed in the Bible. Visualizing himself as a great military ruler, the
‘Sun King’ engaged in endless wars to exalt himself above other European rulers.
His vast expenditures on wars, palace at
in huge debts and a financial crisis. His excesses were maintained by his
successors. By the 1780s, 50 percent of the annual budget went to service the loan
interest, 25 percent to maintain the army, 6 percent to the royal court,
leaving only 20 percent for the rest of national demands.
King
Louis XVI inherited a nation saddled with tremendous debt, power struggle
between the crown and the Estates, rich and poor and an economic crisis. His
efforts to raise taxes met with stiff resistance. The nobility and clergy who
had never paid taxes were not budging. The king resorted to further borrowing.
The
18th century was marked by economic crisis – prices rose faster than
wages especially for urban dwellers. The consumers’ efforts to fix the price of
bread which constituted three-fourths of an average person’s diet and 33-50
percent of income contributed to public disorder.
Agriculture
which underpinned the economy experienced serious problems. Bad harvests in
1787 and 1788 and decline in industrial production contributed to a recession,
resulting in food shortages, rising food prices, unemployment affecting 33
percent of adult work force and the prospect of starvation especially in towns.
Poverty rose to 33 percent on the eve of the Revolution.
Special
interests – challenging tax reform and opposing aristocratic control of high
government offices and rising prices – coalesced the three estates against the arbitrary
power of the monarchy.
The
opportunity to act came when the Estates-General (a traditional assembly of the
three estates which had not met for 175 years) was convened in May 1789 to
discuss new taxes. The meeting launched the first modern political debate in
French history and freedom of the press. Absolute monarchy and divine right of
kings were rejected. French Parliament assumed responsibility for taxation and
legislation matters.
The
national Assembly wrote a new constitution abolishing the old regime,
nationalizing church lands and reorganizing local government, which the king
rejected as illegal. When the king sent reluctant troops to dismiss the
Assembly, the citizens of
the beginning of the Revolution.