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“The Arab Spring”

My comments on the article below.

  • I think the writer has missed some fundamental aspects/features of what has happened:
  • The class dynamic and the weakness of the movement and its lack of radicalism. Its inability to generate a leader (compare that with Venezuela and Bolivia, for example, or the twentieth century revolutionary movements).
  • The role of the middle class in Egypt (for a change first then with the military after for the sake of ‘stability’)
  • A stability endorsed and sought for by foreign powers, regional and Western.
  • During the uprisings there was not a single occupation of a key governmental building or financial institution. Occupying squares and marching do not shift the balance of power. Indecisiveness invited aggression by the state and other forces to size the moment.
  • It is inaccurate to say the regime in Egypt was overthrown. Even in Tunisia it wasn’t. In the two cases, the head of the regime was removed and an internal restructuring among the factions took place, preserving the pillars of the regimes, with better outcomes in Tunisia. 

A better analysis remains the one by Asef Bayat in his book Revolution without Revolutionaries

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