Revolution without Revolutionaries "People may or may not have ideas about revolution for it to happen. For the outbreak of a revolution has little to do with any idea, and even less with a 'theory,' of revolution. Revolutions 'simply' happen. But having or not having ideas about revolution does have critical consequences for the outcome when it actually occurs. Having lived in both Iran and Egypt just prior to their revolutions, I was struck by how different these experiences were. I was enthralled by the Arab Spring's more peaceful, open, pluralistic, and less repressive texture but was perplexed by its nonradical, loosely organised, exposed, and perilous quality." —Asef Bayat, Revolution without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring , 2017, Preface, xi (in paperback ed.) "The speed, spread, and intensity of the recent revolutions extraordinarily unparalleled, while their lack of ideology, lax coordination, and absence of any galv
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51