Skip to main content

Home/ Arab-spring/ Group items tagged repression

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Ed Webb

Ten Theses on Revolutions by Mohammed A. Bamyeh - 0 views

  • As it torments what before it had appeared as solid, immovable authority, a revolution also contests established knowledge.
  • a longing is not an act, and a general condition of unhappiness does not predict any specific action
  • If revolutions could be predicted, they would never happen: the science that does this work of prediction would immediately become the science of government. The fact that regimes are always on the lookout for opposition does not mean that they know in what way they will meet their end.
  • ...34 more annotations...
  • just like regimes, the revolutionary explosion often catches the committed revolutionary by surprise: the teeming masses rose up earlier or later than expected, they moved not by the book and not according to plan, but as a detonation in the normal flow of time.
  • In 2011, there was no plan for revolution, anywhere, when a whole world region went up in flames after a poor street vendor in a marginal town in Tunisia self-immolated. Nor was there a plan for the great Palestinian intifada of 1987, when a street collision resulted in the death of four Palestinian workers. While both spectacular revolts that followed could be explained by years of insufferable indignities preceding them, there was no specific reason that a specific indignity on a specific day would unsettle the mighty repressive norm that, by then, had seemed everlasting.
  • Like the 2011 uprisings, the 1987 intifada erupted when there was no hope, no resources at hand to encourage hope, and at a point when rational, realistic minds posited hopelessness as the solid structure of the world.
  • every revolution gives birth to its own intellectuals, especially where the existing intellectuals refuse to acknowledge its profound originality, and stick to their old system of thought that had predicted either the absence of revolution, or one of a very different character than what came to be. Thus every revolution brings its own knowledge with it; it does not follow an established science.
  • What comes out in the immediate aftermath of every revolution is not necessarily a new or better system. Before anything else, what comes out is an educational experience, even when a revolution appears to have failed.
  • Everyone is then encouraged to forget the revolution, to turn attention to what should come next, before they could reflect on how they had managed to unleash a revolution to begin with.
  • Revolutions are therefore not simply events in time. The last thing they change is the political system, the first thing they change is the culture.
  • asking questions that yesterday were not even known to be questions
  • Rare are the revolutions that do not result in books written about them; poems composed in their honor; art that provides them with continuing presence; commemoration that remind of their best hopes; interpretations that establish them as inescapable heritage
  • the less visible, but more pervasive social traces (ordinary dialogues, new friendships, ongoing thoughts), that revolutions leave behind in their aftermath.
  • a revolution proceeds as a general invitation to creativity, then lives on as emergent culture--thought, questions, arguments. As it gains expressive maturity and a self-bestowed right to presence, this culture, diverse as it may be, marks the onset of the next round of social transformation
  • The psychology of the moment is one of elevated spirit, extraordinary time, unusual solidarity, will to sacrifice, interruption of norms, license for originality that may appear unlimited. The aftermath of that moment is typically one of Realpolitik, rational calculations, instrumental thought, power struggles, more ordinary politics. And precisely in that re-emergence of quotidian time there will be much pressure to forget the revolution, long before the counter-revolution has performed any of its tricks.
  • What we call “education” flowing out of a revolutionary moment is an education that begins from the senses, is felt in the body as energy, in the mind as epiphany, in the soul as “the people”—an abstraction that for a moment becomes concrete, because it has become the person.
  • The move away from exploring the source and promise of such novelty, and back into the more ordinary, more familiar psychology of “realism,” encourages thinking of the revolutionary act as no more than means to ends.
  • Ordinarily, epistemological imperialism tends to be a practice of an established mighty authority that, by virtue of its longevity or scope of its power, has become too confident of itself. But epistemological imperialism may also be a practice of opposition that, from long life under a certain power, could only think of revolution as an expression of a right to the same power.
  • To their participants, a revolutionary gathering exceeds any single demand: it addresses a felt need for a total social renewal. The mission then seems greater than simply replacing one ruler by another. At that moment, the ordinary person is in the revolution precisely because that is where she is not being ruled. There, she finally discovers what seems like an inborn, organic capacity to act as a sovereign agent: without instructions, without authority, even without a guiding tradition.
  • This total spiritual condition suggests to everyone involved that the revolution is greater than any particularism. The consciousness of totality makes its appearance as a sudden revelation, comparable to prophetic vision: the moment when a hitherto unseen truth illuminates the whole existence
  • This explosive spirituality resides in the necessity of doing what must be done, with only imagination, rather than plan
  • another major question rears its divisive head: have we really overthrown the regime? To answer this, we realize that in our temporary unity, we avoided this question too: what was the regime? That we need now to know, because the answer will help us have some plan as to where to go from here, to determine how much of “the regime” is gone and how much still needs to be uprooted so as to arrive at the “goals of the revolution.” For some revolutionaries, the regime was simply the head of the regime. For others, it was an entire corrupt class surrounding it and benefiting from it. For others still, the regime is everyday life—the rotten head has infected all of society, and caused all society, its mores and social relations, to become equally rotten. For those, that society, too, needs to be overthrown. The old society, all of it, was “the regime.”
  • In an unjust world, there are always alternatives to revolt: the idea of fate; personal hedonism; intellectual immersions; criminality; clannish solidarity; the morality of fortitude; mind altering substances; soothing rituals; suicide; nihilism; graduate study. A revolution, therefore, is always a choice among other choices.
  • The revolutionary decision therefore is a choice to disregard reality and realism. It is a choice to act as an agent, to act freely and to feel freedom not as a theoretical principle, but as a new force that is itself creating this new person doing what a day before the revolution seemed to be outside of all realism. Revolutions, therefore, are primarily decisions against realism, and as such they create the free person who undertakes them and, in the process, empirically verifies a principle that previously had lacked credibility: that a different world is possible.
  • A common strategy of betrayal takes the form of the monopoly of memory. Monopoly of memory means that the revolution, along with its memory or heritage, has become monopolized by one faction against all others. In this case, those who see this betrayal will say that the “goals of the revolution” have been abandoned, or that the revolution has strayed from its path. But revolutions may have as many goals as they have revolutionaries, and consequently as many imagined pathways. Here, “betrayal” will be seen in someone’s choice to highlight one goal and disregard another, in someone’s feeling that a preferred path was not taken, even though it could have been, or that the revolution has stopped short, when it could have gone further.
  • the greatest enemy of all revolutions is forgetfulness, because it attacks the core of the revolutionary experience: how it defied odds, reality, rationality, and all that had seemed ordinary, solid and eternal
  • the revolutionary pattern of each era corresponds to where power has become porous then
  • The Arab uprisings of the current era, namely those of 2011 and 2019 (but not the civil wars that followed), reveal shared patterns: they all start out first in marginal, neglected areas, from which they migrate into the well-fortified center. They rely on spontaneity as their art of moving, not on organization, structure, or even a plan. They are suspicious of vanguardism, and seem to intuitively reject any strong idea of leadership. They prefer loose coordinating structures, and “coordinators” emerge as a new revolutionary species, indicating that revolutions now need sharing of information more than centralized guidance. They operate largely at a distance from political parties, and in fact give rise to no party that can claim to represent or embody the revolution. The agent of the revolution and the maker of history is the ordinary person, not the savior leader.
  • those revolutions spoke in the name of a vague and large entity called “the people,” not of any sub-group, class, tribe, sect, or even the “meek of the earth.” That generality expressed their character as a meeting place of all grievances.
  • The regime did not know any game other than that of the established system, and thought of the revolution as a passing noise that will dissipate in due time. The main mode of governing had become autocratic deafness, across the entire region.
  • the counter-revolution already knows that repression alone would be unable to save it from revolution. Thus it needs to fortify itself against the nascent revolutionary culture by promoting counter-revolutionary culture, aimed at the spirit of the revolution. For example: in place of the ordinary person, counter-revolutionary culture elevates the savior leader as the only worthy maker of history; in place of the belief that had emerged in the revolutionary moment of “the people” as an enlightened and noble body, counter-revolution fosters an image of peoplehood as a savage, illiterate mob, to be feared and policed, rather than provided with freedom and entrusted with capacity.
  • Culture and ideas, therefore, become central battlegrounds in the age of counter-revolution
  • Just as in the Arab case, where the revolutionary wave met counter-revolution, so did the global wave meet a global counter-wave. Both took place across dispersed geographies, indicating that like the revolutionary wave, the counter-revolutionary wave was inspired by a spreading feeling of threat or creeping disorder. The rise of an inter-linked right-wing populism globally after 2011 may indeed be an expression of a learning process of reaction, indicating the seriousness with which the revolutionary, or at least transformative, challenge was taken. And just as in the Arab case, the global counter-revolution learned from its encounter with revolution, real or imagined, that the old order must be defended in more authoritarian ways in the realm of policing and law, and more vigorously in the realm of ideas and culture.
  • The revolution was not just a surprising event, but an addition to the known facts of existence. And what was most certainly new here was the capacity to revolt, not what came next. That capacity was what the revolutionary moment had demonstrated.
  • The universal is always imperialistic when the only knowledge sought through it is confirmatory rather than transformative knowledge.
    • Ed Webb
       
      wow
  • Discovery, therefore, has from the point of view of epistemological imperialism only quantitative rather than qualitative promise: it adds more of what I already know, not more to what I know.
  • there was a revolutionary person residing deep inside the conformist, traditional person one had seen earlier. If we do not know how to see that hidden person, we will not see the revolution.
Ed Webb

The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer: Egyptian battle lines harden as ultras learn... - 0 views

  • In a statement on their Facebook page that has some 255,000 followers, Ultras Ahlawy said last week that it would defy the spectator ban in the match against Ismaily  to deliver a message to “all remnants of the ousted regime” that they would not obey their “manipulated regime.” In their statement, the ultras said: “The issue is bigger than football. We want to settle the score with remnants of the former regime, under the leadership of Samir Zaher, and their oppression of Egyptian youth.” UWK issued a similar statement saying that “we suffered a lot from injustice and repression in the past, but we stood up to that with pride. We fought with all our might to maintain our principles and freedom. We thought justice and freedom would come after our revolution. We will continue in our defense of freedom even with our blood. Our war with the EFA will continue until we win and see the corrupt people in prison.”
  • As the frontline in the ‘Battle of the Dakhliya (interior ministry)’ or alternatively dubbed the Battle of Mohammed Mahmoud – the epicenter of the confrontation just off Tahrir Square -- moved at times closer to and then further away from the ministry, Chinese-made motorcycles carried the wounded to safety. Shamarikh, the controversial, colored fireworks employed by the ultras during soccer matches lit up the sky at night replacing street lights that had been turned off. Theirs was as much a battle for karama or dignity as it was part of the fight to hold the military to its pledge to lead the country to democracy. Their dignity is vested in their ability to stand up to the dakhliya, the knowledge that they no longer can be abused by security forces without recourse and the fact that they no longer have to pay off each and every policemen to stay out of trouble.
Ed Webb

Syria: beyond the wall of fear, a state in slow-motion collapse | World news | The Guar... - 0 views

  • Many now have first-hand experience of the apparatus of state repression, and describe details of underground cells, beatings and torture. It is common knowledge that Iranian security advisers are on hand with their sinister expertise in communications monitoring and riot policing. Damascus feels, and looks, like Tehran in 2009 during protests over the rigging of the presidential election.
Ed Webb

Boston Review - Madawi Al-Rasheed: No Saudi Spring - 0 views

  • Unlike Egypt and Tunisia, Saudi Arabia has no civil society of any significance. As a result, online calls to protest—beloved of so many “cyber-utopians”—had no place to take root.
  • The protests reflected a growing sense of disappointment with King Abdullah, who has failed to implement a single political demand from previous petitions. However, in spite of their disappointment, reformers from a wide range of political ideologies—Islamists, nationalists, leftists, and liberals—are being cautious because the future could be worse. Many intellectuals and professionals are haunted by the prospect of losing their positions when Crown Prince Nayif becomes king. Abdullah has developed a quasi-liberal constituency and cultivated its interest in the state, business, and media. Reformers nonetheless loyal to Abdullah fear that Nayif’s iron fist will come down on them: functionaries of the ancien régime to be replaced.
  • Another group, the National Coalition and Free Youth Movement, formed on Facebook and Twitter in spite of having no offline organizational presence. Their Web pages would disappear amid government censorship only to reappear at different addresses. Many pages gathered thousands of supporters, but it is difficult to claim that all were authentic. Cyber-warfare pitted activists and non-ideological young men and women against regime security, complicating the headcount.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • There are essentially no non-state institutions in the country. Saudi Arabia has not had trade unions since the 1950s, when the government banned them in the oil-rich province where the then-American oil company ARAMCO was based. Likewise, there are no legal political parties, youth associations, women’s organizations, or independent human rights organizations.
  • By intervening, the Saudis hoped not only to protect their Bahraini ally, but to split their internal opposition using sectarian politics. As the protests grew and the GCC deliberated, the Saudi official press peddled the regime’s line: an Iranian-Shia conspiracy was targeting the Sunni heartland. The champions of Sunni Islam would save the Gulf from the Iranian-Shia takeover. The Saudi regime proved not only to its subjects, but also to Western governments, a determination to crush protest and expel Iranian and Shia influence from the peninsula. The message to President Obama was to think twice before supporting democracy and human rights in the Arabian Peninsula. The message to Saudis was that critics would be tarred as traitors to the nation and enemies of the faith.
  • All local newspapers reported on it favorably.
  • Many in the younger generation are critical of the regime’s repressive gender policies, but they support its opposition to the Shia as alien, heretical, and loyal to Iran.
  • the “liberal press”—also officially controlled—published articles denouncing sectarianism. Liberal authors attacked sectarian preachers of hate and instead celebrated national unity, wataniyya. Not that these liberal authors favored political protest or close ties with the Shia. Rather, they offered Saudis an alternative discourse that still served the regime’s interests. With society divided between supposedly liberal intellectuals and hateful preachers, the regime confirms in the minds of people that it alone can broker between the fiercely opposed groups.
  • Protesters avoid arrest by supporting the king and demanding that bureaucrats respect his royal decrees. Anger is therefore channelled toward low-level civil servants without challenging the regime directly or insisting on royal intervention. As long as protests do not question the policies of senior members of the royal family, they are tolerated, perhaps to some extent welcomed as a means to vent public anger.
  • The press has dubbed the wave of small-scale demonstrations “protest fever.” Importantly, women are uniting in pursuit of their interests and rights, suggesting that this is the beginning of a civil rights movement. Saudi women have agitated before—in 1990 some were arrested for violating a driving ban—but the 2011 protests are different. At local and regional levels, women’s demands are more fundamental than before. They want employment, the right to vote in municipal elections, and freedom of speech.
  • When protesters agitate for the end of the regime, they are shown no mercy. As of this writing, seven demonstrators have been shot and killed by Saudi security forces. In the virtual world, government agents continue to use propaganda, counterarguments, and rumors against calls for protest.
  • should pressure start coming from the West, the Saudi regime knows how to exploit its allies’ weak spots: fear of terrorism and an insatiable appetite for oil and military contracts.
  • Digital activism will continue to provide an outlet to a population denied basic freedom. But with popular unrest largely under wraps and the West silent, the regime faces no threat in the short term.
  • The economic and social deprivation, political oppression, and corruption that triggered revolutions elsewhere are all present in Saudi Arabia, but these alone are not sufficient to precipitate an uprising. Saudi Arabia does not have trade unions—the majority of its working population is foreign, which has stunted the growth of organized labor—a women’s movement, or an active student population, three factors that helped to make protests in Tunis and Cairo successful. Elsewhere in the Arab world, in the absence of these important factors, revolt stumbled, turned violent, and could not progress without serious foreign intervention. Libya is a case in point.
  • where the state is the only institution that matters, effectively bringing people together offline may be impossible
Ed Webb

Egypt: Lessons from Iran | openDemocracy - 0 views

  • There is no doubt that Egypt cannot go back to what it was under Mubarak, but the shape of the future system is very much dependent upon the presence of the youth, women, and the working people in articulating and pushing for their democratic demands in the public sphere. A crucial lesson from Iran for the progressive secular forces - the left, liberals, feminists, artists and intellectuals - is to not sacrifice their secular democratic demands, and not to trust the army, the Islamists or the traditional elite. 
  • another lesson from Iran is that in the post-revolutionary anarchy there is always the danger that the reactionary forces use the religious beliefs of the masses to get the upper hand
  • The clerical/military oligarchy in Iran, with its intricate network of religious, repressive and economic institutions and multiple military and intelligence systems, is highly complex and also independent from any foreign power. It is a fascist-type system that still has millions on the payroll of the state and para-statal organizations, including religious foundations. It has also shown on numerous occasions that it does not hesitate to use extreme brutality against its opposition. In the long run, its fate will not be different from those of other dictatorships and authoritarian regimes in the Middle East or elsewhere, but the Iranian people unfortunately have a much more difficult fight ahead of them.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The US and Israel can no longer rely on dependable and friendly Arab dictators, and will finally have to take the aspirations for genuine peace with the Palestinians seriously. The Middle East may seem to be caught between a rock and a hard place – that is, between secular dictatorships and Islamic fundamentalisms. But indeed a third alternative, a secular democratic one, does exist. We must hope that the democratic forces in all these countries will eventually be able to harness both the Islamists and the militarists.
حسام الحملاوي

TUNISIA: Torched police station that symbolized repression turned into art exhibition |... - 0 views

  •  
    Nice idea, I hope we can replicate it in Egypt too!
Ed Webb

Summer's here and it's time to call the 'Arab spring' a revolution | Ed Rooksby | Comme... - 1 views

  • plenty of commentators are drawing direct comparisons between the current events and the collapse of the eastern bloc. This approach performs an ideological function, in that it discursively integrates the current upheaval into a pre-existing approved ideological narrative – the dictatorships of the Middle East are merely the latest in a long line of tyrannies to have been undermined by the relentless march of progress and liberal democracy. Thus these upheavals represent further confirmation of the moral and organisational superiority of the western order.
  • The dynamic of change in countries such as Egypt is much more radical. In Marxist terms, the "political revolution" (reorganisation of the political institutions and changes among the leading state personnel) threatens to carry over into a "social revolution" (a more far-reaching reconfiguration of social relations and of the economic system). This can be seen in the way the focus of struggle, post-Mubarak, has shifted from Tahrir Square to the political-economic space of factories as workers organise strikes, articulate demands that are both political and economic, and start to challenge the power of Egypt's "little Mubaraks" – the country's economic elites. The revolution is deepening and taking on a definite class dynamic.
  • the pressures which are driving the revolts in north Africa are just as much systemic, economic ones as they are to do with political repression in Arab states
gabrielle verdier

Popular Protests in North Africa and the Middle East (IV): Tunisia's Way - Internationa... - 0 views

  • Initially hesitant, the Union générale tunisienne du travail (UGTT) assumed a leadership role. Pressed by its more militant local branches and fearful of losing its constituency’s support, it mobilised ever greater numbers in more and more cities, including Tunis. Satellite television channels and social networking – from Facebook to Twitter – helped spread the movement to young members of the middle class and elite. At the same time, violence against protesters contributed to a blending of social and political demands. The regime projected the image of indiscriminate police repression and so demonstrators saw it as such. Nothing did more to turn the population in favour of the uprising than the way President Zine el-Abedine Ben Ali chose to deal with it.
  • The most difficult task is also the most pressing: to attend to deep socio-economic grievances. For the many ordinary citizens who took to the streets, material despair was a key motivation. They wanted freedom and a voice and have reason to rejoice at democratic progress, but the political victory has done little to change the conditions that triggered their revolt.
  • Libya provoked a refugee crisis that has hit Tunisia hard.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • In the absence of strong domestic steps and generous international assistance, there is every reason to expect renewed social unrest coupled with an acute sense of regional imbalance, as resentment of the underprivileged south and centre grows.
1 - 15 of 15
Showing 20 items per page