******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. *****************************************************************
Al Jazeera: In your book and in your analyses in general, you do not refer to what happened in 2011 as the "Arab Spring" or a revolution. Why?
Gilbert Achcar: Most people have used the term "revolution" to refer to the initial sequence of events, like when speaking of the "25 January Revolution" in Egypt as one that ends on February 11, or even naming the "revolution" by the day the autocrat fell, like in referring to the "14 January Revolution" in Tunis. What I have been emphasising since 2011 is that we were only at the beginning of a long-term revolutionary process that will go on for years and decades. As in every such historical process, there will be ups and downs, revolutions and counter-revolutions, upsurges and backlashes. My view of the events is predicated on my analysis of the real issues at the heart of this revolutionary process, which are issues that I have been studying and teaching for several years.
I saw the explosion not primarily as the result of a political crisis, as it has been widely portrayed, or as one provoked by a thirst for political freedom. This was an important dimension of the uprising, to be sure. However, the deepest roots of the explosion were socioeconomic, in my view. For several decades, the Arab world has had the lowest rates of economic growth of all regions of Asia and Africa and the highest rates of unemployment in the world, especially youth and female unemployment.
Those were the crucial ingredients of the big explosion. And they are not issues that can be settled with a new constitution or a mere change of president. They can only be settled through a radical change of the social, political, and economic structures. They request a real social revolution, one that cannot be merely political.
The problem is that there were no organised forces representing such a radical goal and pursuing it with a coherent strategy. That is why it was obvious to me that it would take a long time before the process comes to conclusion. And there is no certainty whatsoever that the process will end up with the required progressive kind of change. What is certain is that, short of such a change, the region will keep living through turmoil and violence.
full: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016/01/qa-terrible-illusion-arab-spring-160126105954308.html
_________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
