{"id":19269,"date":"2013-12-10T13:48:34","date_gmt":"2013-12-10T20:48:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19269"},"modified":"2013-12-10T13:48:34","modified_gmt":"2013-12-10T20:48:34","slug":"people-want-a-radical-exploration-of-the-arab-uprising","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/?p=19269","title":{"rendered":"People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising"},"content":{"rendered":"

People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising<\/strong>
\nby Gilbert Achcar – Saqi Books, London<\/p>\n

8 December, 2013 – Review by Farooq Sulehria – Socialist Resistance<\/p>\n

Brushing aside a host of fashionable narratives to explain the Arab spring, Gilbert Achcar\u2019s recent book, \u2018The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising\u2019 offers a radically different perspective.<\/p>\n

Instead of over-optimistically glorifying the uprising or pessimistically ridiculing the temporary lull as \u2018Arab winter\u2019, he views the Arab spring as a protracted or long-term revolutionary process which may continue to unfold for another couple of decades. In fact, the recent coup in Egypt weeks was a timely endorsement of Achcar\u2019s thesis on the Arab spring.<\/p>\n

His prophetic analysis, informed by a Marxist outlook, springs from rigorous research and deep knowledge of Arab realities. Instead of offering Facebook explanations, demographic analysis or ascribing the latest Arab upheaval to middle class democratic aspirations, he identifies \u201cthe deep roots of the uprising\u201d because \u201cthere can be no lasting solution to the crisis unless those roots are transformed\u201d.<\/p>\n

The breadth of the Arab spring shows that its causes are neither confined to the political realm nor limited to linguistic factors. In his view, revolution-by-contagion occurs when \u201cthere is favourable ground\u2026a predisposition to revolution\u201d. Even importantly: \u201cDespotism by itself\u2026can hardly be sufficient cause for the outbreak and subsequent success of a democratic revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

One should look for the underlying socioeconomic factors to explain why the Arab spring \u201ctriumphed when it did: why 2011, after decades of despotism in the Arab region? Why 1789 in France, after a long history of Absolutism and peasant revolts? Why 1989 in Eastern Europe, rather than, say, 1953-56?\u201d<\/p>\n

To solve the puzzle, he delves into history. A series of European revolutions also caused ripple effects. These socio-political earthquakes were, in the words of Achcar, \u201ctriggered by the collision of the two tectonic plates\u201d ie \u201cdeveloping productive forces and existing relations of production\u201d. The latter, Marx thought, constitute \u201clegal and political superstructures\u201d with the state at its core.<\/p>\n

While this contradiction between the rising bourgeoisie and feudal \u2018superstructures\u2019 \u2013 translating into revolutions \u2013 paved the way for Europe\u2019s capitalist industrialisation, a precisely \u201ccomparable instance of the existing relations of production blocking the development of the forces of production was at the origin of the shock wave\u201d that, according to Achcar, culminated in collapse of the USSR.<\/p>\n

However, unlike juvenile Marxists, Achcar does not issue any sweeping judgements based on \u201cMarx\u2019s paradigmatic thesis on revolution\u201d he himself invokes to explain European revolutions. This is because every crisis does not constitute a revolutionary situation. Similarly, every revolutionary situation does not lead to a revolution. Therefore, Achcar suggests to cautiously \u201cderive variants\u201d from Marxist thesis that are \u201cless sweeping in historical scope\u201d to describe the Arab spring.<\/p>\n

Chalking out both revolutionary possibilities and limitation impregnating a system, he points out: \u201cthe development of productive forces can be stalled, not by the relations of production constitutive of a generic mode of production (such as the relation between capital and wage-labour in the capitalist mode of production), but, rather, by a specific modality of that generic mode of production. In such cases, it is not always necessary to replace the basic mode of production in order to overcome the blockage. A change in modality or \u2018mode of regulation\u2019 does, however, have to occur\u201d. …more<\/a><\/p>\n

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People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising by Gilbert Achcar – Saqi Books, London 8 December, 2013 – Review by Farooq Sulehria – Socialist Resistance Brushing aside a host of fashionable narratives to explain the Arab spring, Gilbert Achcar\u2019s recent book, \u2018The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising\u2019 offers a more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[708],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19269"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19270,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19269\/revisions\/19270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.crookedbough.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}