“It is midnight in Cairo”, intoned the BBC reporter on the Ten O’ Clock News bulletin, “and still tens of thousands are in Tahrir Square. One chant echoes again and again: ‘Go, go, go’. But this time it is not… Continue Reading
This article is a preliminary and incomplete account of an unfinished revolution.1 It represents a first attempt to explore the implications of the great wave of strikes and social protests which preceded Mubarak’s fall from power and dominated the first… Continue Reading
Of all the startling scenes which made up Act One of the Egyptian Revolution, the events in Tahrir Square on 2 February were surely most astounding. When Mubarak sent gangs of plainclothes police to attack demonstrators, the protesters fought like… Continue Reading
On 14 January 2011 Tunisians ousted President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali after a month’s revolt. Ben Ali’s removal has changed our perception of revolution. Two things explain this: the change came totally from below; and the reactionary forces have… Continue Reading
In the winter of 1939-40 the German Marxist critic Walter Benjamin wrote a remarkable text known as “Theses on the Philosophy of History”. In it he attacked the widespread belief on the left that socialism would come about inevitably, as… Continue Reading