The Egyptian Revolution that began in January 2011 was the most important breakthrough for the Arab working class in over 50 years.1 It was a blow against capitalism in its neoliberal mode and an inspiration to activists worldwide. The counter-revolution… Continue Reading
A review of Gilbert Achcar, Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising (Saqi, 2016), £12.99 Gilbert Achcar is a Lebanese socialist living in Europe and a prominent commentator on Middle Eastern politics. His recent book Morbid Symptoms is meant to… Continue Reading
A review of Maha Abdelrahman, Egypt’s Long Revolution: Protest Movements and Uprisings (Routledge, 2015), £34.99 This book was written as the Egyptian Revolution unfolded. Its author experienced the hopes and anxieties of tens of millions of people, sharing “moments of… Continue Reading
The military coup of July 2013 was a serious setback for the revolutionary movement in Egypt.1 For army leader Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi it was an act of rescuing the revolution: for Egypt’s radical activists it was a counter-revolutionary offensive aimed to… Continue Reading
A striking feature of Egypt’s Revolution is the extraordinary number of people engaged in struggles in the streets and workplaces, and in formal and informal organisations. The absolute numbers, together with the proportion of the population involved and the continuity… Continue Reading
For 35 years Egypt was a laboratory for neoliberalism—a local state in which hegemonic world powers and financial institutions played out their strategies for the global economy. It was also a stage on which the United States and its allies… Continue Reading
“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
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