One of the ongoing Friday protests in Amman, Jordan, last year. Spontaneity, largely horizontal organization, and a suspicion toward explicit political leadership have all been signature components of the Arab revolutions. Joshua Stephens of Toward Freedom interviews Mohammed Bamyeh, who writes on… Read moreAnarchism and the Arab uprisings
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An Interview with Mohammed Bamyeh
by Joshua Stephens, Toward Freedom
Spontaneity, largely horizontal organization, and a suspicion toward explicit political leadership have all been signature components of what’s referred to as the Arab Spring. This has been the case since the outbreak of the Tunisian revolution—regardless of the regimes that have resulted from the power vacuums left in their wake. Yet very little of the particularities or the historical forces driving these uprisings captured the imagination of or spoke to left anti-authoritarians in the west, until the appearance of a western-style black bloc in Cairo on the two-year anniversary of the Egyptian revolution. That contradiction, and a sudden gaze cast—particularly on Egypt—pose rather unsettling questions about representation, and a slouch toward Orientalism.
Continue ReadingANARCHISM AND THE ARAB UPRISINGS
