Talking Anarchism and the Arab Uprisings with Mohammed Bamyeh
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.
Talking Anarchism and the Arab Uprisings with Mohammed Bamyeh
Joshua Stephens
Toward Freedom
26 February 2013
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.
The romantic accounts of Arab struggle constructed in the US (most recently, in an “open letter” to the Black Bloc, from Crimethinc), commit a signature sin of omission. Namely, the Arabs present in these accounts (published largely for an English-speaking audience) don't speak, and are not heard. The features we're treated to are filtered through a process of selection in which Arabs did not participate. Consequently, what these accounts convey –well-meaning, or no –has more to do with what their authors see of themselves in their subject matter, and less to do with anything happening on the ground in Arab struggles.
Mohammed Bamyeh is a sociologist of social movements at the University of Pittsburgh, who has written critically about the intersection of anarchism and the dynamics of the Arab uprisings. I encountered him through an article published on the website Jadaliyya several years ago, and sought him out on the topic of anarchism in the Arab world. This conversation resulted.
