Revolution without revolutionaries: Making sense of the Arab Spring

In 1979 Iran, the notion of "revolution" was fraught with meaning across different sectors of society, both modern and more traditional. It was as deeply rooted in Marxism as it was in political Islam, and was represented by the emblematic figure of Ali Shariati, an Islamo-Marxist thinker.

With the fall of the Shah, the state apparatus collapsed and a broad social movement developed, involving the occupation of farmland, residences and factories. People's minds were alive with Republican ideals, combining popular sovereignty with a dream of social justice.

It was a decade of revolution, especially in what was then called the third world, from Yemen to Palestine, and from Latin America to the Portuguese colonies in Africa. A decade marked by the triumph of the Vietnamese people over the might of the United States, and by the collapse of the last remnants of the colonial empires.

All of these struggles fuelled the intellectual imagination of Iranian revolutionaries, whether of Marxist or religious inspiration.

The fact that no theoretician of the stature of Ali Shariati stood out, confirmed the existence of an ideological void

There was general hostility towards the western powers, first and foremost the United States, and socialist ideas were widespread. Even a movement like the Muslim Brotherhood, much less radical than its Iranian counterpart, advocated "Islamic socialism". Political transformation was closely associated with economic and social transformations.

A post-ideological era

Thirty years later, the basic status quo has changed. The revolutionary horizon is lost in fog, and we are experiencing a post-ideological phase. "Today's voices," Bayat observes, "whether secular or Islamist, accept the market economy, property relations and neoliberal thinking".

This turnaround has depoliticised opposition forces the world over. Now they focus on the defense of human rights, individual rights, the rights of women and minorities without always realising that obtaining these rights is deeply linked with social and economic issues.

And while the Arab revolutions spread like wildfire from Morocco to Syria, toppling four dictatorships in six months, they never involved or even demanded any radical break with the old economic and social order.

Should we even speak of revolution, when the chief protagonists had neither a project nor an ideology which can be called revolutionary? Yes, the book answers

Are we to blame the multiple failures witnessed since then on the "counter-revolution?" That explanation is too simplistic, the author finds, because revolutionary movements everywhere have always come up against a counter-revolution. "The question is whether the revolutions were revolutionary enough to offset the perils of restoration." Regarding the Arab world, the answer is no.

In that case, then, should we even speak of revolution, when the chief protagonists of the changes that took place had neither a project nor an ideology which can be called revolutionary?

"Yes", the book argues, which explains its title, "Revolution without revolutionaries", because in part the process went beyond of the hands of its instigators, with the sudden emergence of the "have-nots" who for decades have developed strategies of resistance and struggle.

At this point, Bayat pursues his analysis of city life under neoliberalism, begun in 'Life as politics'. Massive urbanisation and the transformations caused by the shrinking role of the state and the downsizing of the public sector, have boosted part-time and informal employment and resulted in a situation where "a massive portion of the urban population, the subalterns, become impelled to operate, subsist, or simply live in public spaces, in the streets, in a substantial 'outdoor economy'.

"The outdoor spaces serve as indispensable assets for both the economic livelihood and social/cultural lives of much of the urban population", including students and university graduates. The street becomes a space for permanent clashes, with varying degrees of outcry and violence.

This is particularly true, as cities have created new needs and given rise to new demands which the state is increasingly unable to satisfy, especially regarding the provision of services.

The state is perceived by the urban population as responsible for providing these services (few rural dwellers actually rely on the state) but it no longer does so, it merely disciplines and punishes. In a poll conducted on the eve of the 2011 revolution, Egyptians lamented their lack of access to drinking water or a proper sewage system more often than insufficient employment opportunities.

'Social non-movements'

Young peoples' collective consciousness is also forged on the streets. Whether they are street sellers, young mavericks or avid football fans, they cannot avoid challenging the existing order as represented by the police.

And the poor are far from powerless. They organise, and have a street politics which takes the form of what the author calls 'social non-movements'.

These non-movements are part of daily life and they are what conferred on the "Arab spring" its revolutionary character

How are these different from social movements? Firstly, they focus on action rather than ideological motivations; they implement their demands immediately; their actions are not separate from their daily lives; they are not carried out by small groups but, as Bayat wrote in 'Life as Politics', "they are common practice of everyday life carried out by millions of people... 

"What is the effect of 'big numbers'? To begin with, a large number of people acting together have the effect of normalising and legitimising those acts that are otherwise deemed illegitimate. The practice of big numbers is likely to capture and appropriate spaces of power in society within which the subaltern can cultivate, consolidate and reproduce their counter-power... They can associate, generating a more powerful dynamic than their individual sum total."

Read more: Khaled Abol Naga: The revolutionary power of hope

This resistance expresses itself in everyday life, on the ground, when street sellers take over a territory, when a piece of land is occupied, when an illegal structure goes up, when young people assert their right to have fun, or when Muslim women assert their right to autonomy in public space.

It is unlikely that this new dynamism will fade away, it has simply assumed new guises

These non-movements are part of daily life and they are what conferred on the "Arab spring" its revolutionary character.

They made it possible to move beyond the narrow confines of 'reasonable' thinking but could not be followed up because the political class was steeped in the indestructible neoliberal ideology.

As Bayat points out, "So while the Arab revolutions embodied in practice radical impulses and initiatives on the part of the subalterns, no serious intellectual articulation, ideological frame, or social movement anchored them." Quite the contrary, "The commonsense neoliberal thinking among the elites, liberal as Islamist" denigrated these initiatives, which is obviously what made the situation so different from the 1970s.

The fact that no theoretician of the stature of Ali Shariati stood out, confirmed the existence of an ideological void, perceptible across the world with the collapse of the 'third worldist' and socialist vision.

A dangerous lack of horizon

This lack of a horizon laid bare the limitations of 'street politics'. "The protests in Cairo's Tahrir Square, Madrid's Puerta del Sol, and New York's Liberty Square [Zuccotti Park] were truly the most extraordinary expression of street politics in recent memory. But they were precisely that, extra-ordinary, which in ordinary times reveal their limitations; they cannot be sustained for a long span of time… because they are by definition divorced from everyday life."

This lack of a horizon laid bare the limitations of 'street politics'

And this, of course, was even truer in the Arab world than in the West, since, concretely the long-term demonstrations meant a worsening of living conditions for the poor as a result of 'instability', the falling-off of the tourist trade, the decline in investments and the powerlessness of governments already impoverished and weakened by decades of corruption and neoliberal policies.

One of the most significant and lasting achievements of the Arab revolutions, as Bayat points out, is the "change in consciousness" marked by the brutal irruption on the political scene of both conservative and liberal ideas in debates as impassioned as they were unprecedented.

Western public opinion, alarmed by glaring headlines about an 'Islamist autumn' was only aware of one side of the phenomenon: The rise of Salafism and conservative ideas - with the appearance of bearded men, women in burqas or vice squads - underestimating the quite powerful mobilisation around the ideals of pluralism, secular and civilian government (dawla madaniyya), women's rights and the public expression of atheism.

In spite of the backlash and in spite of the wars, it is unlikely that this new dynamism will fade away, it has simply assumed new guises, some cultural, some underground, but still strong.

At the end of the day, we cannot help wondering: Is the "Arab case" all that 'exceptional' after all, in spite of its specifics, in particular the weakening of the nation-state under the repeated assaults of transnational organisations such as al-Qaeda or Islamic State?

Over the years an ideological straitjacket has taken hold everywhere, summed up in Margaret Thatcher's pronouncement: "There is no alternative."

We are told we must give up the idea of any in-depth transformation, that the only path to a better tomorrow lies through "reforms" of the labour market and unlimited free trade. This risks driving to despair those who experience the concrete effects of those policies, and promoting a widespread fascination with bloody millenarian utopias.


Alain Gresh is the Director of Orient XXI, a journalist and expert in Middle East affairs. He is the author of 'L'Islam, la République et le monde', Fayard, 2014 among many others. 


This article was originally published by our partners at Orient XXI. 

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.