The contradictions of the Arab Spring (Wallerstein)

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The spirit of 1968 flows through Arab Spring and Occupy movement - as its counter-current attempts to suppress uprising.

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The past didn't go anywhere

What do I mean by a "1968 current"? There were two essential features to the world-revolution of 1968 that remain relevant to the world situation today. First, the revolutionaries of 1968 were protesting against the inherently undemocratic behaviour of those in authority. This was a revolt against such use (or misuse) of authority at all levels: the level of the world-system as a whole; the level of the national and local governments; the level of the multiple non-governmental institutions in which people take part or to which they are subordinated (from workplaces to educational structures to political parties and trade-unions).

In language that was developed later on, the 1968-revolutionaries were against vertical decision-making and in favour of horizontal decision-making - participatory and therefore popular. By and large, although there were exceptions, the "1968 current" was deeply influenced by the concept of non-violent resistance, whether in the version of satyagraha developed by Mahatma Gandhi or that pursued by Martin Luther King and his collaborators, or indeed older versions such as that of Henry David Thoreau.

In the "Arab Spring" we could see this current strongly at work in Tunisia and Egypt. It was the rapid public embrace of this current that terrified those in power - the rulers of every Arab state without exception, the governments of the "outside" states who were an active presence in the geopolitics of the Arab world, even the governments of very distant states.

The spread of an anti-authoritarian logic, and especially its success anywhere, menaced all of them. The governments of the world joined forces to destroy the "1968 current".

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/11/20111111101711539134.html

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