Book Reviews Ortadoğu Etütleri, Volume 6, No 1, July 2014, pp.133-136

THE ARAB SPRING: THE END OF Hamid Dabashi, (London & New York: Zed Books, 2012), 272 p. ISBN 1780322232, 9781780322230

he events of the last 3 years his way of showing solidarity in the , which is with the “Arab Spring” (p. 235). Tcommonly referred as the “Arab In both ways, Dabashi’s book is a Spring” have been momentous highly critical work. He does not not only for the of the aim to grasp the entire relevant region and the world in general, theoretical discussion, but to but also for the academic stud- engage with a new way of inter- ies of the Middle East region. preting world politics in which Countries from Morocco to Ye- the developments in the Middle men have experienced a wave of East lie at the center. Thus, this demonstrations with broad par- book is recommended to any- ticipation of different segments one who is interested either in of their societies which resulted politics of the Middle East, or in the ouster of the leaders in contemporary world politics on some cases. One of the central a theoretical basis. questions of the last 3 years has been how to frame these events. The book is composed of ten Professor Hamid Dabashi, a chapters each of which poses well-known scholar of Iranian different but inter-related and Studies and Comparative Litera- equally-important arguments. ture at , en- Instead of a country-by-country gages in a theoretical discussion discussion of the “Arab Spring”, on the “Arab Spring” throughout Dabashi prefers to deal with the his latest book The Arab Spring: cases within the framework of a The End of Postcolonialism. Ha- theoretical debate. Only in the mid Dabashi states that he had first chapter he gives a chronolo- two aims in writing this book. gy of the events in each country First of all, he attempted to build in the region that has been influ- a theoretical perspective to assess enced from the wave of protests. the revolts in the region. Sec- This chronology is also accompa- ondly, as the events were still un- nied by a brief discussion of the folding during the writing and possible reasons of the unrests in publishing process of this book; each case. In the rest of the book, Dabashi considers his book as Dabashi mainly provides his

July 2014 Book Reviews

analysis of the “Arab Spring”, and its of knowledge production (p. 119) effects on world politics. The “Arab since the old one represents the domi- Spring”, for Dabashi, is not only rev- nation within coloniality and postco- olutionary for the region, but it has loniality. These two processes consti- also changed the course of interna- tute the end of postcoloniality. tional politics in general. In another book named Shi’ism: One of the main arguments of the A Religion of Protest, Dabashi dis- book which is also the basis of all oth- cusses the term ‘delayed and deferred er discussions is Dabashi’s claim that, defiance’ in the history of Shi’ism all of our terminology needs to be which he also adapts to the context rethought. The meanings that are at- of the “Arab Spring”1. By “delayed tributed to them no longer correspond defiance” he means that a new un- to reality. He argues that we need a derstanding of liberation movement new mode of knowledge production emerges which is not within the in order to grasp the changes that are realm of postcoloniality, and thus brought by the “Arab Spring”(p. 2). creates a different revolutionary ge- Furthermore, he argues that the “Arab ography which he designates as the Spring” and the Green Movement “liberation geography” (p. 44). Ben- signal such a mode of knowledge efiting from the thoughts of Bakhtin, production that transcends colonial Dabashi argues that the revolutions and postcolonial boundaries (p. 164). of this era resemble not an epic, but Dabashi argues that postcoloniality a novel (p. 232). Thus, he offers the created an illusion of emancipation concept of “open-ended revolutions” for the formerly colonized countries, which are slower but more perma- however it only fixated the existing nent than total revolutions. This kind relations of domination (p. xvii). The of a revolution is able to break both “Arab Spring” signals the end of post- the political and ideological domi- coloniality in two terms. First of all, nation of colonialism. For Dabashi, it will bring an end to the “colonial the “Arab Spring” symbolizes such a oppression” which was only preserved revolution that holds the potential to by postcoloniality. The old binaries create an “open-ended dynamic” (p. such as “West and the Rest”, “East 97), which would translate into not and West” or concepts such as “ori- only politics but also art through the ental”, “colonial”, or “postcolonial” “cosmopolitan ” it generates which only contribute to the repro- (p. 73). Dabashi considers the “Arab duction of the colonial domination Spring” in general and Tahrir in par- will cease with the “Arab Spring”. ticular as the nucleus of this compre- It will bring about a cosmopolitan hensive revolution (p. 2). Dabashi culture in which other worlds that also points to the relationship be- are suppressed by the false binary of tween the Green Movement and the “West and the Rest” come to the fore- front (p. 159). Secondly, the “Arab Spring” necessitates and produces a 1 Hamid Dabashi, Shi’ism: A Religion of Protest, new ideological formation and mode (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Har- vard University Press, 2011), p. 67.

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Arab Spring which he also highlight- entalism and postcolonial knowledge ed in his earlier writings. According production. to Dabashi, all these movements signal a new world in which differ- Dabashi’s literary writing style ent worlds live together in a cosmo- and theoretical depth makes our politan wordliness in which former reading a delightful journey. There modes of domination and knowledge are valuable discussions in the book production do not exist anymore. which will probably occupy the This will be an era when the world scholarly agenda in terms of the will transcend postcoloniality by ac- debates on postcoloniality and its tually realizing the features that are interaction with the recent social attributed to it. movements around the globe. How- ever, when we try to see the analysis In The Arab Spring: The End of behind the text, Dabashi does not Postcolonialism Dabashi furthers his provide satisfactory answers to the arguments that he discusses in his questions that may come to minds other works such as Post-: while reading the book. Dabashi is Knowledge and Power in Time of Ter- highly optimistic about the radical ror (Transaction Publishers, 2008), changes that the “Arab Spring” will , The Green Movement and the lead to in national, regional and in- USA: The Fox and the Paradox (Zed ternational domination. However, it Books, 2010), Shi’ism: A Religion of is unclear whether this optimism is Protest (Harvard, 2011), The Green merely “wishful thinking” or a result Movement in Iran (Transaction Pub- that is reached through an analytical lishers, 2011). In other words, this inference. He prefers to use the term book is in a theoretical harmony with “Arab Spring” not because of a the- Dabashi’s line of thought. The reader oretical positioning, but because he engages in a multi-dimensional dis- argues that it symbolizes “hope” (p. cussion with reference to several in- xviii). In another part of the book, fluential thinkers and scholars of the he argues that the terms “Arab” and last 200 years. , Max We- “Muslim” can only be used as pro- ber, Hannah Arendt, , verbial since it is only a part within Hardt & Negri, Mikhail Bakhtin, the entire transformative geography Talal Asad, Asef Bayat, and Bernard which experiences not only a region- Yack are only some of these theorists al, but also a “global reconfigura- that have a central place in the book. tion”. On the other side, he attributes Although I do not have enough space the “Arab Spring” such a power as a to discuss Dabashi’s reflections on all trigger of the liberation geography these thinkers, it suffices here to say that it is able to destroy the domi- that the reader finds a fruitful and a nant political on a global profound theoretical discussion not scale. For Dabashi, the “Arab Spring” only on the “Arab Spring” and the can shatter all the discursive binaries latest social movements in the region, and the unequal power structure in but also on postcolonial politics, ori- the world. In this way, postcolonial- ity will also be transcended. Howev-

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er, he does not explain why it is only In the conclusion section, Dabashi the “Arab Spring”, and the Tahrir in objects the binary between interpre- particular that holds such a potential, tation and change that Marx had put and not the other movements in the in his work “Thesis on Feuerbach”. world. He does not explain in which Yet accepting the responsibility of part of the movements he sees the both interpreting and changing the symbols of such a potential: in the world, Dabashi argues that we change techniques, in the discourse, or in the world by the act of interpreting the aims? Secondly, even if the “Arab it. The optimism of the book may Spring” would eventually topple the have a relationship with Dabashi’s in- postcolonial regimes, why does it terpretation of Marx’s thesis. Maybe necessarily mean the end of postco- for Dabashi, by way of interpreting loniality itself? the Arab Spring in a certain way, we may have the potential to change it in One of the main arguments of that direction. In any case, The Arab the book was the need for a recon- Spring: The End of Postcolonialism sideration of our terminology while presents a very different and radical understanding social movements and reading of the developments in the politics in general. He argues that Middle East and the world in general even the word revolution is needed which students of the region do not to be rethought in order to be used in encounter occasionally. In that sense, the discussions on the “Arab Spring” it is certain that Dabashi’s book will and the course of politics after that. open new windows to the people in- However, he does not present a the- terested not only in Middle East pol- oretical basis for the relationship itics but also in revolution theories, between this need and the “Arab world politics and the theory of post- Spring”. In other words, why does colonialism. Arab Spring in particular necessitate such a reconsideration? He himself rightfully criticizes the scholars who Kübra OĞUZ try to see the “Arab Spring” as only a Middle East Technical University youth movement by saying that “thus Department of International Relations the class composition of dissent has PhD Student been cloaked by a new imaginary ho- mogenous construct called ‘youth’” (p. 66). However, he keeps referring to the “people” as the actors of the “Arab Spring” without discussing the composition of the participants. In the end, all these points raises the doubt that Dabashi cannot provide an analytical ground for his argu- ments.

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