1 2011: An Arab springtime?

The year 2011 began with a series of shattering, wrathful explosions from the Arab peoples. Is this springtime the inception of a second ‘awakening of the Arab world? ’ Or will these revolts bog down and finally prove abortive – as was the case with the first episode of that awakening, which was evoked in my book L'Eveil du Sud (Paris: Le temps des cerises, 2008). If the first hypothesis is confirmed, the forward movement of the Arab world will necessarily become part of the movement to go beyond imperialist capitalism on the world scale. Failure would keep the Arab world in its current status as a submissive periphery, prohibiting its elevation to the rank of an active participant in shaping the world. It is always dangerous to generalize about the ‘Arab world, ’ thus ignoring the diversity of objective conditions characterizing each country of that world. So I will concentrate the following reflections on Egypt, which is easily recognized as playing and having always played a major role in the general evolution of its region. Egypt was the first country in the periphery of globalized capitalism that tried to ‘emerge.’ Even at the start of the 19th century, well before Japan and China, the Viceroy Mohammed Ali had conceived and undertaken a program of renovation for Egypt and its near neighbour