If 2011 saw a monumental change in the governments of the Middle East, 2012 has demonstrated that revolution takes some time, that conflict is sustained and that some of the same challenges are not consigned to history.
Protests continue in Egypt’s capital Cairo, as over one hundred thousand demonstrators have recently taken to the streets and gathered once again in Tahrir Square in opposition to dictatorial decrees by President Mohammed Morsi. With only one hundred days in power, Morsi’s fledgling tenure as president has resulted in examples of sweeping authority, transferring all executive and legislative powers from the military council to his offices.
Such actions are reminiscent of the power exercised by former President Hosni Mubarak. The on-going distrust of Morsi’s presidency returns the chant of the 2011 revolution: "The people want to bring down the regime".
These are Verso’s key titles on the challenges facing Egypt and the Middle East, where uprising continues from the hopefulness of the Arab Spring to the challenges ahead.
The French revolution lasted over ten years because a series of historical processes and contradictions simply took that long to resolve themselves into a new order that was capable of enduring beyond the short term. It is hard to discern any sustainable equilibrium in Egyptian politics at the moment. Not, at least, with any real degree of confidence.
Today marks the official publication of The Journey to Tahrir, a collection of essays and articles edited by Jeannie Sowers and Chris Toensing, and mentions of the book appeared on both The Arabist's blog and in Foreign Policy's Middle East Channel Editor's Reader.
In The Arabist, Issandr El Amrani, a contributor to the book himself, writes that this new collection is, "A great way to review late Mubarak Egypt and the January 2011 uprising."
Visit The Arabist and Foreign Policy to read the reviews in full.