Book Review
Posted on : September 20, 2024Author : Oishinee Majumdar
Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East,
Asef Bayat, Stanford University, Press, 2010
This book first published a year before the Arab uprisings, written by Iranian-American scholar, Asef Bayat, explores how the collective action and individual agency of the Arabs through everyday action carry significant political weight. Bayat’s main aim throughout the book is to rethink the concept of social movements and not look at it from a Eurocentric lens, as it ignores the historicity of the Middle East. Rather, he wants everyday activism and concepts like “social non-movements” to gain centre stage when it comes to challenging the status quo and bringing about any socio-political reform.
This book is extremely significant for analysing the revolutions in the Middle East from a bottom-up approach, when the capacity of popular revolt is restrained, the marginalised groups such as the women, youth, and other urban grassroots show agency via the “politics of presence” and “street politics” to express their dissent. In an interview for the Turkish monthly journal, Birikim, Bayat stresses on the fact that revolution as a concept remains abstract for the Arab population, as an economic failure post-revolution, is food for demagogic populists to ward off democratic polity. Throughout the book, he has highlighted that the ultimate goal is attaining dignity and freedom and an impulse to exist freely. This can be exemplified by the Palestinian art of existence called “Sumud” (steadfastness) which is a concept of freedom developed by the Palestinians whose attainment is premised on justice for everyone, as they remain in a war-stricken country, claiming so many lives.
Bayat’s style of writing is analytical and academic with a fresh perspective that contextualises the book concerning the Middle East, and its social-political landscape. At the beginning of the book, Bayat uses the phrase “Everywhere the world has changed except for the Middle East” exemplifying the need for socio-political reform in a region that is stagnant in terms of its development, in an otherwise globalised world. This change, according to Bayat, can be brought about by social non-movements, which he defines as the “collective action of non-collective actors”. These masses of largely atomised individuals, by practices of everyday encroachments, (chapter 3) assert their “right to the city” by a fluid, flexible and self-producing strategy of non-movements, creating a trifecta between everyday practices, social movements, and the urban subaltern.
As highlighted in Chapter 4 mass poverty, along with the high rate of unemployment, has left the Arabs with poor standards of living and little hope for improvement. However, the author highlights that it is a deeply ingrained structural problem. The poor application of neo-liberal economic policies has resulted in cronyism, with states retreating from social responsibilities, leaving the low-income groups to rely on themselves for survival. However, the people have not remained quiet, as seen in the recurring demonstrations in Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Iran.
Bayat’s primary focus when it comes to challenging authority via subtle acts of defiance, is on women and the youth. Women in most Middle Eastern countries are treated as second-class citizens and are bound by rigid patriarchal norms. During times of nationalist concerns, the needs of women take a back seat, even though the political landscape of a country is tied to how much agency a woman has.” Women are one of the greatest casualties of crises so political upheaval is not female-friendly”, a lack of freedom, dignity, and equal rights made women the main beneficiaries of change which could be seen in everyday actions like wearing what they want, termed as “bad hijabis” in Iran, interacting with the opposite gender in public spaces, and driving illegally till the driving ban was lifted in Saudi Arabia. Which is why many revolutions, in places like Lebanon Iraq, and Sudan, for example, were labelled as “althawrah untha” meaning the revolution is female.
According to Bayat, “youth politics” or” youth activism” has helped to address modern socio-political issues with contextual sensitivity and are often creative in nature using art music poetry, etc. as their mode of expression (Politics of Fun). Social media has also gained prominence in the Middle East wherein the youth use it as an instrument to gain international attention on local issues, like the Pearl uprising in Bahrain and the Dignity of Nations March in Kuwait, which were organised via Facebook and Twitter. (Now ‘X’)
Intertwined with this is “street politics”, where the street becomes the medium to express the collective will and sentiments of the people, forging individual identities and enlarging solidarity. The youth, trapped in a prolonged period of waithood, due to failed new liberal structural adjustment policies, poor governance, and corruption, no longer trust the state to solve their problem. New forms of political engagement via consensus-based approaches are coming together to expand political participation and individual freedom while challenging the monopolistic political discourse of the state.
As the book draws to a close, Bayat talks about a “post-Islamist trajectory” wherein there is a shift from an authoritarian Islamic state to a state where Islamic principles are integrated with values of democracy, human rights, and secularism as well as adaptive to global influences and contributing to a more inclusive political state political landscape. He remains hopeful, even though the path to this is long in complex, recognising the resilience of the people to bring about a change, despite setbacks.
While the book gives its due importance to the ordinary people of the Middle East, its weakness lies in the emphasis on social movements as instruments of change but no clear evidence of how it has brought about change. It also downplays the roles of social movements, ironically as that has brought about a change in the Middle East, evident in the examples that the author cites himself like the Lebanese Revolution, the Kefaya movement in Egypt, the Green Wave movement in Iran, the First Palestinian Intifada, etc. The author does not clearly define “change” and how it is linked with social movements. His research is also limited to only a certain only certain countries in the Middle East, but his conclusions are based on the Middle East as a whole, indicating a lack of in-depth analysis of the entire region.
Despite its shortcomings, it is a great insight into the life of ordinary people in the Middle East and an important read for anyone interested in understanding the dynamics of social movements in the Middle East and remains an important contribution to the field of social science.
By Oishinee Majumdar
Intern, Asia in Global Affairs
The originality of the content and the opinions expressed within the content are solely the author’s and do not reflect the opinions and beliefs of the website.
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