Sparks and Prairie Fires: A Theory of Unanticipated Political Revolution. The globalisation of revolution. To listen to the hype about social networking websites and the Egyptian revolution, one would think it was Silicon Valley and not the Egyptian people who overthrew Mubarak.
Via its technologies, the West imagines itself to have been the real agent in the uprising. Since the internet developed out of a US Defense Department research project, it could be said the Pentagon did it, along with Egyptian youth imitating wired hipsters from London and Los Angeles. Most narratives of globalisation are fantastically Eurocentric, stories of Western white men burdened with responsibility for interconnecting the world, by colonising it, providing it with economic theories and finance, and inventing communications technologies. Of course globalisation is about flows of people as well, about diasporas and cultural fusion. But neither version is particularly useful for organising resistance to the local dictatorship. Can Riots Be Predicted? Experts Watch Food Prices : The Salt. Hide captionA Tunisian protester holds a baguette while taking to riot police in January 2011.
Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images When French peasants stormed the Bastille on July 14, 1789, they weren't just revolting against the monarchy's policies. They were also hungry. The Iranian Revolution. The Arab Uprisings.