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On a decade of protest around the world.

Journalist Vincent Bevins is back on the podcast to talk about his new book, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution. We discuss the 2010s protest wave across countries as varied as Egypt, Turkey, Brazil, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Chile, Bahrain, Yemen, South Korea and Tunisia. 

We ask:

  • Why were protests in places that were so different all look so similar?
  • Why was there such a focus on spontaneity, leaderlessness, peformativity, and horizontalism?
  • What are some examples of the ways protests rejected representation?
  • Was class or generation more important in driving these protests?
  • Why did media becomes so important in pursuing political change?
  • How can we avoid a repeat of the failures of the 2010s?

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Richard R

I think Phil hits really close with the comment about stupidity. Of course, as a wokester, I have to qualify it and say that he's hitting what might be better termed discipline. Plenty of smart people don't know jack shit because they lack the discipline to learn. And at the key moment where it becomes possible to actually seize power, it isn't just stupidity that gets in the way, but also a lack of discipline in leftwing groups that seals their doom, as their "highest ideals" are expressed as individualist disarray that they suppose is what freedom looks like.

Vico1725

Sounds like an interesting book. A companion to Zeynep Tufekci’s 2017, Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest.