books
Book review – The new Arabs
Juan Cole’s ‘The new Arabs: How the millennial generation is changing the Middle East’ is published by Simon & Schuster and priced at RM99.90. – The Malaysian Insider pic, September 2, 2014.The Arab Spring was powered by its twenty-somethings. The median age of some countries in the Middle East is 24 and many of them are Internet savvy with millions fed through Facebook. It was, after all, social media that galvanised the revolutions in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, which paved the way for some form of change.
Charting all that change is Juan Cole. History professor at the University of Michigan. Prolific current affairs blogger. Middle East watcher fluent in Arabic.
In “The new Arabs: How the millennial generation is changing the Middle East”, Cole provides a gushing praise to this cosmopolitan demography. Of how they defied corrupt regimes and cronies and even death to push for change, how they were matured and sought something better in an oppressed environment, and how those in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia succeeded and failed.
It is a book that seeks to make sense of what happened over 2010 to 2012. Cole believes the Arab Spring introduced “a whole new side of the Arab world for the Western viewing public”. And such change could only be studied from a wider perspective, including the developments of the time, such as the rise of literacy and urbanisation.
But for Cole, the most important ingredient was the dawn of social media. Because of its structure, dissenters had a voice, which was amplified by their ability to get in touch with news networks such as Qatar-based Al Jazeera. And he also provides some instances where these revolutions went beyond the “likes” and “shares” to more offline and realistic efforts by this angsty bunch, like the involvement of women in the public sphere.
Fast-paced prose provides for a breezy read. Insights are to be had. But there are some criticisms. For starters, Cole fails to provide a deeper analysis on how these youths failed or succeeded in pushing for democracy. He also fails to criticise whether these waves of “revolutions” were really effective, whether protests and demonstrations were anything more than just an outward display of discontent.
And there is that sore miss of dealing with identity. Everything about the Arab Spring boils down to identity. Cole is astute in fleshing out the different ideologies that came to play an important role in these revolutions, such as the New Left and the Islamists. But there is that lack of a critique as to why nothing really kicked off and that, actually, these youths lacked a more unified identity.
But perhaps, what really is the book’s flaw is its organisation. The final chapter on whether these revolutions could be called revolutions in the first place is perhaps the most engaging moment throughout the book.
If only Cole had brought up that chapter earlier and subjected his analysis to this angle… it could have been a much more engaging read. It would also potentially answer whether these youthful protests were effective agents of change. Unfortunately, that issue is just left open in “The new Arabs”.
“The new Arabs: How the millennial generation is changing the Middle East” by Juan Cole is published by Simon & Schuster and is priced at RM99.90. – September 2, 2014
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