Social Thinking in Times of Great Transformations

The left must translate Palestine into questions of power and livelihood — not rhetorical solidarity while neoliberalism devours the rest.

بدايات تختتم عيدها العاشر وتعلّق الصدور مؤقتًا

Bidayat Concludes Its Tenth Anniversary and Temporarily Suspends Publication

Bidayat

After ten years of publication, “Bidayat” magazine is temporarily suspending its work due to funding challenges, hoping to find a qualitative shift that ensures its continuity or concludes its venture.

السودان، الجزائر، إلخ. استئناف البدايات

Sudan, Algeria, Etc.: Resuming the Beginnings

Bidayat

The popular movements in Sudan and Algeria represent a resumption of the 2011 uprisings, posing the challenge of achieving genuine change that expresses the will of the people in the face of authoritarian regimes and the interference of old and external powers.

ماركس في «ربيع الشعوب» ١٨٤٨ بناء الحقل السياسي والتعلّم من الممارسة

Marx in the "Spring of Nations" 1848: Building the Political Field and Learning from Practice

Bidayat

Marx's engagement with the 1848 revolutions refined his understanding of class representation and the state, leading him to view socialism as the necessary completion of political democracy to resolve the contradiction between political and social inequality.

ماركس في «ربيع الشعوب» ١٨٤٨ – بناء الحقل السياسي والتعلّم من الممارسة

Marx in the "Spring of Nations" 1848 - Building the Political Field and Learning from Practice

Bidayat

While media superficially compared the 'Arab Spring' to the 1848 revolutions without genuine study, this article reclaims Marx's engagement with the 'Spring of Peoples' to offer a profound analysis of revolutionary complexity, class representation, and the role of the state.

بدايات في العام السادس

Bidayat in Its Sixth Year

Bidayat

In its sixth year, “Bidayat” renews its commitment to expanding critical reflection and deep left-wing intellectual inquiry to confront the challenges of the Arab uprisings, moving beyond quick opinion journalism.

Mamdouha Bobst Center for Peace and Justice – Princeton lecture

A Princeton lecture: neoliberalism banned "social justice" for a quarter century—and the Arab revolutions diagnosed the problem: unemployment, despotism, class inequality. No military solution to ISIS, only drying up its social sources.

Social Justice Lecture

A lecture: the Arab revolutions are a critique-in-practice of neoliberalism—the World Bank forgot about job creation, and "we are ruled by Ali Baba and the forty thieves—and they don't even reach forty."

اليمن في عين العاصفة

Yemen in the Eye of the Storm

Bidayat

The richest Arab states bomb the poorest — the Gulf Initiative destroyed Yemen by pardoning the dictator. Camp David summit: an arms fair, not a diplomatic forum.

مشاريع ادونيس

Adonis' Projects

As-Safir

Which revolution is Adonis's reference? His eloquence covering for dictatorship now approaches stupidity.

مشاريع ادونيس … وادونيس ايضا مهموم بالمشاريع.

Adonis' Projects... And Adonis Too Is Preoccupied with Projects

As-Safir

Adonis rejects revolutions for lacking a "project" — has any revolution in history not begun by toppling the system as the path to an alternative?

مشاريع ادونيس … وادونيس ايضا مهموم بالمشاريع

Adonis' Projects... And Adonis Too Is Preoccupied with Projects

As-Safir

Once “the project” becomes a pretext against revolutions, despotism is absolved and people are asked to change everything except power.

حروب الردّة

Wars of Counter-Revolution

Bidayat

Jihadi-Takfirism isn't born of "revolutionary chaos" but of regime repression — it builds nothing, carries no cause, and punishes society for its otherness.

من يتذكر الاول من ايار؟

Who Remembers the First of May?

As-Safir

Despite political crises, May Day reminds us that the Arab revolutions were founded on workers' issues and rights, and that freedom cannot stand without bread and true democracy.

من يحاسِب؟ ومن يحاسِب مَن؟

Who Holds Accountable? And Who Holds Whom Accountable?

As-Safir

The issue is not merely the overthrow of the ruler, but preventing immunity, exile, and assassination from swallowing the revolutions' first achievement: the right to accountability.

١٣ نيسان: تأملات لبنانية-سورية

April 13: Lebanese-Syrian Reflections

As-Safir

From the anniversary of April 13, Lebanon and Syria parallel each other in the transformation of popular movements into civil wars, with the Syrian regime bearing primary responsibility for declaring war on its people.

مقابلة شاملة مع فواز طرابلسي عن الثورة والحرب في سورية

A Comprehensive Interview with Fawwaz Traboulsi on Revolution and War in Syria

Bidayat

The Syrian revolution, an expression of a deep crisis, was pushed into civil war by regime violence, yet it remains a revolution with class and sectarian dimensions requiring a clear vision from the Left and opposition.

مؤتمر الحوار الوطني اليمني: البداية المبتورة

The Yemeni National Dialogue Conference: A Truncated Beginning

As-Safir

Yemen's National Dialogue Conference is a major step, but it is fundamentally truncated by the immunity granted to the former president and the marginalization of revolutionary youth and the Southern Movement.

٨ آذار ٢٠١٣ – الثورة أنثى

March 8, 2013 - The Revolution Is Female

As-Safir

The revolution is feminine—every retreat from the civil state strikes women first: Saudi women on the Shura Council who can't attend without a male guardian.

تمرين في الترجمة

An Exercise in Translation

As-Safir

How are globalization's terms like transparency and transitional justice translated in the Arab world to become a cover for plundering wealth and exempting ruling families from accountability?

الثورة اليمنية في العام الثالث

The Yemeni Revolution in Its Third Year

As-Safir

The Yemeni revolution enters its third year with a faltering national dialogue and a paralyzed transition, as old regime structures maintain control and the Gulf-American initiative transforms into a counter-revolution.

interview with Fawwaz Traboulsi on the Syrian revolution

An interview (2013): "Syrian revolutionaries owe nobody an apology"—militarization was forced by the regime, and the US seeks to salvage regimes through a military-Islamist assemblage. The opposition must crystallize its vision now.

هي ثورة

It Is a Revolution

As-Safir

These are revolutions, not a 'spring' or uprisings: they erupt when rulers can no longer govern and the ruled can no longer tolerate them, imposing systemic change, not just reform, through popular power.

مداخلة ندوة القاهرة عن «ثورات الكرامة العربية » في الثورة بما هي نقد فكري

Intervention at the Cairo Symposium on "Arab Dignity Revolutions": On Revolution as Intellectual Critique

Revolution as intellectual critique: the Arab revolutions proved Arabs are not an exception to history. "Dignity" is not culture but a material demand — work, bread, freedom.