سودان: الثورة السلمية في عظمتها وحدودها

Bidayat

A train departed Atbara carrying a revolution. Eight months later, crowds celebrated a constitutional document — joyful yet wary of what the generals might concede.

المقابلة – فوّاز طرابلسي: توجد دولة ولكن لا توجد معارضة 

The Interview - Fawwaz Traboulsi: There Is a State but There Is No Opposition

SifR

The interview challenges dominant narratives of the Lebanese crisis, asserting that the state exists and serves an oligarchy, and that the real problem lies in the absence of an organized opposition.

العمال يؤسسون للديمقراطية والعلمانية

Workers Lay the Foundations for Democracy and Secularism

Bidayat

150 years since the Paris Commune — 72 days of direct democracy, secularism, and social justice. Paris lived in the future and bequeathed the hope that paradise on earth is possible.

١٥٠ عامًا على «عامّية باريس»

150 Years Since the Paris Commune

Bidayat

From the shock of defeat and refusal to surrender, the Paris Commune declared the first experiment in direct democracy, secularism, and social justice, affirming that democracy is a product of popular imagination and struggles.

الحرية ضد العدالة والمساواة نقاش لأفكار فون هايك النيوليبراليّة

Freedom Against Justice and Equality: A Discussion of Friedrich von Hayek's Neoliberal Ideas

Bidayat

The article discusses Friedrich von Hayek's neoliberal ideas, which prioritize individual liberty over justice and equality, showing how his concept of market "spontaneity" ignores the role of human struggles in achieving justice and transforms the market into a speculative "casino."

ماذا يستطيع الحراك؟ جدل المتخيّل والضروري

What Can the Movement Do? The Dialectic of the Imagined and the Necessary

Bidayat

The Hirak faces a paradox between the dream of radical change and the necessity of resisting the crisis; if it keeps demanding the impossible without achieving the necessary, it will fail to secure the rights of the popular majority.

من يوميّات الحراك الشعبي

From the Diaries of the Popular Movement

Bidayat

The October 17 uprising erupted as popular anger against a corrupt ruling class, but it is threatened with co-optation or suppression unless it organizes itself and adopts clear demands to confront austerity plans and overcome sectarianism.

مذكرات جارالله عمر

The Memoirs of Jarallah Omar

How could he support one-party rule in the South while fighting to overthrow it in the North? He opposed both war and secession — both sides called him traitor, then assassinated him.

علاء الدين العالم – محاورة فوّاز طرابلسي

Alaa al-Din al-Alem - A Conversation with Fawwaz Traboulsi

The October 2019 uprising is a historic break with the post-war neoliberal 'reconstruction' system, facing the challenge of building independent leadership to resist austerity and hold the corrupt accountable.

الثورة السلمية في عظمتها وحدودها

The Peaceful Revolution in Its Greatness and Its Limits

Bidayat

The Sudanese peaceful revolution succeeded in overthrowing the dictatorship and imposing a partnership with the military, but it faces major challenges in holding perpetrators accountable and securing genuine civilian authority over the army and security forces.

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.

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.

A Response to Manfred Sing

A “non-repentant Marxist” responds to an academic who read three pages of his book and declared him a liberal convert — do you suggest skipping democracy for the dictatorship of the proletariat?

كيف نفهم ما يجري في لبنان؟ حوار مع «فواز طرابلسي»

How Do We Understand What Is Happening in Lebanon? A Dialogue with Fawwaz Traboulsi

The October 17 uprising is unprecedented in its peaceful popular movement against Lebanon's post-civil war system, yet it faces a paradox between its aspirations for change and the challenges of "excess of politics" and lack of cross-sectarian organization.

نقاش نقدي لتطبيقات – النموذج الجنوب افريقي على فلسطين

A Critical Discussion of Applications of the South African Model to Palestine

Shu'un Filastiniyya

Applications of the South African model to Palestine overlook the fundamental difference between the two settler projects and neglect the regional conditions and factors that led to apartheid's collapse, thus stripping the 'one-state solution' vision of its practical struggle.

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.

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.

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.

هل الدولة اللبنانية دولة دينية؟

Is the Lebanese State a Religious State?

As-Safir

The constitution guarantees "absolute freedom of belief" — yet absolute freedom was translated into absolute subjection to sectarian law.

قانون انتخاب: لماذا التصويت؟

An Electoral Law: Why Vote?

As-Safir

Six leaders predetermine results — when elections resemble appointments and citizens lose their vote, what's the point of voting?

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.