مقدمة كتاب السفير

Introduction to the Al-Safir Book

As-Safir

Preface: writing in revolutionary time mixes pleasure with confusion — the word becomes an act of change, and the writer must nurture hope.

اليسار في الزمن الثوري

The Left in Revolutionary Times

Bidayat

The Arab revolutions are a critique-by-practice of neoliberalism — the World Bank admitted the metric it imposed for 25 years doesn't solve unemployment. Democracy is the road to socialism.

لكل فصول التغيير

For All the Seasons of Change

Bidayat

Inaugural editorial: Bidayat was born with the Arab revolutions to refound the left project — freedom, equality, and social justice.

غيفارا: كلام بلا صورة

Guevara: Words Without a Picture

Freeing Guevara from the T-shirt — socialist countries are complicit in exploitation if they trade at world market prices.

طرابلسي: بالتمايز فقط يعود اليسار 

Traboulsi: Only Through Distinction Can the Left Return

Ayn Al-Shabab

Interview: Castro has become the capitalists' reference and the left still ashamed of socialism. The moment is ripe — but it won't wait. The left must return fully equipped.

تصفية حسات مع التجربة السوفييتية: تقييم ودروس

Settling Accounts with the Soviet Experience: An Assessment and Lessons

Bidayat

Settling scores with the Soviet experience: a project that claimed equality by sacrificing freedom, demonstrating that democracy is a fundamental condition for socialism, not an addition to it.

التجربة السوفييتية: ما لها وما عليها

The Soviet Experience: Its Merits and Its Faults

Two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, this text offers a balance sheet of the Soviet experience, drawing essential lessons for those who still believe in the possibility of transcending capitalism towards a new world.

The Left in Time of Revolution

Bidayat

A founding essay in Bidayat: the Arab uprisings are a movement against neoliberalism—"the people want" is popular sovereignty above all others, and "work, freedom, bread" places unemployment at the heart of democracy.

الثورات تسقط الافكار ايضا

Revolutions Bring Down Ideas Too

Al-Akhbar

They predicted the youth would become jihadists — instead they became democrats. Tens of millions in the streets are not a "deficit" but a surplus of democracy.

درس في المهابة والاحترام

A Lesson in Dignity and Respect

As-Safir

Lewis asks: "Why don't they fear us?" — the same question haunting every Arab ruler. Thanks to the youth who teach us not to fear tyranny.

في التوزيع العادل للأمل

On the Fair Distribution of Hope

As-Safir

The state produces "social death," identities pull backward into fear — then Tunisia erupts: "employment, employment" is the literal demand for redistributing hope.

تشي غيفارا: طوبي الانسان الجديد

Che Guevara: Blessed Be the New Man

As-Safir

This generation suffers poverty of dreams like anemia — both destroy immunity. Che's image is that immunity: an architect of hopes from whose portrait light still radiates.

امرأتان وكلمة سر واحدة

Two Women and One Password

As-Safir

Helen Thomas from the White House, Haneen Zoabi from the Knesset — one password: Palestine is occupied, so why don't they go back?

Hezbollah’s New Political Platform

As-Safir

Translation: Hezbollah abandoned the Islamic state and Wilayat al-Faqih—but its new platform accepts full partnership in the confessional system and its economic conditions. "Order is from faith"—or from serving bankers?

لبنان بحاجة الى يسار

Lebanon Needs a Left

As-Safir

Lebanon is in dire need of a renewed left to rebalance the political scene and offer a secular democratic alternative, as political forces drift rightward, entrenching inequalities and external dependence.

بطاقة معايدة – الامل

A Greeting Card - Hope

One wish: hope — an industry like any other. Darwish's testament: we raise hope. Good night, may you wake to hope.

مقابلة البحرين

Bahrain Interview

Amid the 2008 crash, the crisis shatters neoliberal illusions and revalidates Marxism, but weakening the state does not strengthen freedoms, nor is political Islam a true alternative.

مقابلة البوصلة

Al-Bawsala Interview

Al-Bawsala

In a world where capitalism claims victory and absorption of left-wing demands, the interview reveals this to be a superficial re-framing that exacerbates capitalism's crises and challenges the Left to renew its vision.

لا يكفي ان يكون تشافيز مع الفقراء !

It Is Not Enough for Chavez to Be with the Poor!

As-Safir

Chávez's acceptance of his defeat in the constitutional referendum confirms that standing with the poor is not enough; socialist transformation requires free popular consent, not revolutionary justification.

تشي غيفارا: طوبى الانسان الجديد

Che Guevara: Blessed Be the New Man

As-Safir

They hid his body and confirmed his presence without it — this generation suffers dream-poverty like anemia, and Che's image is the immunity.

في القلب، يا بو انيس!

In the Heart, O Abu Anis!

George Hawi the builder — revolution is like the mole, it burrows then returns. His killer couldn't bear his independence.

ادوارد سعيد في «الاسلوب المتأخر» – الوقاحة بما هي منهج فكري

Edward Said on "Late Style" - Impudence as Intellectual Method

Bidayat

"Intellectual impudence" is the method in Edward Said's "On Late Style," where creators reject conformity, embrace contradiction, and remain "out of place" and against the current until the very end.

في صداقة عبد الرحمن منيف والباهي محمد وفي طلب الطوفان

On the Friendship of Abdel Rahman Munif and al-Bahi Muhammad, and in Calling for the Deluge

From an encounter between leftists in the Baath Party to Parisian exile, Abdel Rahman Munif's friendship unfolds as a journey of political disillusionment and a conviction that literature is more capable of grasping reality, leading to the call for a "flood."

الطبقات الاجتماعية في لبنان

Social Classes in Lebanon

In Lebanon, the existence of social classes is denied through myths of exceptionalism and the externalization of poverty, while real structures of domination are obscured by politics, sectarianism, and neoliberal methodologies that invert the concept of justice.