The North African Uprisings: displacement, liberation and humiliation (original) (raw)

This paper explains the North African uprisings of 2011 as a result both of the perceived weakening of the United States and the complex effects of attempted neoliberal capitalist globalization in the region. A comparison is made with the revolts in East and Southeast Europe after 1989. It is argued that these uprisings represent a playing out of the dynamics of displacement, which frequently lead to resentment and cycles of humiliation. These dynamics are located in the current global geopolitical transformations which are altering the power balance between the United States and Europe, witnessing the return of China as a dominant power, and seeing a continuing revolution of rising expectations, especially among young and increasingly welleducated urban men and women. It is suggested that the peaceful containment and resolution of these tensions will depend, in part, upon the development of increasingly encompassing structures of governance that embody human rights thinking and thus diminish the influence of the honour code which is focused upon humiliation and revenge.