Social Science Research Council
The uprisings which surged through the Arab world in 2011 did not come from nowhere. They represented in part the manifestation of a long, structural transformation in the region’s public sphere which radically undermined the ability of states to control or shape information. Challenges to authoritarian regimes, on the streets and online, had been growing […]
“Freedom is a great, great adventure, but it is not without risks… There are many unknowns.” Fathi Ben Haj Yathia (Tunisian author and former political prisoner), New York Times, February 21, 2011 The courageous crowds of the Arab world, from Tunis to Tahrir Square, from Yemen and Bahrain and now to Benghazi and Tripoli, have […]
I. When asked to exhibit at the Musée du quai Branly in 2007, the British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare chose the theme of Jardin de l’amour, creating installations that celebrate the French revolution and the revolutions to come. Recently named Member of the British Empire, Shonibare arranged his trademark wax figures in three scenes, inspired by […]
The protests in Iran in June 2009, following the announcement of a dubious election victory by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, were in many ways similar to those that arose in Czechoslovakia following the shooting of protestors in Prague, or in the Philippines and the Ukraine following the election frauds in those countries in 1996 and 2002. […]
(1) The transformations of 1989 – symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall – were not primarily European but global events. They included not only the end of the Eastern European communist empire but also significant unrest in China, the end of the Apartheid regime of South Africa, the collapse of military dictatorships across […]
In 1989, protest erupted across the socialist world, shaking capitols from Beijing to Berlin. Yet what Daniel Chirot called the world-wide “crisis of Leninism” had remarkably different origins and trajectories. While a few Communist regimes survived, the German Democratic Republic (GDR), popularly known as East Germany, was one of states that collapsed. Uniquely, its collapse […]
No matter how miraculous the turning point of 1989 appeared to be, it was hardly a miracle; rather, it was a marvelous staging of freedom in several acts, a modern performance, as it did not have one author, or even one director: it was the collective creation of self-educated citizen-actors, with its most visible grand […]
Even for Poland, 1989 was a surprise, but not in the same way as for other parts of the region or of the world. And that was due to the existence of a profound opposition, a mutable communist authority, and an influential and diverse set of Catholic authorities. Poles knew that transformations were likely, for […]
As the most important European event since 1945, the overthrow of Communism during 1989-1991 poses a double challenge for retrospective understanding. Because the current wave of commemorations at the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Wall is largely promoting an anti-Communist agenda, the democratic awakening needs to be rescued from such instrumentalization by contemporary […]
I think that the kind of activity that Hannah Arendt named “the lost treasure of the revolutionary tradition” was a visible part of the transformations of 1989, and has continued to play a significant role in the politics of transformation. I believe there is no way to better mark the 20 anniversary of the fall […]