Dis-Orienting Clusters of Civility

S Sayyid

Third World Quarterly, 2011, vol. 32, issue 5, 981-987

Abstract: Into what kind of narrative can we fit the recent eruption of the so-called `Arab street' into the public square? It is easy to argue that the reason why we are not certain what the story of the `Arab spring' is, is because it is too early to tell, and there is a degree of merit in this position; however, this simply defers rather than addresses the question. The problem with the recent popular mobilisations that swept many parts of Muslimistan is not purely empirical but rather conceptual. To tell a story presumes a language. Language is not itself a transparent medium, it does not just describe a pre-existing reality, it is also constitutive: it organises concepts, establishes relationships and networks, associations and dis-associations. The language that we use to apprehend the world around us is the residue of struggles of previous times; our vocabularies are crystallisations of specific historical confrontations and settlements. If our discourse (that is, both linguistic and extra-linguistic signifying practices) comes about as result of sedimented remains of historical struggles, then how can our discourse apprehend a world in which those historical forces are no longer in play?

Date: 2011
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DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2011.581058

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