Compared to the consistent output of academic commentary and studies on the so-called “Arab Spring” protests of 2010-11, Benoît Challand distinguishes his work by refusing to categorize the outcome of this regional event as either a success or failure. Instead, he embarks on a process of theory making inspired by artists and activists in Tunisia and Yemen to produce a highly detailed work of comparative sociology of the uprisings. Through an analysis of the meaning and experience of citizenship in the two nations, he emphasizes informal practices of citizenship, such as how people occupy public space, over formal political processes, such as voting. In this respect, the mass protests of 2010 and 2011, the caravans to the Tunis qaṣba in January and February 2011, the “March of Life” to Sanaa in December 2011 are thus illustrative of a “new imaginary” of “the people” (12). Similarly, the demands for accountability made on public servants and government officials demonstrate a particular type of force: the popular desire of the people. The two major conceptual interventions, as indicated in the title, pertain to an understanding of violence to signify the force of the people – often in contrast to the use of state force against the people – and an examination of representations, which takes pains to distinguish between formal representations, such as elected officials, and cultural expressions, such as graffiti and posters.
The first two chapters provide what Challand describes as a long-term perspective on historical changes to citizenship. This is largely an overview of the modern history of the region of Middle East and North Africa in its relations with Europe. Challand explains that sociology’s understandings of state formation and definitions of citizenship stem from European experiences. Instead, he reminds readers that state formation was a relational process between these two regions as their historical trajectories were intertwined through what he describes as European “encroachment,” a concept meant to include direct colonial rule as well as capitalist economic exploitation. Challand’s rehashing of the centrality of colonialism, exploitation, and violence to state-making as modernity in Europe, and the detrimental effects of (colonial) state violence on state-making processes in the Middle East and North Africa, is done in conversation with the silences of canonical sociologists such as Norbert Elias, Charles Tilly, and Eugen Weber. The connective thread to subsequent chapters is that, whether exercised through the police or the military, such repression was experienced unevenly and had long-term consequences such as deterring civic participation. The second chapter also summarizes historical scholarship, drawing examples from across the Middle East and North Africa from the late nineteenth century through various advents of national independence in the twentieth century. Challand underscores the “democratic aspirations” (112) and “bottom-up civic participation” (113) of various republican mobilizations and constitutional demands whether stifled by colonial repression or the security mandates of post-independence states (backed by international aid).
The thrust of Challand’s original research begins in part two of the book, where the focus narrows to Tunisia and Yemen. This part begins with a synopsis of the book’s key arguments, making it an accessible entry point to the book. The two chapters (three and four) include insights drawn from interviews with twelve activists and organizers from Yemen where he traveled in the early 2000s, as well as interviews with fifty-three people in Tunisia over four months of research in 2015 and 2016. Challand frames these two chapters on the creative and dramatic changes inaugurated in 2011 and the collective mobilizations sustained in varying scales in Tunisia and Yemen from 2011 through 2014. The close narration of political events is interspersed with analyses of popular slogans, chants, and graffiti to demonstrate how people taking to the streets created a sense of unity and gave new meaning to national identities. As a form of citizenship, this was not only more inclusive, but it also did not rely on coercion or repression.
In its focus on counter-revolution, chapter four points toward the limits of the reform process even when these reforms were accomplished through acts of creative or dynamic mobilization and held the promise of more radical or revolutionary outcomes. Challand argues that Tunisia and Yemen share a range of similarities. During these three years of reformism, both nations avoided the broad-scale civil war seen in Syria or Libya (and arguably militarized foreign interventions) as well as the military backlash marked by the Egyptian military’s brutal removal of the nation’s first democratically elected president in the summer of 2013. In the case of Tunisia, this resulted from the relatively stronger consensus in favor of reformism over revolutionary changes, institutional rivalries and jealousies, and then the return of an old guard into the security branches under Beji Caid al-Sebsi after 2014.
The final section of the book draws the political narrative and analysis closer to the present, from 2014 to 2021. For Challand, the overarching themes for these years are decentralization and reformism. The former captures the federalism and continued desires for autonomy in the south of Yemen represented by Hirak, and the demands for social and economic justice made by a range of smaller movements (e.g., a charitable association in Bizerte, a film festival in Rdayyef) across the Tunisian interior. While none of these demands were fulfilled, Challand argues that their presence exerted popular pressure on their respective regimes. Despite the shortcomings of the political process in Yemen, and absence of organizational or structural changes, both regimes adopted some reforms. In this respect, graffiti on a wall in Siliana saying “the people do not want you,” or covering the signage of an office of the former ruling party to read “house of the people” in Midoun, represented new ways of enacting citizenship that kept “the symbolic repertoires of 2011 (marches and slogans) alive” (299). What matters to Challand is the very localized nature of these actions or the political commentary in the street art by Yemeni muralist Murad Subayʾ and other “small anecdotes” that collectively constitute a novel mode of civic participation (320).
Despite this appreciation for informal civic engagement, chapter six addresses the process of securitization and the state’s recourse to patriarchal nationalism. This is true of the regimes of Sebsi and Kais Saied in Tunisia, and it was a consequence of the civil war and foreign intervention in Yemen, resulting in the silencing of creativity and civic activism in both nations. In Yemen, Challand notes the marginalization of women and youth, who had contributed to a more critical political discourse in the initial revolutionary years. In Tunisia, the regional inequalities between coastal regions (including the capital) and the interior remain unresolved with little political will to address structural economic imbalances. Instead, he notes the deepening capitalism, or an overall commitment of Tunisia’s political elite to continue the nation’s dependence upon international financial institutions and the exploitive patterns established during French colonial rule. Despite continued organizing and important strikes (e.g., in the oil sector in the Kammour region), these populist efforts are met with repression. This increase, or renewal, of political violence contributed to “the fragmentation of social and political spaces” (343). In fact, it is in the public space of the capital city of Tunis, that Challand identifies a glaring contrast between the steel and marble monuments associated with former presidents Bourguiba and Ben Ali that dominate the landscape, and new signage commemorating January 14, which is more modest in size, composition, and materials. For Challand, murals, theatre, and smaller monuments recognizing “the people” are illustrative of the continued collective will and reasons for hope, even if it is limited to the informal sphere.
As a contribution to comparative sociology, the book provides more than enough background to be read by scholars unfamiliar with the modern history of the Middle East and North Africa, though the chapters are perhaps too long for use in most undergraduate classes. Challand covers the major political events of the past decade in Tunisia and Yemen with references to Egypt, Algeria, Syria, and Sudan, including electoral and party politics, with descriptions of prominent political figures. Alongside this detailed presentation he maintains attention to cultural representations, however transient, to argue for their importance as a popular force that challenges the unjust ways states utilize violence against their citizens. For Challand, this attention to the informal sphere illustrates a collective imaginary and the creation of a new social life of active citizenship.
