Part 1: Quranic and Historical Foundations4

Chapter 4: Contention in the Contemporary World

Three episodes from our recent world: the Battle of Karameh in 1968, when a small force held its ground months after a defeat that was thought to have broken the spirit; a slap in Sidi Bouzid that ended with a young man setting himself alight, and a whole region catching fire with him; and a generation that organised itself online and filled Tahrir Square. The chapter reads how the mobile phone and the media multiplied the force of contention, and why the Egyptian revolution remained unfinished. It then widens to a larger struggle over who defines the world itself: the clash of models, the invasion of concepts, money as a weapon, and the question that cannot be avoided: where do we stand in all of this?

The book is being prepared for publication, in Arabic. These pages offer glimpses of it, not its text.

Cases in this chapter

• 8

  The Battle of Karameh

  A field contest between an occupying force and those who held firm

  1968Chapter 4The battlefield
• 9

  Bouazizi

  When a single image sets a continent alight

  2010Chapter 4Popular uprisings
• 10

  The Egyptian revolution

  When the internet generation defies the toughest security state

  2011Chapter 4Popular uprisings

The Cases