Post-Marxism and the Middle East Capa dura - 2001

The chain of developments unleashed by Gorbachev's perestroika, glasnost and 'new political thinking' culminated in the disintegration of what had hitherto been known in Marxist jargon as the socialist camp or the world of existing socialism. For the Arab radicals, there was the loss of a superpower ally on whose military, economic and political patronage they could count. The demise of the Soviet Union has left a sense of desperation and angst among the new generation of Arab Marxist activists, leaders and intellectuals. The Marxists who have come out of this process are very different from what they had been before it started. Various trends are now in the making. This book attempts to describe and trace the theoretical issues and endeavours which have influenced and shaped this rethinking. The chapters are structured around several major, interconnected themes: an examination of the theoretical, political and organizational responses evident so far among the Marxists in the Arab world. Most chapters have an explicit or implicit comparative outlook that reveals to what extent Marxism in the Arab world has common inherited features with, or divergent perspectives from, its European counterpart.