A central lesson is that labour movements will be in a better position to shape political outcomes decisively if they build independent organisations with real strategic capacity. The absence of such organisational strength in Egypt was a key reason why the post-Mubarak order did not evolve in a more democratic direction.
My reading of 2011 in Libya suggests that the events did not produce something different, rather they largely emerged whilst more radical visions for the postcolonial future of the country had been gradually defeated. As it stands, capitalism’s promise of inclusion to the Global South is premised on the structural imperative to dominate it. Thus wars, sanctions and liberal interventions will continue to define the promise of capitalist modernity that haunts the present and future of the Global South.
