Book Review: ‘On the State of Egypt- The Issues that Caused the Revolution‘, Alaa Al Aswany (AUB Press 2011)

David Lynch is currently based in Cairo reporting on post-Mubarak Egypt and the Arab Spring. He is blogging at Arab Spring in My Step.
Massive social phenomena are not easily predicted.
The CIA for instance, was pumped full of [...]

Speech given after the October 15th march at Occupy Dublin, outside the Central Bank of Ireland, Dame Street
When you have lived a long life, you will find that the years blur together, but some years stand out. 2011 will be a stand out year.
For some of us active on the left for many years, we [...]

This is the first of a three part analysis of Owen Jones’ book Chavs. The second part will be published tomorrow, with the concluding part appearing on Thursday. All three can be read here.
Book Review: Owen Jones, Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class. London: Verso, 2011. 298 pages. £14.99

To get rid of class-distinctions you [...]

The Soft Underbelly of homo lordaniensis-being sort of a review, but more an anatomy I’d like to think, of
Invitation to a Sacrifice (Knockeven: Salmon, 2010) pbk, 124pp
Most English-language poetry suffers from its practitioners’ besetting niceness and an excess of formula.  A poet writes a book in which persons, stories and places are sculpted into illustrations [...]

Book Review: Riotous Assemblies: Rebels, Riots and Revolts in Ireland, Edited by William Sheehan & Maura Cronin, Mercier 2011
Riots get a bad press.
After the rubble is removed, rioters tend not to have a press office established to spin their take on events. But it’s not principally this lack of media savvy that means their narrative [...]

The death of Rachel Peavoy in Shangan Flats, Dublin, on the night of January 10th 2011, a bitterly cold night in the coldest winter in living memory, stands in so many ways as a metaphor for Ireland itself. She died, according to the pathologist, of hypothermia. There is no avoiding that judgement. According to her [...]

The following preface and introduction are taken from a report, The Norwegian Oil Experience: A toolbox for managing resources?, which is being published in English here for the first time.
Translator’s Preface
The discovery of oil and gas, like other mineral resources, is often a curse rather than a blessing. For many societies around the world it [...]

“Of course we are under tremendous pressure on the financial arrangements (of the EU-IMF deal) but getting the economy going again, returning to growth will make that affordable,”
“If our economy goes well, if we get back to growth, get to full employment, then we can pay this easily. If economic growth is weak, then it [...]

Until recently, I never focused much on Libya. As part of the 1960s new left, I cheered the green revolution of 1969, as part of a wave of national liberation movements sweeping the world. Gaddafi seemed to be a revolutionary leader of a movement which overthrew a monarchy, set out to forge a form of [...]

This article was first published in #CrisisJam on politico.ie.
In December 2010, Afri published a report entitled ‘The IMF and Ireland: what we can learn from the Global South’. We looked at the record of the IMF around the world (generally appalling) and argued that the Irish ‘bail out’ deal would have similarly terrible consequences [...]