Everywhere around the world, there is a growing feeling that the present order of society cannot go on as before. After the revolts of the ‘Arab spring’, the Indignados movement in Spain and Occupy in the US in 2011, the summer of 2013 has seen huge movements on the streets of Turkey and Brazil. In June and July it was again the turn of Egypt to see millions on the street, returning to Tahrir Square which was the epicentre of the 2011 rebellion against the Mubarak regime.

Growing poverty, the brutal blows of the economic crisis, the yearning for freedom from a regime of terror, indignation about corruption, are continuing to fuel revolt among the populations of the Middle East, especially in Egypt.

The tide of rebellion in North Africa and the Middle East shows no sign of abating. The latest developments: demonstrations and clashes with the police in the Libyan city of Benghazi following the arrest of a lawyer involved in a campaign demanding an investigation into the brutal massacre of hundreds of prisoners after a protest in 1996. Qaddafi’s regime again displays its ruthless brutality – there are reports of snipers and helicopters firing into crowds, killing many; in Bahrain, thousands of demonstrators occupy the Pearl Roundabout in Manama, hoping to emulate the occupation of Tahrir Square. They raise slogans against sectarian divisions (“No Shia, no Sunni, only Bahraini”) and against self-appointed leaders (“We have no leaders”). At the time of writing, riot police have now cleared the area with considerable violence – many demonstrators have been injured and some killed. In Iraq, there have been new demonstrations against the price of necessities and the lack of electricity. 

A tide of revolt is sweeping through Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, and Yemen. The Syrian regime has cut off the internet in fear that the contagion will spread to them. These are not Islamist movements, as apologists for Mubarak have been claiming. The whole population has taken part, irrespective of their exact stance on matters of religion. In Egypt thousands defied the instructions of their imams not to go onto the streets; there have also been examples of a conscious rejection of sectarian divisions between Muslims and Christians, in a country where the latter minority has been subjected to massacres very recently.