A civilian looks at a destroyed home in Aleppo, Syria. Andoni Lubaki/AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved. Counter-revolution in the Arab world has been in the ascendance. From Egypt, where the military regime has all but vanquished its opponents; to Syria, where the regime, at the horrific cost of literally destroying Syria, has managed to shift the tide of war in its favor.
Even though counter-revolution was always superior in the material sense, it has shown a marked weakness ideologically; a feature that it has in common with its revolutionary opponents – a marked failure, that is, in producing an encompassing vision of the society that they are promoting.
There has been a marked reliance on defining themselves in relation to their opponents, labelling the opposition everything from “terrorist” to “anarchist” without offering justification for their right to rule. Rather than offering a credible alternative to the opposition, they remain in a myriad of the rhetoric of “security”, “war on terror” and the constant demonization of their opponents. As such, both the forces of the status quo and the opposition are rejectionist in nature.
