The Lebanese writer and historian Fawaz Traboulsi saw that the popular protests that took place in Lebanon in 2019 were no different from those witnessed by some Arab countries or the so-called Arab Spring revolutions, which are revolutions that did not lead - according to his jurisprudence - to real change.

In the second part of the program "The Interview", Traboulsi devoted his talk to the Lebanese situation after the civil war, the nature of the political system and the popular protests that took place there, as well as his reading of the revolutions and protests that took place in some Arab countries or what was called the Arab Spring in 2011.

He emphasized that the system of political power in Lebanon is a system of power of armed parties, and it is a complex system, and forms of loyalty in it are lured with or without sect, stressing that sectarianism has several functions, including covering up a system of corruption and “mafia” corruption, which is a system based on the production of economic interests. Through force and the army, speaking of a new formation of the Lebanese economy resulting from the era of reconstruction.

He said that the sectarian system in Lebanon experienced tremors and explosions in the years 2011, 2015 and 2019, and what happened in the last year - which is the largest - was not different from what happened in the countries of the Arab Spring in 2019.

And the Lebanese writer and historian - in his speech to the episode (29/1/2023) of the “Al-Muqabalah” program - saw that the Arab Spring revolutions did not lead to real change in the countries concerned, as regimes did not fall, and all that happened was the replacement of vice-presidents with presidents, alluding to his book "Revolutions Without Revolutionaries", in which he explained that the revolutions were without revolutionaries, and that the Arab popular uprisings were the first against "neoliberal" globalization and its impact on the middle classes, youth and popular classes, and that the slogans that were raised during them (bread, freedom and social justice) were very expressive and are a diagnosis of the causes And demands, but the great irony is that those demands were summed up in authoritarian uprisings.

The Syrian case

He referred to the clear American role in the Arab popular uprisings, and that the goal was how to preserve the ruling regimes with partial change by replacing the president with his vice president, which happened at the beginning in Egypt, and said that the army was behind the change, as it actually happened in Yemen.

The writer explained that these measures did not take place in Syria because changing the president with his vice president would be tantamount to a change in the nature of power, in addition to the fact that the Syrian regime presented itself as if it was fighting against international terrorism, and said that the United States of America had a program for change in Syria, and that the Syrian conflict had He began to attract foreign interventions, Iran and its militias, Russia and its army, and Turkey, and the American military role became limited to protecting the areas controlled by the Kurds.

He also talked about the role of the left elites in the Arab Spring revolutions, and said that the popular situation was an opportunity for the left to use its intellectual and theoretical apparatus and experience, and to renew its connection with its social bases;

That is, the organized connection with the people, stressing that all the organized forces were absent from the scene, except for the Islamists, who had a reading of what was going on.

On the other hand, Traboulsi indicated that he began translating since the seventies, when he translated for the leading figures of leftist thought in the world and the book of the Palestinian thinker Edward Said "Out of Place", which he said took him 8 months to translate.

It is noteworthy that the guest of "The Interview" program is one of the most important political and intellectual figures in Lebanon, and he has written important books in this field, and has translated 19 books.