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BOOK FOUR: Revolution Without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring by Asef Bayat

In our fourth book club meeting, we centered the discussion around the book Revolution Without Revolutionaries: Making Sense of the Arab Spring by Asef Bayat. This booked served us as a vehicle to talk about the War on Iran and its escalation, but it also posed many questions about classic revolutions versus what the author coins 'ref-olutions', that is: revolutionary moments which redirect mobilizations towards reform, without dismantling the state. We discussed Asef Bayat's comparison between the Arab Spring & Iranian Revolution, especially his argument that the latter had a clearer direction ideologically.

Asef Bayat is Professor of Sociology, and the Catherine and Bruce Bastian Professor of Global and Transnational Studies at the Department of Sociology, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Before joining Illinois, Bayat taught at the American University in Cairo for many years, and served as the director of the International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World (ISIM) holding the Chair of Society and Culture of the Modern Middle East at Leiden University, The Netherlands. In the meantime, he had visiting positions at the Universality of California, Berkeley, Colombia University, Oxford, and Brown.

This meeting led us into a broader discussion about whether meaningful change can occur without a coherent collective vision, and what happens when mobilization is fueled by anger, or is moving too fast for us to implement the world(s) we wish to see. So, we used the different themes and questions posed in the book to connect to the current moment. We talked about how war, repression, nationalism, and foreign intervention reshape popular movements.

BOOK THREE: Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands, By Kelly Lytle Hernández

During our third book club meeting, we discussed Bad Mexicans: Race, Empire, and Revolution in the Borderlands by Kelly Lytle Hernández, focusing on how the book reframes the Mexican Revolution through migration, repression, and cross-border struggle rather than treating it as something confined within Mexico alone. A major point that stood out to us was that Mexicans were the first non-Anglo mass migration into the United States, and that this movement laid a broad foundation for future generations of migrants while also shaping the history of the border itself. We reflected on how the book opens with the lynching of Antonio Rodriguez and uses that violence to show how anti-Mexican racism, forced displacement, and revolution were already deeply intertwined.

Lázaro Gutiérrez de Lara (a Mexican lawyer, journalist, labor leader, and revolutionary activist associated with the Mexican Liberal Party – PLM) posing with Soldaderas carrying heavy equipment for their fellow soldiers during the Mexican Revolution.

We also focused on the magonistas and the Partido Liberal Mexicano as a movement made up of workers, migrants, women, exiles, and ordinary people who challenged Porfirio Díaz from both sides of the border. What stood out was the way Hernández shows that U.S. history and Mexican history were never separate in this period: Díaz’s regime was tied to U.S. investment, Mexicans in the United States faced racial violence and surveillance, and the U.S. government actively worked to undermine the movement. We also discussed how the book complicates the term “liberal,” since in the mexican historical context it referred to people organizing, fighting, and risking everything, not the more passive meaning the word can carry in U.S. politics today.

Ricardo Flores Magón (left) and his brother Enrique in the Los Angeles County Jail, 1917.

“Aceptad el dolor que, aunque lejano, pueda aportar al mundo un beneficio; noble es que el hombre sufra por su hermano: toda conquista del linaje humano tiene bases de duelo y sacrificio.”

“Accept the pain that, though distant, may bring a benefit to the world; it is noble for a person to suffer for his brother: every achievement of humankind is founded on grief and sacrifice.”

— Juan Sarabia

A major part of our conversation centered on Chapter 3, “Regeneración: A Newspaper as a Weapon,” and on the idea that media can be used not just to comment on struggle, but to build it. We talked about how the Flores Magón brothers turned Regeneración into a journal of combat that exposed corruption, crossed borders, spread radical ideas, and pushed people toward action. At the same time, we sat with the tension the notes raise around Ricardo Flores Magón himself: his politics were visionary and far ahead of their time, but the book also argues that belief alone is not enough, and that revolutionary politics depend on what people are materially able to do. By the end of the meeting, that discussion carried back into our own group as we started thinking more intentionally about structure, roles, projects, and what kind of collective practice we want to build from what we study.

Cover of a publication by Regeneración during the onset of the revolution 1910.

BOOK TWO: The Haitian Revolution, By Toussaint Louverture

During our second book club meeting, we discussed The Haitian Revolution by Toussaint Louverture as more than a story about the overthrow of slavery. We focused on what freedom requires after liberation has been won: moral leadership, collective responsibility, discipline, unity, labor, and the ongoing defense of independence. As we moved through the reading, we kept returning to the idea that revolution is not only an act of resistance, but a process of building something new. We also sat with the tensions in the text, especially around the language of republican law, the meaning of justice, and the contradictions that appear when freedom is spoken about through systems still shaped by empire and racial hierarchy.

This image shows a Black revolutionary leader on a white horse at the center of a chaotic battle scene, raising his right fist as the Haitian flag waves behind him. Surrounded by fighters, smoke, and weapons, the scene is dramatic, yet heroic.

We also connected the reading to contemporary struggle by discussing the uprisings in Nepal and thinking about what present-day movements can teach us about organization, speed, communication, and escalation. We were interested in how people used online platforms to coordinate action quickly and how modern tools can shape collective response, but we also approached that discussion critically, paying attention to the intensity of those tactics and the political questions they raise. Rather than treating historical revolution and present-day unrest as separate, we used both to think through what makes mass action possible, what sustains it, and what lessons can be carried forward into our own political context.

From there, we shifted into imagining what our own book club could create and practice together. We talked about zines, physical media, and public-facing resources on topics like immigration, Narcan, food justice, abortion access, and community care. We also discussed volunteering, sharing resources, and building forms of action that connect political education to material support. Underneath all of this was a broader conversation about what kind of space we want this group to be: one grounded in mutual respect, openness, accountability, and room for disagreement, where everyone has a voice and where reading becomes a starting point for collective learning, creativity, and action.

Quote from an infographic by AFRO-PUNK

“The romanticization of revolutions is distorting the reality.

Many of us have said “I cant wait for the revolution,” and while the sentiment comes from a place of yearning for freedom and justice, we must ask ourselves – are we truly prepared for what that means? Too often, we romaticize revolutions because we have yet to experience one in our own lifetime.

The slogans, the imagery, the chants – these are easy to embrace. But the actual work of revolution, the sacrifice it demands, is not a beautiful story.

Our brothers and sisters in Haiti, Sudan, and across the world are paying deeply and painfully for daring to free themselves. Their revolutions are marked not by hashtags or poetioc declarations, but by hunger, displacement, bloodhsed, and loss. They remind us that revolution is violent and dangerous, that liberation always carries a cost.

To imagine otherwise is to indulge in fantasy, one that risks making us passive observers instead of prepared participants.

We must also confront the harder truth: revolution means giving up our comforts. It demands that we stop living in theory and begin living in action. It asks us to choose discipline over convenience, community over individualism, and sacrifice over safety.

So we must turn inward and ask: what is my role in the revolution? Not in theory, not in rhetoric, but in practice. Am I ready to face the consequences of resisting oppressive systems?

Am I willing to risk, to give, to transform my daily life into an extension of the struggle? Revolution is not simply a moment – it is a process of unlearning, organizing, and building structures that can withstand the collapse of the old.

If we are serious about liberation, we must ground ourselves in reality rather than romance. Only then can we honor those who have sacrificed before us and prepare ourselves for the work ahead.”

BOOK ONE: Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement, By Angela Y. Davis

In our first book club meeting, we centered our discussion on Freedom Is a Constant Struggle and reflected on how liberation movements are built collectively rather than through any one individual. A major theme of the conversation was how oppressive systems isolate people and make it harder to imagine change, while community, vulnerability, and genuine connection help create hope, belonging, and a stronger foundation for organizing. We also talked about how people are often drawn into movements through care, shared struggle, and the sense that they are part of something larger than themselves.

Educator, activist and author Angela Davis (1944-) became known for her involvement in a politically charged murder case in the early 1970s. Influenced by her segregated upbringing in Birmingham, Alabama, Davis joined an all-Black branch of the Communist Party as a young woman.

We also spent time thinking about action, strategy, and the many different ways people can contribute to collective struggle. We discussed direct action through protest and boycott, mutual aid through sharing resources, and the importance of asking not only what is possible, but what is required of us. We talked about social media, surveillance, and the attention economy, and considered how building our own communication through zines, physical media, and other offline methods could support organizing. Another idea that stood out was that movements are made up of many different roles, with each person contributing their own thread to a much larger whole.

Beyond the discussion itself, we also began shaping a vision for where the book club could go next. We recorded a wide range of possible future readings on abolition, Palestine, Cuba, Indigenous history, and white supremacy, which made it clear that we want this space to grow into something expansive and politically grounded. We also made plans for the next meeting, where we would read about the Haitian Revolution, research the uprisings in Nepal, and come prepared with reflections, goals, and ideas for the group. Overall, these notes show that the book club is not just about reading together, but about building political education, creative collaboration, and collective purpose.