FOREIGN POLICY AFTER TAHRIR REVOLUTION: (Re)-Defining the Role of Egypt in the Middle East

Recently, we have witnessed an unprecedented series of political events in the Middle East and North Africa after a young man from Tunisia had his vegetables confiscated by the police. In retaliation, the young man set himself on fire, which initiated inextinguishable flames of protests and demonstrations demanding a more humane world for everyone. Protests and strikes driven by everyday people continued to sweep across the tightly controlled North African states. However, not everybody treated these unrests as a deep, socially rooted problem in society. Some saw these chaotic moments as temporary while others applied the policy of ‘wait and see’, but very few were able to point out the essence of the uprisings or answer the questions of ‘why’, ‘why these states’ and ‘why now’. In this regard, Ozkan’s timely book becomes critical, analysing Egypt’s socio-political structures which yielded a historical change in the country. The author argues that no one can fully understand the current situation in Egypt (and in the Arab world for that matter) without understanding the socio-political dynamics of the country in relation to the Palestinian–Israeli issues.