In this week’s New Statesman we look at how the Arab revolt is changing the world. In an exclusive essay for the NS, Olivier Roy, one of the world’s leading experts on the Middle East, says that the ruling elites and religious reactionaries haven’t yet grasped that the region’s young people, restless and underemployed, will not be bought off by superficial reform.
Elsewhere, Lydia Ness reports from inside Libya and says that the events of the past week remind us that under Gaddafi, it has always been one of the most “murderous regimes in the world”. Meanwhile, John Pilger argues that the revolt in the Arab world is also a protest against a “worldwide economic tyranny” designed by the US, and Mehdi Hasan analyses how David Cameron, like so many of his predecessors, has preached democracy while supporting autocracy.
Also this week, David Blanchflower says that America’s “Tea Party of the left” is a warning to the coalition, the award-winning novelist Phil Whitaker, who is also a doctor, reflects on 30 years of upheaval in the NHS, and Laurie Penny decodes the royal wedding guest list.
All this, plus Ryan Gilbey reviews Animal Kingdom, Natasha Vargas-Cooper considers the British takeover of Hollywood, and Will Self explains why he loves Caffè Nero.
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