Covid-19’s ‘Politics of Humiliation’: A Chance for the US to Lead—or to Lose Control

Photo: AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images
Mohamed Bouazizi did not seize the world’s imagination because he was handsome or rich or powerful. Instead, the Tunisian fruit vendor, whose self-immolation kicked off the “Arab Spring” in 2010, inspired tens of millions of Arabs because they empathized with his despair and sense of humiliation.
We often think of politics in binary terms: right versus left, rural versus urban, north versus south. However people come to identify themselves, their political identities are products of circumstance and belief, with some sort of calculation at their core.
Read the full article on The Hill
Image

Senior Vice President, Zbigniew Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy, and Director, Middle East Program