Citizen Activism and Mediterranean Identity

This book explores the commonalities between the struggles of the last years around the Mediterranean and tries to find the cultural roots of this season of protests and activism against repression and a growing systemic crisis. Who are their main characters? How has mobility of ideas and persons contributed to it? Why has the Mediterranean become the cradle of civil resistance? And how can one make sure that what has begun bears fruit? The author discusses how a strategic action of social movements and activists from both Europe and the Arab world can build the basis for a grassroots project for integration between the two shores, where mobility is at the core: on the one hand, mobility of ideas, activists, men and women of culture and other key-players, and trans-national strategizing; on the other hand, challenging the paradigms of visa policies and striving for a space of safe human mobility as one of the steps of a grassroots Mediterranean citizens project. Providing argument to a new theory of social mobilization, this book will be of interest to scholars of European and Arab politics as well as to political activists in the region.

Constitutes the first comprehensive account of the emergence of citizens' movements and revolutionary youth movements around the Mediterranean basin Explains the pilot significance of civic activism across geographical and cultural borders in the region Offers a perspective beyond Eurocentrism and addresses its message both to European, Arab and other readers of the region, including activists and civil society players

Autorentext

Gianluca Solera is an activist and a writer. An early Green militant, he studied regional and urban planning, and spent many years as a political adviser to the European Greens, and then as civil society coordinator at the Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue between Cultures. His last two books are Muri, lacrime e za'tar [Walls, Tears and Za'tar] and Riscatto mediterraneo [A Mediterranean Awakening]. He collaborates with COSPE and other nonprofit organizations, and edits gianlucasolera.it, a blog on society, politics and culture in the Mediterranean.

Inhalt

1. A Revolutionary Contagion .- 2. Decolonising the Mediterranean: The Battle of Images and Clichés .- 3. Migration, Nomadism, Mélange as Transformative Forces .- 4. Cornerstones for a Mediterranean Internationale Citoyenne .- 5. The Dialogue Is Dead, the Mediterranean Is Alive.