The Gate of Lamentation: Bab el-Mandeb, Chokepoints and Global Interconnected Crisis
The Red Sea, and particularly the narrow Bab el-Mandeb Strait, has historically played a vital role in economic trade and in turn been a strategic area in terms of geopolitics. In the Greco-Roman world, the area was where African and Arabian trade converged, facilitating the exchange of valuable spices and aromatics, like myrrh, tortoise shells and ivory. In the medieval period the Red Sea was hub for navigation. Writers such as Ahmad ibn Majid wrote technical treaties on the wind, coral reefs, currents and surrounding islands, developing the knowledge around sailing practices and the region’s geography allowing for expansions of trade networks.
You Can’t Have a Revolution Without Revolution
You can’t have a ‘revolution without revolution’ was a sentiment expressed by Antonio Gramsci, the Italian Marxist philosopher, in his Prison Notebooks (1926-1937).
Gramsci was specifically commenting on the 19th century Italian Risorgimento—the movement for independence and unity—which he characterised as a ‘passive revolution’. For Gramsci a passive revolution was a top-down revolution that strove for a new and modern political course without actually engaging with the will of the people or disrupting the hegemony of ruling factions. Gramsci considered the Risorgimento a passive revolution because the new Italian government failed to get ordinary people politically involved or truly united…