Organization has to come from an agreement about principles, rather than just the need to coordinate: so as much as we must all act today in a concerted manner, that should not be the ground of an organization.

The only way that we can prove the relevance of Fanon in a certain way outside of some academic circles is to ask, do people involved in social struggles engage with Fanonian concepts and find something relevant for them, even if they have never heard of Fanon because Fanon is implicitly in the struggles?

The revolts themselves open up something very new. One has to be aware, or listen, or open one's mind to what are the new beginnings.

Violence is used to suppress a people in a most blatantly crude way. We can historicize and contextualize it. We can analyze the Algerian situation, its history and so forth, and question whether that is anything like the situation we face today. But, this is only one way to understand why violence becomes so important.

The Syrian people do not recognize themselves in the elite politics of the Muslim Brotherhood or the left, each of which is looking for an external power rather than the people's own self-activity.

The problem in Syria, I think, is that when there is so much violence, there is not only very little chance to create spaces for liberation, but also all talk is quickly swallowed up by it. People are trying to keep their heads down because they are being bombarded all the time.

The grand schemes of liberation, however indistinct and amorphous, can quickly be compromised, consumed by petty disputes and local hatreds.