From deep state to Islamic State: the Arab counter-revolution and its jihadi legacy. By Jean-Pierre Filiu

Abstract

The French historian Jean-Pierre Filiu has attempted to connect the past to the present in this highly topical and ambitious work that looks to chart how the Arab revolutions, which he wrote about optimistically in 2011, have been crushed by a combination of authoritarian regimes and jihadis. It is a ‘study of the repressive dynamics designed to crush any hope of democratic change’ (p. x) that looks to draw a parallel with the Mamluks, who ruled Egypt from 1250 to 1517, to understand how a military elite in particular was able to ‘hijack the post-colonial independent states and establish their military dictatorships’ (p. 125). Filiu combines the Mamluk history with a broad look across the Middle East and North Africa with a focus on Algeria, Yemen, Egypt, Syria and Tunisia, in just 240 pages. The hijacking of independence movements is a rip-roaring tale of purges, coups, exiles, states of emergency and the ubiquitous ‘Communiqué Number Ones’. Once in power, the new Mamluk rulers ‘demonstrated an exceptional capacity to survive at any cost, especially when this cost is paid by their own population’ (p. 135). This ‘deep state’, as Filiu describes it, does not rely on oil, which allows it an adaptability in the face of challenges such as the Arab revolutions, and the author takes pains to point out the ‘fundamental difference’ between Mamluk authoritarian regimes and aspiring totalitarian systems of Libya and Iraq (p. 80).