The increased strength of emerging countries of the South confronts the challenges of contemporary globalization.

‘Their (media outlets') autonomy is reduced to the institutionalization of a functional casuistry that gives legitimacy to the powers that be. It is in this sense that I contend that the power of financial aristocracy is complemented by the power of media clergy’.

Arab regimes achieved success within a short period but then ran out of steam as a result of their internal limits and contradictions. The ruling circles have given in to neo-liberal globalization, leading to rapid decline in social conditions. That is what caused the revolts.

Frantz Fanon is a loved and respected figure all over Africa and Asia. Samir Amin argues that his writing and the choice to join the liberation struggle in Algeria show Fanon was a genuine revolutionary.

Samir Amin is proposing a way out of the current situation of capitalism in crisis. Nations should socialise the ownership of monopolies, de-financialise the management of the economy and de-globalise international relations.

Elections won't change the world unless we can work out how to 'bring together new, rich, inventive forms of democratisation' through which they can be used in a way other than is conceived by ‘conservative forces’, argues Samir Amin.

‘The right to education is a fundamental human right, inseparable from people’s aspirations to a full and a wholly authentic democracy,’ argues Samir Amin.

It is too early to predict the future of democracy in Tunisia, writes Samir Amin, but ‘only the rapid crystallisation of a radical left wing, going well beyond the demand for proper elections, can allow the resumption of a struggle for a change worthy of its name’.

The revolution in Libya, led by a motley group of democrats and Islamists and their imperialist allies, is likely to entrench the deep divisions in the country, writes Samir Amin, warning of the possibility of disintegration of the nation.