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If We Burn 2023
If We Burn is a 2023 political history and journalism book written by author and journalist Vincent Bevins. The work explores the wave of mass protests that occurred during the 2010s and investigates why these movements, despite their scale and visibility, failed to achieve lasting change. It questions how protest organization and strategy contributed to what the author calls a "missing revolution," especially considering that most of these efforts ended in "a record of failures, setbacks, and cataclysms." The title references self-immolation as a recurring motif throughout this period, beginning with Mohamed Bouazizi's death in 2011 and ending with the slogan from The Hunger Games used during the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests: "If we burn, you burn with us."
The book starts by tracing left-wing activism from the end of the October Revolution, continuing through the New Left and into current times. It specifically follows the evolution of vanguardism in leftist politics and how it shifted toward decentralized horizontalism in mass protest movements beginning in the early 20th century. The final chapter argues that the absence of centralized leadership allowed media to misrepresent the goals and interests within horizontal movements, which weakened their impact and energy. Additionally, the lack of structure gave right-wing groups opportunities to co-opt these movements, as seen in Brazil where momentum completely reversed.
The book is based on four years of research and hundreds of interviews, including conversations with many original organizers of major protest events. Bevins approaches the subject from a sympathetic standpoint, even though the movements he describes vary widely in ideology. Naomi Klein, the author, observes that this work embodies a spirit of self-criticism or autocritique. Bevins is highly critical of mainstream media, using his own experience to highlight how class biases shaped and distorted coverage of protest events.
Included in the book are the following movements: Movimento Passe Livre in Brazil; the Arab Spring, especially in Tunisia and Egypt; Occupy Wall Street in the United States; the 2014 Hong Kong protests; Euromaidan in Ukraine; the 2019–2022 Chilean protests; and the 2016–2017 South Korean protests.
Details
- Publisher
- Hachette Book Group, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers
- ISBN
- 9781541788978
- Pages
- 337
