Hello, you're very welcome to Longreads.

A Jacobin podcast where we look in depth at political topics and thinkers.

My name's Daniel Finn. I'm the features editor here at Jacobin, and I've been presenting the show. In coming weeks we'll be covering subjects like the history of Nigeria and Poland solidarity movement and thinkers like Albert Camu and Eric Fromm.

For fast approaching the 10th anniversary of the Arab Uprisings, which rocked the established foundations of power from Egypt to Bahrain

and from Syria to Yemen. As a brief reminder of that intoxicating moment in Arab politics,

this is how Al Jazeera reported on the fall of Hosniwa Barak.

Just listen to the chance roaring in downtown Cairo.

The hundreds of people walk into the streets.

It's unprecedented.

The people we've seen taking to the streets today are not the 50-60 activists

that we've been seen protesting in Egypt for the past five six years.

These were normal Egyptians.

They shot at us. Am I an enemy of the state? I came here to ask just for rights.

The protesters have lost their fear. They are determined to continue doing this. It doesn't show any signs of stopping it.

Our guest today is Joel Bainin, an American historian who's written extensively on the history of

left-wing movements in countries like Egypt, Israel and Tunisia.

You spoke earlier in the year in your Jachiman article about the fact that

labour movements and labour struggles had played a more significant role in the Arab

uprisings of the last decade that is widely appreciated at least in the English language press.

I wonder to begin with could you say a little bit about that about the role that

labour organizations played in countries like Egypt and in Tunisia. So first of

all Egypt and Tunisia are very different because in Egypt the

...