Rebirth of the Political

The first spark for Eqypt’s 2011 revolution was lit when over 50,000 protestors occupied Cairo’s Tahrir square on January 25th. Over the course of 18 days, which resulted in president Mubarak’s removal from power, Tahrir square became the focal point of the revolution. It housed not only the democracy demonstrations, but also jovial celebrations after the fall of Mubarak. A little more than 6 months later, on September 17, a protest movement began in Zucotti Park, located in New York’s Wall Street financial district. This article analyzes the role of the “public” in the light of these recent demonstrations that put the public space to the foreground of the social and political movements. The paper has two goals. On the one hand, we will use the Arendtian concept of the public as a sphere of appearance to analyze the role and significance of the actual physical locations of Tahrir Square and Zucotti park. The contention is that Hannah Arendt’s concept of the public space is more relevant than ever to understand the dynamics behind the creating of a political power that initiates, defines and shapes democratic politics. On the other hand, the paper will re-evaluate the role of the public space in Arendt’s work with respect to these movements. While Arendt’s concept of the public has been rightly applied to the constituents of a liberal democratic state, we argue that these contemporary movements lend credibility to a reading of Arendt’s public as an actual, physical location which allows members of a community to come together and act in concert to bring about social, political and economic change.