انقلاب کا مستقبل پروفیسر ظفر علی خان

Preface

The book under consideration, 'The Future of Revolutions: Rethinking Radical Change in the Age of Globalization', has been edited by John Foran, a professor of sociology at the University of California. The essays in the book are divided into five parts. Each part has a general theme. After the introduction, the subject of the first part is "Defining the Terms: Revolution and Globalization". The second is "Rethinking Revolution in the Light of Globalization", the third is "Future Languages and Strategies", the fourth is "From Afghanistan to the Zapatistas", and the fifth is "Will the Future be Better?". At the end of the second, third, and fifth parts, there are thematic discussion chapters in which the dialogues among the book's contributors are recorded. In each part, there are three to four essays on various sub-topics according to the general theme. Finally, Fred Halliday's review of the book is included under the title "Utopian Realism". Apart from John Foran's introduction, the final review essay, and the three general thematic discussions, there are eighteen essays. Each essay is written on a sub-topic under the general theme. Each essay expresses different and diverse perspectives. All authors are high-level intellectuals and researchers. Teaching, writing, and research are their hallmarks. They include experts in sociology, anthropology, feminism, political science, international relations, political economy, history, and philosophy.

For the purpose of serious study, I made notes on the book. Then I thought that perhaps their translation would be of interest to some people, so I translated them into Urdu. Through this double process, while the book became concise and accessible to the Urdu reader, the flaws of my limited understanding and lack of command over the language crept in, along with the natural shortcomings of summary and translation. As Faiz Sahib said, "For translation, one must have command over one of the two languages. And if one does not have command over both, the result is obvious."

But for the serious Urdu reader who is interested in the future of revolutions or the possibilities of radical social change, this effort might be useful, as the Left is currently suffering from intellectual chaos and has lost its direction. The collapse of Soviet Russia, the organized retreat in China, the dominance of market economies in other socialist countries, the breaking of regulations under neoliberalism, the weakening of nation-states before multinational corporations, the unchecked movement of capital, the information revolution, genetic advancements, new technologies, robotics; in short, true to the saying "what was is not, and what is will not be," the global landscape is changing rapidly.

The twentieth century was the classic century of revolutions. After globalization, the questions of today are: Has the era of revolutions come to an end? If so, why? If not, what will the revolutions of the future be like? This book is an attempt to answer these questions.