If We Burn, Then What?

I was asked recently what my politics are, and it unexpectedly made me pause.Like many of you, I assume my beliefs, hopes, and dreams are second nature. No need to restate them. No need to explain. It is obvious to my community what my politics are, right?But if I am honest, the journey that brought me here was messy, full of contradictions, heartbreak, and the occasional misplaced hope.Six years after the October 17 Revolution changed our lives forever, I have spent enough time reading, reflecting, and talking with people, both those who lived the Thawra and those who watched from afar, to start seeing our uprising with fresh eyes.One book, recommended by a friend, hit me like a ton of bricks: Vincent Bevins’ If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution.The book and the déjà vuIn Bevins’s telling, the 2010s were a decade of spectacular uprisings, from Cairo to Santiago to Hong Kong, that lit up the world and then fizzled out. His argument is brutally simple: movements that reject structure, leadership, and long-term strategy often win the streets but lose everything else.Sound familiar?I was disappointed that Lebanon’s uprising did not make it into the book, but I understood. Bevins’s expertise was Brazil and South America. Still, his pages felt like déjà vu. He was describing us: the speed of our mobilization, the brilliance of our improvisation, the moral energy that felt unstoppable.Back then, we celebrated being leaderless and horizontal. We wore it like armor. And honestly, in a country where one wrong speech can get you assassinated, just ask Lokman Slim or Mohamad Chatah, that armor made sense.But leadership is not just about one person standing in front of a crowd. It is about structure, about how people coordinate, make decisions, and protect themselves from chaos or co-option. That is the part we never built.1. Leaderless meant powerlessWe said we did not need leaders because everyone was the leader. That worked for the first few weeks. It made us uncrackable, unbribable, beautiful in our defiance. But when the tear gas cleared, there was no one with the mandate or mechanism to translate that energy into power.That is what Bevins calls “the missing revolution.”And it is exactly where Zohran Mamdani got it right.Mamdani’s campaign in New York was just as grassroots and just as viral as we were: TikToks, Reels, rallies, you name it. But underneath the spectacle was structure, data teams, neighborhood captains, volunteer coordinators.He showed that horizontal does not have to mean chaotic. You can keep power distributed while still being organized. We had fire. He had a furnace.2. We knew what we hated, not what we wantedWe were crystal clear about what we stood against: corruption, sectarianism, theft. But if you had asked ten of us what we wanted instead, you would have gotten eleven answers.Bevins calls that the “anti-power trap,” defining yourself by opposition instead of creation.Mamdani avoided that trap. He did not just say the system is broken. He ran on what to build: rent relief, public housing, climate justice, accountability. Every viral moment pointed to a policy, not just a posture.That is what we were missing. We had rage, but no roadmaps.3. The digital high and the organizational lowInstagram “Stories” had just launched, and my feed from the streets of Beirut became a sort of national bulletin board. The diaspora would tag me, I would repost, people would find each other through my stories, communities forming in real time. It was the most beautiful side of being horizontal, spontaneous connection, unfiltered solidarity.But there was a darker side. We mistook connection for coordination. The same digital platforms that made us powerful also made us scatter. Every rumor, every ego, every live stream pulled us in new directions.Zohran’s campaign went viral too, but his virality was a gateway, not a distraction. Every meme led to a meeting. Every post led to a signup sheet. That is the difference between a protest and a program.We performed revolution. He prepared to govern.4. The void always fills itselfWhen we left Martyrs’ Square, others filled the vacuum: the same warlords, the same clientelist networks, the same sectarian narratives. Power abhors a vacuum, and ours was wide open.Mamdani never left a vacuum. Every rally ended with a next step: phone banking, policy drafting, or block meetings. Every volunteer had a role. When opportunity came, they were ready to take it.We were not.We thought refusing to play their game would change the rules. It did not. It just meant they kept winning by default.5. Maybe failure is not the endBevins ends on a note of sober optimism: failure is not final, it is fertilizer. Every protest, even the ones that collapse, leaves behind people who have seen what power really looks like.Zohran’s victory did not come out of nowhere. It came from years of smaller losses, failed campaigns, half-empty meetings, quiet learning. The difference is that when the political window finally opened, he already had the machine ready to move.We had our window in 2019. We just did not have the machinery.The next time it opens, and it will, we cannot make the same mistake.So what now?If we burn again, and we might, we cannot just rely on rage and spontaneity.We need structure. We need strategy. We need the boring stuff: lists, spreadsheets, bylaws, budgets.Zohran’s story is not about America or Lebanon. It is about what happens when movements prepare for power before they get it. He shows that virality and discipline can coexist, that charisma means nothing without a calendar, and that democracy, at its best, is built like a campaign office, not a stage.And look, I know Lebanon is not New York City.Our obstacles are heavier, our risks deadlier, our rulers crueler. But it is also true that Lebanon is smaller. Our streets are denser, our networks tighter, and we do not need millions of dollars to get our message across.In a time when we are sandwiched between Iran and Israel’s geopolitical theater, we might not control the regional game, but we can control how we live inside it. We can organize locally, push for transparency, demand competence, and carve out small islands of sanity amid the chaos.Because improving our daily lives is political resistance.The street gives you a spark.Only organization gives you a future. Get full access to Gino's Blog at ginoraidy.substack.com/subscribe