JOKER: A Life in Global Politics this Decade
'JOKER: A Life in Global Politics this Decade' -Vikram Grewal “Is it just me, or is it getting crazier out there?” When Arthur Fleck asks this rhetorical question to his therapist in the film Joker (2019) starring Joaquin Phoenix, the audience answers it in their heads. Tunisian street vendor Tarek al-Tayeb Mohammad Bouazizi must have asked the same question to himself on 17 th December 2010 before self-immolating and posthumously starting- what came to be known as- the ‘Arab Spring.’ The movement that would arguably give 21 st Century its own set of revolutions. ‘The Protestor’ was named the Person of the Year by TIME Magazine that year. The Spring swept across North Africa then and continued to inspire multiple revolutions- throughout this decade and right until very recently in 2019 in Lebanon, Iraq, Algeria and Sudan. In 2011, the Occupy Wall Street movement began in USA against social and economic inequality. New York City woke up to the calls of “We