Several people told me they believed their movements had unconsciously taken on positions developed in the First World that may not be so applicable in the Global South. One Egyptian revolutionary put it to me this way: "In New York or Paris, if you do a horizontal, leaderless, and post-ideological uprising, and it doesn't work out, you just get a media or academic career afterward. Out here in the real world, if a revolution fails, all your friends go to jail or end up dead."

— If We Burn by Vincent Bevins