This chapter discusses how important historical breaks are in the transformation of the identity categories that are relevant for mobilizations. In particular, year 1979 is a break-year in the history of the Middle East and opens a new historical cycle. However, the Camp David Accords and the occupation of Afghanistan are perceived as “treason” by the Arab nationalist left and the internationalist left respectively. Meanwhile, the Iranian Revolution and the Ka'aba occupation by Islamist activists signal the move from the leftist “revolutionary idea” to Islamism that had until then been omitted because it was considered a “servant of imperialism.” Even if these four events—with their own historicity—have no causality links, their contemporaries, through their understanding and subjectivities, put the events in relation. They give the events a new meaning; they transform the events into new markers of new “political realities.”
