The history of the pictorial cartoon is a very recent one in Egypt, dating from the late nineteenth century when the popular press was established. Like many newspapers founded at the time, the 1870s, the cartoon began as an expression of growing feelings of antagonism towards the ruler, in the hands of a few men who formed the intelligentsia of the day. They set about to create and direct a public opinion which was then nonexistent, but which they hoped to mould into an instrument to use against a corrupt and autocratic administration. Very little work, if any at all, has been done on the sociology of the Egyptian cartoon, and I will not here undertake such a monumental task for which I am ill qualified; but within the limits of this article I can give the reader an historical background of the cartoon in Egypt.

I take it that this title, which was not of my devising, is intended to cover the contribution that the series of partial or comparatively comprehensive codifications of the law of personal status, which have appeared in recent years in one Muslim country after another, has played or might play in the development of social conditions in general, and of family relations in particular, in the area concerned. But I shall confine my remarks in this paper to those legislative enactments which codify or restate principles of family law which are, or profess to be, specifically Islamic, whether they are applicable to Muslims alone or to those of more than one religion, rather than make any attempt to deal with the family law peculiar to one or another of the non-Muslim communities–partly because any comprehensive consideration of the latter would be too wide and detailed a task for such a paper as this, partly because each of these other systems of law is of comparatively restricted application, and partly because it is the Islamic law which has been the subject of my own specialist study.

In its broadest sense, the theory of segmentation provides an analytic approach to the study of the interaction of political units under conditions of minimal or no regulation by a central authority. Under such circumstances, the groups that inhabit a given territory must devise alternative means of managing conflict within and among themselves, for allocating resources, selecting leaders, and for meeting outside threats. They can neither expect nor rely upon a state apparatus endowed with sufficient coercive means to enforce its decisions and to undertake the functions of regulation, allocation, and protection. Consequently, these functions must be performed through autonomous, internally generated mechanisms arising from the structures and interplay of the groups themselves. There is no need here to explore in detail the theory of segmentation as it has been presented by numerous anthropologists. Suffice it to say that we view segmentary tribal organization as a means of conflict and resource management in the absence of a strong central authority.1 The principles guiding its operation can be extended to analogous, albeit non-tribal, situations of political competition, and it is precisely this extension that we propose to make.

Strikes became legal in France more than a century ago. Since their first partial legalization in 1864, the right to strike has waxed and waned, the great federations of labor have sprung from conflicts within France's modern industries and bureaucracies, and the proportion of strikes leading to shootings, beatings, sabotage or imprisonment has diminished. The strike has appeared to modernize, to take on new sophistication as a means of regulating conflict, to go from savage to civilized.

Most contemporary theories of revolution are derived from the analysis of conflict between social classes in racially homogeneous societies, and they may not be very illuminating when applied to situations of revolutionary struggle between racial groups. This is the problem I discuss in the present paper, and my purpose, in general, is to raise some questions concerning the applicability of theories of class revolution to racial revolution.