The protests in the Middle East are sending shockwaves across the Arab world and the autocrats and dictators ruling the region are trembling with fear. The effects of these shocks can be felt across the world, especially in Washington D.C., the largest “investor” in these regimes of terror and suppression with approximately $62 billion worth of total “aid” given to the Mubarak regime. It remains a separate question why the American public remains aloof and taciturn on such blatant misuse of their taxes.

While the protests have caught every expert and analyst off guard, people keep trying to locate its origins. The leaderlessness of the revolution is being praised with astonishment on the fact that how can such a mass of people organize themselves without a leader. We have seen that people from every walk of life – men women the young and old, kids, Islamists, progressives – were present at Tahrir Square protesting, singing and resisting any attempt to dismantle their movement. The 18-day sit down at the square was self-organized by a myriad of people. Any organized attempt to thwart the protests either by using mercenaries riding on camel and horse backs or by using conventional anti-mob controlling divisions utterly failed.

Although the analysts praised the cross-section participation by the masses, they could not answer how such an event remained largely without a leader.

This speaks of the limited intellectual capacity of the analysts to theorize a leaderless revolt. However, the current status of the social sciences does not remain silent on this issue. An important concept of rhizome, put forward by the influential French philosopher Giles Deleuze can enlighten us on this issue.

In his magnum opus Capitalism and Schizophrenia, Deleuze defines a rhizome this way: Unlike trees or their roots, the rhizome connects any point to any other point, and its traits are not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature; it brings into play very different regimes of signs, and even nonsign states. The rhizome is reducible to neither the One or the multiple. It is not the One that becomes Two or even directly three, four, five etc. It is not a multiple derived from the one, or to which one is added (n+1). It is comprised not of units but of dimensions, or rather directions in motion. It has neither beginning nor end, but always a middle (milieu) from which it grows and which it overspills. It constitutes linear multiplicities with n dimensions having neither subject nor object, which can be laid out on a plane of coinsistency, and from which the one is always subtracted (n-1).

What Deleuze wants us to distinguish is the way rhizomes are different from trees. The tree has a pre-established structure (Law) which it has to conform to, always. The branches must grow out the stem, the roots must grow downwards, the leaves must shed in autumn etc. This the way of life of a tree.

Rhizomes, on the other hand, have no pre-established Law as such. They just grow, spread out. Their direction is determined not by a Nature or Law, but according to the conditions of the environment. A good example of this is the growth of bacteria. If you place a penicillin tablet in the middle of sample bacterial culture, the bacteria will stop growing in the middle and start growing on the sides. Similarly, if the conditions are favorable in the middle, they will return to the middle. Same is the case with revolutions.

Now, the reason why these (seemingly organized) elements of the revolutions are rhizomic (and not organized) is because they are not pre-determined by any prior Law or Nature. People, like rhizomes, came together (without prior planning) and created packets of cooperation within the chaotic atmosphere. This helped them to sustain the un-planned, free spirit of the revolution. But those packets of cooperation were not necessary according to a Law or a belief, but rather necessary according to the givenness (specific conditions).

Arborescence (tree-like), according to Deleuze, does not mean you follow a leader, or some ideal. It means that you do things according to a socially accepted Law or necessity, for example, the reasons people give for desiring a promotion at work. Rhizomes don't do things according to any arborescent Law. They do them according to what the lawless givenness demands, even if it demands cooperation. This cooperation cannot be called organization in the Deleuzean sense, since it is not arborescent, but rhizomic.

All the observers clearly witnessed the rhizome – maybe we can call it Arab rhizome – at work in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen. Apparently opposing groups like the leftists, the liberal and the Islamists were seen united together in the protests. The connection of any point to any other point (e.g. liberal with Islamists) was clearly seen in the struggle to oust the autocratic rulers.

In Pakistan, many people are wondering about whether the same experience can be repeated. There are many similarities between Pakistan and the above-mentioned countries. For example, the unemployment rate in Egypt is 9.6 percent while in Tunisia it is 14 percent. People living below poverty line in Egypt are 20 percent and in Yemen it is 45 percent. The same indicators in Pakistan stand at 14 percent and 17.2 percent, respectively.

However, analysts cite the lingual, ethnic and class differences as barriers to such a revolution in Pakistan. Admittedly, the differences may be a barricade to “organized” protests; however, the rulers of Pakistan must beware of the rhizome.