Part 16. Arab Uprisings and Aftermath

By the early twenty-first century many Middle Eastern societies seemed to be stagnating, with a host of unresolved problems, including:

1. High rates of unemployment, particularly for educated young people
2. Large numbers of people living below the poverty line
3. Huge discrepancies between the “haves” and “have nots” in society
4. Lack of opportunities to participate in government decisions – rigged elections, repressive, authoritarian states, rampant corruption in government
5. Lack of resolution of ongoing conflicts such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
6. Large discrepancies between state rhetoric and the lived experience of civilians

The Rise of Independent Media in the Middle East

By the early twenty-first century, new regional media outlets, using satellite broadcasting, offered alternative views from state-controlled media.  These included Al-Jazeera, al-Manar, al-Arabiyya, etc.  The proliferation of media outlets also increased the amount of news received and the regional awareness of the general populace.  Access to alternate media was difficult for political leaders to suppress, and it often included critical analyses of governments, making it more difficult for state leaders to mold and monopolize the public narrative of their policies and actions, as they had done in the past.

The spread of social media also encouraged broader communication within countries, while cell phone pictures posted on YouTube and other outlets often provoked much larger public outcries than in the past.  Participation in online chats and discussion forums by civilians in repressive countries such as Saudi Arabia boomed in the early 2000s, exposing these civilians to many new ideas.  On the whole, Middle Eastern populations were more aware of the restrictions and repression exercised within their own societies vis-à-vis what was going on in other parts of the world.

The Arab Revolts of 2011 (Arab Spring)

Protests began in Tunisia in December 2010.  On December 17, a street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of the municipal building in Tunis.  He was protesting a police decision to confiscate his fruit and vegetable cart, leaving him with no means to support himself or his family.  Within days, mass protests took place throughout the country in solidarity with Bouazizi, who died in a hospital on January 4, 2011.  Police were unable to reign in the protests, which became so intense that President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country and the Tunisian government fell on Jan 14, 2011.

Over the following weeks and months, protests spread to other Arab countries, leading to regime changes in Egypt, Yemen and Libya by February 2012.  Even regimes that did not fall made concessions to protesters.  Egypt held its first free elections in 2011 and 2012, with the Muslim Brotherhood gaining political power as a result.  It is thought that they benefited from the fact that they had functioned for years as an opposition political party in Egypt, whereas most of their opponents had to organize themselves within a matter of months to compete in the hastily held elections.

However, in many cases, authorities responded to the uprisings with violent repression.  Military rule was re-established in Egypt in July 2013; and harsh government responses led to civil war in Syria and Yemen, as well as continuing turmoil in Libya.  The presence of al-Qaeda, and now ISIS, along with the meddling of Saudi Arabia, UAE and Iran in the conflict, has complicated matters in Yemen.  Meanwhile outside powers such as Iran, Hezbollah and Russia, have strengthened the central government in Syria, allowing President Bashar al-Asad to restore his power at the cost of many Syrian lives.  It is estimated that 6.8 million Syrians fled the country in response to the civil war, and another 6 million have been displaced within Syria itself.

For several years, Tunisia seemed to be making progress towards democratic government, holding a series of free elections between 2011 and 2021.  However, recently the government has moved in the direction of authoritarianism, raising questions about whether or not democracy will succeed in that country over the long term.

Has the Arab Spring failed?  Read the following articles for some perspectives on this question.  The first article discusses the recent coup in Tunisia and whether or not the Arab Spring era reforms in that country are now dead.  The second article is published by the Cato Institute and asks the question of what went wrong for the Arab Spring.  The third link is to a flipping book published in March 2022 based on interviews with Arab activists from six countries in the Middle East.  It includes links to video interviews with these activists.  You can pick out portions of the book to look at for the reading response.  The last link is to a 2021 article in the Harvard Gazette which asks the question, “Was the Arab Spring a failure?”

https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/coup-in-tunisia-is-democracy-lost/

https://www.cato.org/commentary/what-happened-arab-spring

https://online.flippingbook.com/view/734050253/

Ten years later: Was the Arab Spring a failure?