Arab Spring and its dialectics
Some may simply say that the uprisings since 2011 in the Arab world have not achieved their ends. But in the long term, these should be viewed as catalysts for change in the entire region
part from Tunisia, where the Arab Spring has made some significant changes, the Arab world continues to be miserably trapped in an unprecedented tragic predicament that has been increasingly and dangerously threatening — with different degrees — the livelihood of the population. Reacting to oppressively dictatorial rule in the region, people spontaneously took their anger to the streets of several Arab capitals in search of answers to their misery. It all happened following the popular success of the uprising in Tunisia against the regime of former president Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali, who ruthlessly ruled the country for almost three decades.
Ever since, heated discussions have been taking place everywhere in the region, and among foreign observers as well, over the outcome, relative success and the purpose of the Arab Spring. The latter has been mostly a series of unpredictably anti-government protests, uprisings and in some cases even armed rebellions. World powers, whether directly or indirectly involved, seem to be sadly looking only into ways of how to make the best out of this calamity. Each power is shamefully considering ways of how to protect their own interests and how to cash in on the fastchanging political map of the Middle East.
It is as if history is repeating itself one more time, a hundred years later. It was in 1917 when the then two colonial super powers, Britain and France, carved out the Levant between them after the First World War. The sudden uprising shocked a lot of people since it happened after a long period of an almost total silence over uninterrupted three or four decades of rule, often by the same person or dynasty.
No alternative system
When the uprising happened, it was quickly labelled ‘Arab Spring’ — a reference used to describe the turmoil in Eastern Europe in 1989, that eventually brought down the Soviet Union. The seemingly well-entrenched Communist bloc began to disintegrate under the influence of popular protests in a domino effect. But unlike the Arab countries during their ‘spring’, most countries in the former Communist bloc were emboldened by democratic countries in Western Europe to adopt the latter’s political systems and the principles of free trade and market economy. Western democracies also were quick in their efforts to accommodate the former Soviet satellite European states.
However, events in the Arab World had gone in different directions and the region had unfortunately shifted to an area of uncertainty and what now seems to be everlasting gloom. With no alternative political system and in the absence of a home-grown leadership to take over, the Arab Spring has brought calamity instead of solutions to the region.
Only Tunisia has managed to chalk out a promising path, though it is still economically unstable. Yemen’s internal crisis has turned into a state of painfully bloody war, resulting from the heinous interference of Iran and its heavy, direct support to Al Houthi rebels and forces of the former deposed leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Meanwhile, Syria and Libya were quickly drawn into an unprecedented plight that has turned over the last six years into a seemingly permanent stage of civil, regional and international turmoil. These events combined have deeply left their marks on the region’s other Arab countries.
Messy uncertainty
Conditions for an uprising were there for many years, but it has taken longer to come about than it should have. The region’s economy by and large was totally stagnant, its regimes failed to deliver and were politically corrupt and repressive. At the same time, the region’s youth, representing most of the population, were hugely disenchanted, which led to the triggering of the uprising that took almost everyone by surprise. The uprising of 2011 was undoubtedly the long-awaited reaction to autocratic rule, anger at the security apparatus of these regimes, ever-rising prices and the ghoulish corruption that had become the main source of income for certain unscrupulous individuals and state officials.
Unlike 1989 Communist Europe, the 2011 Arab Spring countries had no unified vision of the political and economic model that they would like to bring in to replace the existing one. In fact, there were countries that had no idea of any model whatsoever. Additionally, there were, and still are, several political and economic models that differentiate one country from the other. This of course, explains why the nature of protests in each of the countries affected by Arab Spring was different in scope and aim. So was the Arab Spring a failure? Some will simplistically say, ‘yes’, based on the assumption that the intifada (uprising) has not achieved its political and economic aims. But in the long term, the Arab Spring should be viewed as a catalyst for change in the entire region.
Mustapha Karkouti is a former president of the Foreign Press Association, London. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/@mustaphatashe.