The Arab Spring (Arabic: الربيع العربي ar-Rabīʻ al-ʻArabī), also referred to as Arab Revolutions (Arabic: الثورات العربية aṯ-'awrāt al-ʻarabiyyah), was a revolutionary wave of both violent and non-violent demonstrations, protests, riots, coups, foreign interventions, and civil wars in North Africa and the Middle East that began on 18 December 2010 in Tunisia with the Tunisian Revolution.
The effects of the Tunisian Revolution spread strongly to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, where either the regime was toppled or major uprisings and social violence occurred, including riots, civil wars or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Iranian Khuzestan[citation needed], Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests occurred in Djibouti, Mauritania, the Palestinian territories, Saudi Arabia, and the Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām ("the people want to bring down the regime").
The wave of initial revolutions and protests faded by mid-2012, as many Arab Spring demonstrations were met with violent responses from authorities, as well as from pro-government militias, counter-demonstrators and militaries. These attacks were answered with violence from protestors in some cases. Large-scale conflicts resulted—the Syrian Civil War, Iraqi insurgency and the following civil war, the Egyptian Crisis, coup and subsequent unrest and insurgency, the Libyan Civil War, and the Yemeni Crisis and following civil war.
A power struggle continued after the immediate response to the Arab Spring. While leadership changed and regimes were held accountable, power vacuums opened across the Arab world. Ultimately it came down to a contentious battle between a consolidation of power by religious elites and the growing support for democracy in many Muslim-majority states. The early hopes that these popular movements would end corruption, increase political participation, and bring about greater economic equity quickly collapsed in the wake of the counter-revolutionary moves by foreign state actors in Yemen and of the Saudi-UAE-linked military deep state in Egypt, the regional and international military interventions in Bahrain and Yemen, and the destructive civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen.
Some have referred to the succeeding and still ongoing conflicts as the Arab Winter.As of May 2018, only the uprising in Tunisia has resulted in a transition to constitutional democratic governance.
The impact of the Arab Spring concerns protests or by the way attempts to organize growing protest movements that were inspired by or similar to the Arab Spring in the Arab-majority states of North Africa and the Middle East, according to commentators, organisers, and critics. These demonstrations and protest efforts have all been critical of the government in their respective countries, though they have ranged from calls for the incumbent government to make certain policy changes to attempts to bring down the current political system in its entirety. In some countries, protests have become large or widespread enough to effect change at the national level, as in Armenia, while in others, such as Djibouti, were swiftly suppressed.
Protests considered to be inspired by the Arab Spring have taken place on every inhabited continent, with varying degrees of success and prominence. On 15 October 2011, the subsidiary "Occupy" and Indignants movements inspired protests in 950 cities in 82 countries.
In the aftermath of the Arab Spring in various countries, there was a wave of violence and instability commonly known as the Arab Winter or Islamist Winter The Arab Winter was characterized by extensive civil wars, general regional instability, economic and demographic decline of the Arab League and overall religious wars between Sunni and Shia Muslims.
Although the long-term effects of the Arab Spring have yet to be shown, its short-term consequences varied greatly across the Middle East and North Africa. In Tunisia and Egypt, where the existing regimes were ousted and replaced through a process of free and fair election, the revolutions were considered short-term successes.This interpretation is, however, problematized by the subsequent political turmoil that emerged, particularly in Egypt. Elsewhere, most notably in the monarchies of Morocco and the Persian Gulf, existing regimes co-opted the Arab Spring movement and managed to maintain order without significant social change. In other countries, particularly Syria and Libya, the apparent result of Arab Spring protests was a complete societal collapse.
Social scientists have endeavored to understand the circumstances that led to this variation in outcome. A variety of causal factors have been highlighted, most of which hinge on the relationship between the strength of the state and the strength of civil society. Countries with stronger civil society networks in various forms underwent more successful reforms during the Arab Spring; these findings are also consistent with more general social science theories such as those espoused by Robert D. Putnam and Joel S. Migdal.
One of the primary influences that have been highlighted in the analysis of the Arab Spring is the relative strength or weakness of a society's formal and informal institutions prior to the revolts. When the Arab Spring began, Tunisia had an established infrastructure and a lower level of petty corruption than did other states, such as Libya. This meant that, following the overthrow of the existing regime, there was less work to be done in reforming Tunisian institutions than elsewhere, and consequently it was less difficult to transition to and consolidate a democratic system of government.
Also crucial was the degree of state censorship over print, broadcast, and social media in different countries. Television coverage by channels like Al Jazeera and BBC News provided worldwide exposure and prevented mass violence by the Egyptian government in Tahrir Square, contributing to the success of the Egyptian Revolution. In other countries, such as Libya, Bahrain, and Syria, such international press coverage was not present to the same degree, and the governments of these countries were able to act more freely in suppressing the protests. Strong authoritarian regimes with high degrees of censorship in their national broadcast media were able to block communication and prevent the domestic spread of information necessary for successful protests. Morocco is a case in point, as its broadcast media at the time of the revolts was owned and operated almost exclusively by political elites with ties to the monarchy..
Countries with greater access to social media, such as Tunisia and Egypt, proved more effective in mobilizing large groups of people, and appear to have been more successful overall than those with greater state control over media. Although social media played a large role in shaping the events of revolutions social activism did not occur in a vacuum. Without the use of street level organization social activists would not have been as effective. Even though a revolution did take place and the prior government has been replaced, Tunisia's government can not conclude that another uprising will not take place. There are still many grievances taking place today.
Due to tourism coming to a halt and other factors during the revolution and Arab Spring movement, the budget deficit has grown and unemployment has risen since 2011.According to World Bank, "Unemployment remains at 15.3% from 16.7% in 2011, but still well above the pre-revolution level of 13%." Large scale immigration brought on by a long and treacherous civil war has permanently harmed the Syrian economy. Projections for economic contraction will remain high at almost 7% in 2017.
Still to this day, in countries affected by the Arab Spring, there is great division amongst those who prefer the status quo and those who want democratic change. As these regions dive ever deeper into political conflict time will show if new ideas can be established or if old institutions will still stand strong.The largest change from the pre-revolution to the post-revolution was in the attempt to break up political elites and reshape the geopolitical structure of the middle east. It is speculated that many of the changes brought on by the Arab Spring will lead to a shifting of regional power in the Middle East and a quickly changing structure of power.
The support, even if tacit, of national military forces during protests has also been correlated to the success of the Arab Spring movement in different countries.[307][309] In Egypt and Tunisia, the military actively participated in ousting the incumbent regime and in facilitating the transition to democratic elections. Countries like Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, exhibited a strong mobilization of military force against protesters, effectively ending the revolts in their territories; others, including Libya and Syria, failed to stop the protests entirely and instead ended up in civil war. The support of the military in Arab Spring protests has also been linked to the degree of ethnic homogeneity in different societies. In Saudi Arabia and Syria, where the ruling elite was closely linked with ethnic or religious subdivisions of society, the military sided with the existing regime and took on the ostensible role of protector to minority populations.Even aside from the military issue, countries with less homogeneous ethnic and national identities, such as Yemen and Jordan, seem to have exhibited less effective mobilization on the whole. The apparent exception to this trend is Egypt, which has a sizable Coptic minority.
The presence of a strong, educated middle class has been noted as a correlate to the success of the Arab Spring in different countries.Countries with strong welfare programs and a weak middle class, such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan, as well as countries with great economic disparity and an impoverished working class—including Yemen, Libya, and Morocco—did not experience successful revolutions. The strength of the middle class is, in turn, directly connected to the existing political, economic, and educational institutions in a country, and the middle class itself may be considered an informal institution. In very broad terms, this may be reframed in terms of development, as measured by various indicators such as the Human Development Index: rentier states such as the oil monarchies of the Persian Gulf exhibited less successful revolutions overall.
Finally, "Still, youth across the region continue to struggle with the more personal fight to build an economic future as they enter adulthood. For many young people, this struggle has only become more acute in the difficult macroeconomic environment faced by many of the countries in the region. Finding real solutions to the economic constraints that shape the transition to adulthood in the Middle East remains as vital today as before the Arab Uprisings, when youth brought their economic frustrations to streets and squares around the region. Indeed, finding such solutions is perhaps the lynchpin for bringing stability back to the Middle East and building a more prosperous economic future for all of the people of the region."
Aftermath
Some trends in political Islam resulting from the Arab Spring noted by observers (Quinn Mecham and Tarek Osman) include:
- Repression of the Muslim Brotherhood, not only in Egypt by the military and courts following the forcible removal of Morsi from office in 2013; but also by Saudi Arabia and a number of Gulf countries (not Qatar). The ambassadors crisis also seriously threatened the GCC’s activities, adversely affected its functioning and could arguably even have led to its dissolution.
- Rise of Islamist "state-building" where "state failure" has taken place—most prominently in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen. Islamists have found it easier than competing non-Islamists trying to fill the void of state failure, by securing external funding, weaponry and fighters – "many of which have come from abroad and have rallied around a pan-Islamic identity". The norms of governance in these Islamist areas are militia-based, and the governed submit to their authority out of fear, loyalty, other reasons, or some combination. The "most expansive" of these new "models" is the Islamic State.
- Increasing sectarianism (primarily Sunni-Shia) at least in part from proxy wars and the escalation of the Iran–Saudi Arabia proxy conflict. Islamists are fighting Islamists across sectarian lines in Lebanon (Sunni militants targeting Hezbollah positions), Yemen (between mainstream Sunni Islamists of al-Islah and the Shiite Zaydi Houthi movement), in Iraq (Islamic State and Iraqi Shiite militias)Increased caution and political learning in countries such as Algeria and Jordan where Islamists have chosen not to lead a major challenge against their governments. In Yemen, al-Islah "has sought to frame its ideology in a way that will avoid charges of militancy".
- In countries where Islamists did choose to lead a major challenge and did not succeed in transforming society (particularly Egypt), a disinterest in "soul-searching" about what went wrong, in favor of "antagonism and fiery anger" and a thirst for revenge. Partisans of political Islam (although this does not include some prominent leaders such as Rached Ghannouchi but is particularly true in Egypt) see themselves as victims of an injustice whose perpetrators are not just "individual conspirators but entire social groups".
- "The repercussions of the 2011 uprisings have influenced Middle Eastern youth’s experiences providing impetus for questioning perennial sacred beliefs and positions, and forging ahead avant-garde views and responses to the constraints they face."
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