Blood, Oil and Sand: The Arab Spring’s 10 Year-Anniversary
AP File Photo/Ben Curtis via Harvard University
Democracy has never been perfect, and we as Americans have a democratic system which is unlike any other on Earth. Albeit a tad optimistic, our democracy is responsive to us--voters. We can shape policy and dictate to our representatives what we want to change. We have sacred laws which protect our rights to religion, speech and assembly. We can surf the internet without restrictions, travel across the country and even protest against perceived injustice. These freedoms are cherished and enjoyed not only in our nation but also in much of Europe, South America and scattered regions of Africa and Asia. Democracy itself, wrapped in all of its freedoms and liberties, is a gift that we as Americans and millions around the globe cherish,enjoy, and take advantage of every single day.
Us Americans take our democratic institutions for granted.
Meanwhile, there are millions of people around the globe who yearn for these basic freedoms. 10 years ago, in the Cradle of Civilization, citizens of Egypt, Libya, Syria and more than a dozen other Middle Eastern nations demanded basic freedom and liberties away from autocratic rule, in a seemingly contagious movement coined “The Arab Spring.” This fervor for democracy, however, was met with brutal repression.
Today, only one Middle Eastern country, Tunisia, has transitioned into democracy. Syria, Yemen and Libya became engulfed in never-ending civil wars controlled by foreign powers. Egypt and Iraq experienced a slip in their novel democracies, and the Saudi monarchy violently repressed dissent across the Arabian Gulf, evidenced by the facade of stability within the regime today. All participants of the Arab Spring have either yielded unfathomable socio-economic losses or have reverted back to authoritarian states, leaving the Middle East the same, if not worse, than it was 10 years ago.
While change may still happen, it is crucial to examine the ramifications of why the rebellion failed, and what could have been done to prevent the damages we are seeing today. To determine why one of the largest ever socio-political movements failed, we must first understand the movement's origins.
What made people want to fervently overthrow their governments?
The Arab nations were run by autocratic rulers: Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Hosni Mubarak in Egypt and Munamar Gadafi in Libya. While providing basic healthcare and education, as well as high living standards during the 1970s and 80s, they also suppressed information, limited travel, jailed and executed dissidents and forced the entire populace to comply with their will. The Digital Revolution, where huge swaths of information became accessible to everyone, was crucial in opening people’s eyes
The one problem: media could not be regulated, meaning censorship was difficult, and it was apparent that authoritarian regimes could not adequately adapt to maintain their control on the general populace. Over the next few years, tension would build, and one event would trigger the revolution of a generation.
The Straw that broke the Camel's back
Just like how Franz Ferdinand’s assassination plunged Europe into war, one young street vendor began the cascade, unraveling tension built up over a decade.
In late 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, a poor vegetable vendor in Tunis, Tunisia, had his cart confiscated by Tunis police after not having an arbitrary permit, destroying his only source of income. In December 2010, Bouazizi responded by setting himself on fire in front of the regional governor's office.
He sparked the flames of a revolution that grew into a raging inferno which would engulf the entire region for a decade.
Recordings of his death quickly spread across social media platforms-- and millions of Tunisians mobilized in anger and frustration. Thousands marched into the Presidential palace in Tunis only a few days after, demanding that President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali resign immediately. The people demanded basic freedoms and liberty, and police and military forces stepped out of the frame to allow these protests to progress.
In a move that shocked the region and the international community, on January 14, 2011 Ali resigned from his post and fled to Saudi Arabia.
Parliamentary elections were held for the first time ever.
An Entire Region Engulfed
Following on the momentum in Tunisia, Egypt was the next powder keg ready to explode. In one of the largest protests since Tiananmen Square, thousands of civilians marched on Tahrir Square demanding an end to draconian authoritarian measures, press freedom and an end to police brutality and mass arrests.
Only a month later, on February 11th, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned.
At the end of the year, democratic elections began and the first civilian president, Mohamed Morsi, was elected into power.
For the first time, democracy was established in Egypt. Syria and Libya, however, are completely different stories.
In Libya, protestors marched in Triplo, Benghazi and Tobruk, demanding Colonel Gaddafi to step down. Gaddafi responded with extreme violence, calling in the military and gunning down protesters like dogs. Armed rebels, angered with government posturing, gathered in the Libyan capital of Tripoli, and captured Gaddafi, parading him around the streets, beating him until he was summarily executed. Forces in the Libyan Desert declared independence, and the city of Benghazi was also taken by opposing rebel forces, leading to a civil war that has left close to a million in need of humanitarian aid, 350,000 people displaced, thousands dead and caused economic losses of $350.5 billion USD.
In Syria, a similar chain of events occured, but Assad maintained his control over the country.
Backed by Russia and Iran, Assad held out in a sea of turmoil as stubborn rebel forces seized Aleppo and Idlib, the Kurds declared independence in Rojava, and ISIS gained a foothold in the Syrian desert. Assad kept his iron grip on power through brute force-- and Russian jets and artillery which he used to bomb civilians. There is even evidence that he used chemical weapons on civilians on multiple occasions.
The toll on the country has generated one of the worst humanitarian crises since the Second World War, displaced 6.2 million people, and resulted in 380,000 deaths and $388 billion USD in damages.
Did democracy win?
Egypt and Tunisia saw relative success due to the unity and organization of protesters with clear end goals. In Egypt, the new elections led the Muslim Brotherhood to come into power, under Mohamed Morsi.
The establishment of democracy that was so hard fought came crashing down. After only one year in power, the military, disatisfied with the rule of Morsi and the Muslim Bortherhood, launched a coup, installing Defense Secretary Abdel Fattah al-Sisi as the new President of Egypt.
Algeria, once thought to be a lost cause during the Spring, transitioned into a parliamentary democracy in late 2020 following the resignation of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, President of more than 30 years.
While these limited successes were promising, no democratic movement over the course of the decade has been maintained, except for Tunisia and Algeria. All protests across the Middle East and North Africa were repressed, and no democratic reform occurred.
The Arab Spring, subsequently, froze over into the Arab Winter.
Why the Arab Spring became the Arab Winter
There are three primary reasons the Arab Spring failed to deliver positive change to the region. As Joseph Bahout from the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs explains, the main factors which determined the success and failure of the revolutions were the “nature of the state beforehand, nature of society and geopolitics.”
In the areas where the Spring was successful, like Tunisia, the power structure was not centralized behind the dictator-- and it is still the prime example of how a strong civil society, lack of centralization and a hands-off military can lead to a smooth transition.
In all other failed Springs, the state was built around the ruler. The military, in turn, maintained loyalty to the state and stringently enforced its in exchange for power-- this led to violent repression against dissidents and opposition forces.
The majority of the Arabian dictators utilized violent repression to maintain control over ethnic and religious minorities. Saddam Hussein, the infamous ruler of Iraq, for example, kept a divided nation unified through fear and an iron grip on power. The US invasion was argued to have destabilized Iraq, leading to rampact sectarianism and factionalism. Hussein, part of the Sunni minority in Iraq, oppressed the minorities of Iraq, and kept these groups in check with the Iraqi military. Thus, when the United States attempted to establish a democracy by ousting Saddam Hussein, the attempt utterly failed-- with the power of the state gone, the ethnic tensions boiled over and became civil war.
The frequent use of violent repression in the Middle East created an atmosphere built on fear, with each nation held together solely by the sheer power of the dictator -- any attempt to establish a democracy in such an environment leads to massive power vacuums and instability. In turn, a vicious cycle was created: Dictator, Quasi-Democracy- Dictator.
The structure of these states, however, was not the only cause of the Arab Spring’s failure.
A successful revolution must be organized with a clear endgame in mind-- beyond the mere unseating of an authoritarian. In this regard, the failure of the Arab Spring is also traceable to disorder and incoherence on part of the protesters.
The countries which relied on civil resistance, such as Libya, Yemen and Syria, did not have a blueprint for what a democracy would look like in the short term, and after the governmental systems established by the authoritarian regime were dissolved, strict order became chaos.
In Egypt, when Mubarak and Ben Ali resigned, there were no constitutional lawyers prepared to write a new constitution, no politicians associated with the protesters, and no one to restructure the economy built by these dictators.
This was a recipe for civil violence, and these issues were only amplified in weaker states.
Given these circumstances, however, the most important factor in the failure of the Arab Spring, was geopolitical interference.
The Middle East’s New Cold War
Originally a movement for democracy, the Arab Spring became the new geopolitical battleground between the United States, Russia, Iran and Saudi Arabia, who demonstrated little regard for the well-being of innocent civilians and only pursued goals which benefited their own strategic interests.
While the protests started nonviolently, the armed rebellion in Tripoli which ultimately executed Gaddafi and sparked the civil war was inflamed by the United States, which funded and trained the rebels. Despite providing arms support to the insurgency, the Obama administration lacked a contingency plan for after the removal of Gaddafi, and their influence complicated the original movement and prompted armed groups to offset American influence, therefore thrusting Libya into a long civil conflict which continues today.
The Syrian protests, too, were exploited by opportunistic international actors. The protests and later armed rebellion gave the Russians an opportunity to make an alliance with a fellow authoritarian government in exchange for naval access to the Medditerrenean Sea, as well as establish military bases in the Middle East. Iran, too, joined the fray to expand its influence abroad and establish a foothold against its long-time adversaries: Israel and the United States. In turn, the United States and Saudi Arabia funded rebel groups to limit Russian and Persian influence and to defeat the Islamic State.
The Syrian Civil War quickly became a proxy conflict between Russia, Iran and the West, with the fate of millions being left in the hands of foreign powers.
In Yemen and Bahrain, the Saudi government directly intervened, suppressing revolts in Bahrain and instigating a brutal proxy war in Yemen with Iran.
The international community is largely responsible for the outcome of the Arab Spring, with the most blame falling upon the United States. The fledgling democracies in Egypt and Tunisia were not supported by the US, only providing $2 billion USD to both Egypt and Tunisia, whereas spending over $146 billion USD in order to shield the weakened Western European nations from communist rebellions. Even after Mubarak and Ben Ali were ousted, the United States did not commit aid, in comparison to aiding and arming rebel forces in Syria, only inflaming the already delicate political situation. The lack of initial foreign support left the region prone to political instability, allowing for authoritarian forces to take root, and for groups such as Daesh (ISIS) from gaining ground in the chaos.
The interference by foreign powers only inflamed the already tense situation and led to nothing but destruction and bloodshed, with the original aims of the Arab Spring being drowned in the blood of refugees and civilians who yearned for freedom and equality.
Where do we go from here?
The Arab Spring had enormous potential to transform a desert crawling with authoritarian regimes into a democratic oasis. However, only two nations out of a dozen transitioned, and those lives lost in 2011 have been forgotten.
Today, the Syrian, Libyan and Yemeni civil wars are still being waged, and have led to the largest displacement crisis since World War Two, which human rights groups have called the largest humanitarian crisis in human history
Iraq had a miniature Arab Spring in late 2020, protesting rampant corruption, but also had limited results.
Egypt restarted its campaign of jailing journalists and suppressing information, as well as maintaining corruption, a major issue in every state affected by the Arab Spring.
Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran have cemented their authoritarian rule and control over proxy conflicts in the region.
While the current situation is bleak, we must move forward and induce change in an ever changing world. We must not forget the struggles for human rights, from Tiananmen Square to the violence in Myanmar.
With all considered, the Arab Spring is not just a blip, it was a movement to express discontent with authoritarianism in a new globalized world order that failed due to international involvement and disorganization. The international community has yet to learn from its mistakes from the Arab Spring, allowing for civil strife in Hong Kong, North Korea, Myanmar and Sub-Saharan Africa to reign supreme. Intervention within the internal politics of authoritarian regimes is needed to an extent, either indirectly through funding democratic institutions or providing structure for newly founded democratic regimes. However, the main lesson learned: the international community must take calculated decisions when intervening in revolutions, supporting them when the time is right and afterwards letting the people take the reins. In a new era where democracy has become more fragile than ever, the People must decide if they yearn to be free or to be ruled under the jackboot, as...
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
-Henry David Thoreau