Arab Spring
Aside from its
rich culture and history, the Middle East or the Arab region is also known for
its complex political regimes and cultures that is often seen as a religious conformist
system that differs from the widely practiced democratic Western system. These Arab
regimes are also known for practicing autocratic rule, which is often
criticized by the globe for its oppressive rule and the lack of concern to
people’s rights and needs. Decades of struggle and continuous conflict marred
the region, leaving many helpless against these powerful regimes. However, as
the international community remained powerless over these autocratic leaderships,
the public did not allow these governments to hold on to power and ushered the
‘Arab Spring’. The revolutions brought by the Arab Spring had triggered the
public to protest against their oppressive local governments, enticing the
introduction of democracy and freedom for the people.
Dissent within
the Arab World, known as the largest religious conformist region according to
Gelvin (2012) had already been visible even before the Arab Spring in 2010. In
the report of the Regional Bureau for Arab States of the United Nations
Development Programme in 2000, it stated that the various sects within the Arab
region had caused several complications in the region that fosters
dissatisfaction from the public. According to the report, the region is now
experiencing a severe lag on political improvement and social cause that
hinders human development and decline. It is discovered that the region lacks
quality public services and civil liberties for its people, while the
government remained powerful to change the overall social environment of the
region. Term-limits were extended in several countries like Algeria, Tunisia,
Egypt and Yemen, restricted further by the lack of political parties that
represents the region. The report had also indicated that some nations hold a high
regard for human welfare, while almost 91% of other Arab nations are marked due
to their low standards of human welfare. It is said that aside from the
religious inclinations of the Arab leaders and the oil producing capability of
the Arabs, the authoritarian rule in the region is due to the American foreign
policy. With America believing that these regimes could bring economic
development, they will support even the most ruthless autocrats to gain support
on American initiatives (Gelvin 1-12) .
While there are
several attempts to fight against the oppressive governments, the uprisings
were not as successful due to the overall control of the government to
law-enforcement facilities and to the military. However, in addition to the
already present problems in the region, Dalacoura (2012) cited that a much
powerful uprising had been triggered by the protest of Tunisian street vendor
Muhammad Buazizi in the city of Sidi Bouzid on December 12, 2010 through
self-immolation. Buazizi had been harassed and humiliated by a municipal
official and her aides, threatening to take away his wares in the process. His
protest had triggered demonstrations around the country, calling for the end of
Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s regime that started in 1989. At first, these
demonstrations had been left alone by the Tunisian government, however, with
the help of the country’s Union Generale
des Travailleurs Tunisiens and several professional associations, the
public immediately mobilized against the government. The police had tried to
repress the public movements, but had not been able to hold its position and
declared in January 10, 2011 that it would not act against the protesters. Ben
Ali had led three days later to Saudi Arabia and ushered the creation of a
national unity government.
However, the
conflict in Tunisia did not end despite the ousting of Ben Ali as the
opposition, led by Prime Minister Muhammad Ghannouchi had protested against the
new government. Ghannouchi had been one of the ring leaders in the old regime
and he was forced to resign on February 27, 2011. By April 5, Tunisia created a
council that would discuss the political reform of the country, especially the
standards of the transition process. The public had been the ones to select the
leaders of the transition process, which included members of the political and
social sectors not including the extremists. On July 4, Ben Ali was convicted
while he is on exile for numerous criminal offences. The transition had
successfully held on the elections on October 23, establishing the Constituent
Assembly that would work on revising the constitution. The leading party in the
elections, the Islamist al-Nahda- which was originally banned by the Ben Ali
regime- created the coalition government with Hamadi Jebali, a known political
prisoner in Tunisia.
The Tunisian
uprising had immediately caused a domino effect throughout the Arab region and
some regions in North Africa, beginning in Egypt against Hosni Mubarak. Mubarak’s
regime had been very unpopular in Egypt due to his incapacity in regulating the
Muslim Brotherhood, introducing democracy and to stop his continuous conversion
of land and businesses to only a few cronies. On January 25, the civil society
groups of almost 20,000 participants called through social media had marched to
Cairo and across the country against Mubarak’s regime. Mubarak had tried to
stop the protests by announcing on January 29 that he is going to revise the
government, putting Omar Suleiman as the vice president. However, the public
did not stop from their protests and wanted Mubarak to resign completely.
Mubarak had launched a counter-demonstration scheme to stop the protests from
disabling the country completely. He had announced on February 1 that he would
not contest the September elections, but the public were still in Tahrir Square
to call for wildcat strikes to force Mubarak out of office. On February 10,
Mubarak had admitted he is losing power; having the Supreme Council of the
Armed Forces (only convened in wartime Egypt in 1967 and 1973) declare the
people’s legitimate demands for transition. The next day, Mubarak resigned from
office and the military took over the transition process, putting Mubarak and
his people on trial after six month. The Egyptian transition committee tackled
constitutional amendments that allowed Mubarak and his predecessors to stay
long in office, as well as election policy changes. A referendum was held on
March 19 and the committee had set the parliamentary and presidential elections
to take place on November 2011 and March 2012 for the constitution to be
rewritten by the newly voted officials.
After Tunisia
and Egypt, the Libyan government had also found itself contending against a
motivated public determined to overthrow Muammar Qadhafi out of Libya. Not long
after Mubarak’s removal from office, protests had broken out in Benghazi and
spread throughout Libya towards its capital Tripoli. The rebellion was
supported by the National Transition Council and while the UN Security Council
had intervened through the NATO on March, the Libyan uprising continued to
fight against the pro-regime loyalists that tried to sustain their power. By
September 2011, the civil war in the country had killed thousands and had ended
when Qadhafi had been killed on October 20, 2011 that enabled the transition to
begin. Bahrain had also joined in the bandwagon as the country’s Sunni monarchy
had long been at odds with the Shi’i majority, triggering protests on February
14. The protesters stormed Manama’s Pearl Sqaure, facing off with the police
and they called for an establishment of a republic. King Hamad had requested
the Gulf Cooperation Council to intervene in the conflict on March 14,
declaring a state of emergency in the process to suppress the protests.
Yemeni
demonstrations had been triggered by Ben Ali’s ouster on January 14, demanding
for President Ali Saleh’s removal from office. When Mubarak had been removed,
protests continued to grow which was led by the youth and civil society
activists. Acting separately from the younger activists, the Joint Meeting of
Parties that includes Islamist Islah and the Yemeni Socialist Party also led
for political reform and the removal of Saleh from office. The JMP supported
the youth protestors on their radical demands, but they were more open over the
changes to be discussed with the regimes. On March 18, 60 protestors had been
killed by the regime-supported snipers, causing many Yemenis to back out from
the protests. Saleh had also used repression and economic enticement schemes to
cling to power. However, he was injured in an attack on June 3, leading him to
fly out to Saudi Arabia. However, he returned back to Yemen on September 23 to
agree with concessions that he would relinquish his power. Finally, Syria is
also a notable case under the Arab Spring revolts, which began on March in the
city of Deraa. The uprisings were mostly concentrated to remove Bashar al-Assad
from office, who used vicious means to repress protests. The concession offered
by Bashar’s regime were too little and his means to suppress protests were
violent at best. The protests continue to escalate in Syria with estimated
casualties reaching to 5,000 by December 2011 and is expected to increase
unless a compromise is met (Dalacoura 63-66) .
The
international community had varying reactions when it came to the revolts that
are under the banner of the ‘Arab Spring’. Dadush and Dunne (2011) stated that
the response of both Europe and US to the revolutions had been supportive over
the protestors as they believe that the authoritarian leaders overthrown by
these revolutions would now open possibilities for democracy to prosper. The US
had only provided partial relief in the region due to the continuous problems affecting
the West such as the September 11 attacks and even the economic issues
affecting the US. The G8 countries – comprised by Canada, France, Germany,
Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European
Union - had pledged to give $20 billion assistance aid for the Arab countries
now undergoing transition in 2011. The other assistance packages offered by the
Europeans and the Americans had also been distributed to try meeting with the
region’s economic situation. President Obama had announced on May 19, 2011 that
the US assistance scheme would be mostly concentrating on establishing
financial stability and reform so that the transitioning country could easily
fit in the global market. Obama had also given a $1 billion aid to Egypt. The
Export-Import Bank of the US had also released $80 million to support the
reconstruction process in Egypt while the Overseas Private Investment
Corporation extended its aid to other parts of the Middle East and North
Africa. USAID had also aided the rehabilitation process in Tunisia and the
other Arab nations given the continuous uprisings still ongoing in the region.
Europe, on
the other hand, had also extended their own programs for aid and development.
Through the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the region has
stated its intention to invest $3.5 billion yearly, opening further
opportunities for loans and economic development. The European Union had also
raised up $1.75 billion for development aid to expand their European Neighborhood
Policy to include the Arab nations to the aid. The European Investment Bank had
also stated its intentions to expand its activities to include the
transitioning Arab nations in the process. Individually, the United Kingdom had
announced that it would release $180 million assistance benefit for Egypt,
Tunisia and the other Arab nations that had called for reform. Germany had also
stated that it would cancel the Egyptian debt to aid its development, amounting
to $350 million. France had also raised funds of over $260 million to open loan
programs in Tunisia for its economic recovery. The Gulf States had also released
funds to aid the transitioning nations. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab
Emirates have pledged an $18 billion aid assistance pack to support Egypt and
Tunisia. While experts see the intentions of the Gulf States in aiding their
fellow Arab nations had political intentions, it is argued that the Gulf States
are aiding the region to ensure legitimacy in the region and to prosper democracy
in the region (Dadush and Dunne 133-135) .
As the Arab
nations are slowly undergoing transition (or in some cases, continuously
fighting for reform), the impact it has on the region is seen on its political,
economic and social standpoint. In the report done by Masetti and Korner
(2013), the political consequences of the revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, Egypt and
Yemen had ensured the replacement of its autocratic governments, but the
changes had not been smooth due to the changing political environments
occurring in the transition. There is a raised concern that Islamist movements
would suppress the newly discovered political freedom of the public and force
their own ideals of civil rights to the public, especially for women’s rights.
In Egypt, for example, the number of parties have increased to 15 parties, with
the Muslim Brotherhood enjoying a comfortable control of over 46.4% in the
parliament. The Liberals that have paved the way for the Egyptian revolt, had
performed poorly in the 2012 elections and only gained a few seats in the
parliament. Tunisia had also reported the same results as the leading party,
Islamist Ennahda, had formed a coalition with the secular leftist factions.
Constitution redrafting is also a concern for these transitioning nations after
the Arab Spring revolutions as each outlined a different strategy in creating
their constitutions. In Egypt, the drafting process was done hastily to match
the elections.
In terms of
the economic impact of the Arab Spring, there is a sharp drop in economic
growth for the transitioning nations with almost 2.2% growth in 2011 as
compared to the 4.2% growth in 2010. With the global economy on a decline,
countries like Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Yemen reported a slow economic
activity as productions were stopped by the uprisings in the region. Libya, for
example, had reported a decrease on oil production in 2011 and resulted to the
crash of the Libyan economy. Tourism had also been affected in these regions
due to the Arab Spring, especially in regions such as Egypt, Morocco, Jordan
and Lebanon. Almost 40% decline was reported in these regions and while the
transition had been secured in 2012, there is still a slow recovery in its
tourism sector. Unemployment and skills mismatch is also reported in the
regions that had been part of the Arab Spring, needed almost 700,000 jobs to be
created each year for its 10.7 million young workers (Masetti and Korner 2-9) . In terms of
social impacts, the Arab Spring, according to Paciello (2011), had caused
repression to occur in its civil society groups and the transitioning
governments are now utilizing their power to stop new organizations from
developing and stopped funds from going to these organizations. There is also
the fact that organizations are now being undermined by ideological
fragmentation, and there is also a restricted voice for the women and the
youth. Despite this, the Arab Spring had brought in awareness for the public on
issues such as human rights and political freedom (Paciello 7-9) .
Today, the
Arab world remains under a slow recovery process due to the revolts sprung by
the Arab Spring in the region. There are still countries that are still under
civil war such as in Syria, while transition is still in progress such as in
Tunisia and Libya. The uprisings had enabled awareness to ensue, not just for
the international community but also for the public to fight against oppressive
governments that had suppressed people’s freedoms and rights. While many have
perished for the sake of reform and development, the uprisings had enabled
transitions to much open governments to be built despite the concerns that may
occur in the transition period. The Arab Spring had ushered hope to millions
Arabs and North Africans that would no longer stand idle against governments
that threatens their development.
Works
Cited
Dadush,
Uri and Michele Dunne. "American and European Responses to the Arab Spring:
What's the Big Idea?" The Washington Quarterly 34.4 (2011):
131-145. Print.
Dalacoura,
Katerina. "The 2011 uprisings in the Arab Middle East: political change
and geopolitical implications." International Affairs 88.1 (2012):
63-79. Print.
Gelvin, James. The
Arab Uprisings: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2010. Print.
Masetti, Oliver and
Kevin Korner. Two years of Arab Spring: Where are we now? What's next?
Frankfurt: Deutche Bank Research, 2013. Print.
Paciello, Maria
Cristina. The Arab Spring: Socio-economic Challenges and Opportunities.
Report. Rome: Istituto Affari Internazionali, 2011. Print.
