Arab Spring, Revolution, Islamic Awakening, Arab Winter; The Arab Autumn?

The phrase “Arab Spring” is rarely used in Arab states. They prefer words like uprising and revolution. The term Arab revolution was first used when Arabs revolted against the Ottoman Empire. The British exercised considerable influence over the Arab world through the activities and initiative of figures like Lawrence of Arabia. To an extent, the imperial reach of Britain and France enabled them to exert control over rulers like the Saudi family.  Nevertheless, Arab nationalism, once constituted as the leading ideological force in the Middle East, disappeared in practice but left behind a powerful political legacy of autocratic regimes. The impact of such a legacy is visible in the Arab world today

The term “Arab Spring” was popularized by the Western mainstream media in early 2011. The term itself refers to the revolutions of 1848 – a year which saw a wave of social and political revolutions across Europe. Many resulted in the overthrow of old monarchical structures and their replacement by a more representative form government. “Spring” has since been applied to other periods in history when the chain of revolutions ends with increased representation in government and democracy, such as the Prague Spring, referring to the reform movement in Czechoslovakia in 1968.

The idea of ​​Arab unification ceased to function as a dominant feature of individual and collective action. Unlike totalitarian revolutions, democratic revolutions are evolutionary and require much time to change political culture and transform society. It is the only way to prepare for the exhausting process of democratic governance. However, though the arc of history may bend towards justice, it often goes into regressive swings. Thus, in constant war with their citizens and with hegemonic pretensions towards neighboring countries, repressive regimes are the political legacy of Arab nationalism. On their shoulders’ rests much of the violence that accompanied the collapse of the Arab Spring.

Nevertheless, unlike communist Eastern Europe in 1989, there was no consensus on the political and economic model by which existing systems should be replaced. The direction of events in the Middle East was more ambiguous. Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen have entered an uncertain transition period, Syria and Libya have been drawn into civil strife, while the rich monarchies in the Persian Gulf have remained mainly intact. Protesters in monarchies such as Jordan and Morocco wanted to reform the system under current rulers, some of whom demanded an urgent transition to a constitutional monarchy. Others were pleased with gradual reform.

Agitators in republican regimes, like Egypt and Tunisia, wanted to overthrow the president, but they had little plan for what to do next. Chronic instability in countries undergoing political transitions has further strained the struggle within local economies, and deep divisions have emerged between Islamists and secularists. The Arab Spring has led to modest political, social, and economic gains for the region’s people. Some, after countless failures and defeats, have entirely forgotten the term Arab Spring.

The Passage of the Spring

Tunisia

It is important to remember the beginnings because they can be easily forgotten but not erased. Because of these movements’ problematic outcomes, many analysts deliberately ignore the initial impulses from which later revolutions developed. Post-colonial Arab states have faced a crisis of legitimacy. Here we can add the democratic deficit, i.e., the widespread presence of authoritarianism, corruption, despotism, and monarchical government.

The Arab Spring began on December 17, 2010, in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, when Muhammad Bouazizi, a humble vegetable trader, poured gasoline on himself and burnt to death in the local square. He suffered humiliations for years, complained to the authorities, and sought justice. His gesture, utterly foreign to Arab-Islamic religious culture, was soon imitated by several other young men in various countries (4 in Algeria, 5 in Egypt, 1 in Mauritania, 5 in Morocco, 2 in Senegal). He has since become a symbol of radical protest against violence and inequality in Arab societies. Although the ruling regime remained intact, the military enabled democratic change in Tunisia. Tunisia was a softer authoritarian regime, which enabled the cooperation of old and new elites, resulting in a political agreement and a successful democratic transition.

Egypt

After Tunisia, Egypt began to wake up. Egypt had a highly stratified class structure because the dominant class exercised immense control over the political and economic spheres, to the detriment of the wider population. Egyptian protests were directed against this political and economic inequality, and new forms of media were used to organize and exchange information, although they were not the cause of the Arab Spring.

In an all-inclusive display of popular dissent, not only Arab peoples but also numerous minorities took part in the demonstrations. During the revolution, women specifically advocated for civil rights and made their demands visible. Numerous journalists and bloggers became active, and various women’s radio stations were created to spread the movement’s ideas. Thus, it was not a protest of the desperate, but of educated young people, men and women. Both Muslims and Christians protested together in Tahrir Square. Indeed, even the scars of the Coptic massacre seemed to have healed (the Christmas attack on a Coptic church in Old Cairo took place before the protest).

Addressing the crowd in the square, Muslim leader Qardavi said, ‘Dear Muslims and dear Copts. Something similar has never happened before’. One Muslim told reporters that he saw a young Christian woman pour water on the hands of a young Muslim man while performing ritual ablution and said, ‘Now I am sure that the revolution has succeeded’. Many Copts protested in the square, although at first, Pope Shenouda III was against the protest, fearing that they were orchestrated by the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafis. The Copts in Tahrir Square dared to oppose the official position of their Church. All Coptic protests until then always took place under direction of the Church, which was the mainstay of negotiations with the state. However, for the first time, the Coptics became part of a broader framework, as citizens rather than Christians, becoming active participants in change.

Thousands of people sought freedom and dignity, which they had been denied for decades. ‘Look at the streets of Egypt tonight; that is what hope looks like’, Ahdaf Soueif wrote in the Guardian at the time. The protests were initially spontaneous, without a leader (only spokespersons), which soon proved fatal. They allowed others, more organized, to ‘pick up the fruits of their labor and sacrifice’ (846 people were killed during the protest in clashes with police). The Egyptian people’s symbolic victory was accompanied by a firm desire to determine the direction, scope, and depth of change.

As there has been a polarization between secular elites and Egypt’s opposition for a long time, the strongest political actor after Mubarak’s fall became the Muslim Brotherhood. Thus, Islamic-oriented forces took power in Egypt, mainly the Muslim Brotherhood with support from the Salafis. The situation was different from Tunisia as opposition to the ruling regime took several forms. Nevertheless, the most crucial opposition to the ruling regime was still religious. In 2005, members of the Muslim Brotherhood were allowed to run in the parliamentary elections as independent candidates. The clash of old and new elites has prevented successful democratization.

Algeria

There are several reasons why the protests in Algeria have not led to significant changes. Algeria underwent some democratic changes as early as the late 1980s, which, despite the suspension of the democratic process, resulted in a certain degree of political pluralism. Furthermore, Algeria’s civil war created trauma and deeply wounded the Algerian soul, and as events in some countries in the region resulted in violence, Algerians wanted to avoid it. Unlike Tunisia and specific Egyptian measures, Algeria’s army has a historical legacy of violent reaction to protests. One of the protesters interviewed in 2011 said that many Algerians suffer from ‘wounded memories’ – they feared that popular protest was futile. In Algeria, unlike Tunisia and Egypt, the presidential system was highly personalized; the political system is not identified with the president (the president is not a hereditary position) or a specific political party. Moreover, Algeria is exceptionally wealthy in gas and oil and could buy social peace by selling these energy sources.

The Aftermath

Although radical Islamic movements have benefited from the Arab Spring and in many countries have further aggravated the people’s situation, the protests are nevertheless a clear indication that the younger generation have different priorities. The engine of change in these people was not religious, but a pursuit of human dignity, freedom, equality, democracy. What must stand out in the uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt is the noticeable absence of Islamic fundamentalism. In the best secular democratic tradition, the people rebelled against the oppressive regime, corruption, and poverty and demanded freedom and economic hope.

However, the Islamists have seized power and thus have the opportunity to prove the truth of their slogan: ‘Al- Islām huwa’ l-hall’ (Islam is the solution for all). Indeed, the intention behind the Islamic Revolution in Iran was utopian and it led to an explosion of breathtaking political and social creativity, organizational experiments, and debates among students and ordinary people. However, the original opening that triggered unprecedented forces for social transformation, the moment when everything seemed possible, was gradually stifled by the takeover of political control by the Islamic establishment. The situation was comparable in Egypt. Forces that were already radically organized – the parties of the Mubarak regime and the Muslim Brotherhood – maintained a corporate and thus political monopoly. Without much effort, we can understand why the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamists picked up 70 percent of the vote.

Indirectly, on the one hand, the events opened up enough space for the formation of a new alliance involving the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf monarchies, Turkey, and the Muslim Brotherhood. On the other hand, the fixation on the elections did not give any time or space to other forces in Egypt to organize and prepare for a successful election, especially not those forces that triggered the overthrow of the Mubarak regime and aimed at different changes. In Egypt, a short and exciting time of self-government has been replaced by brutal police repression, and it gave birth to significant autocratic governments and thousands of political prisoners. After so many years, el-Sisi does not believe in the election process, which questions his legitimacy.

Uprisings in the Middle East have taken various forms and produced new, mixed regional policies – a new democracy, a renewed autocracy, some reformed monarchies, some failed states, and some bloody civil wars. The Muslim Brotherhood willingly guaranteed respect for the neoliberal model and the geopolitical status quo. Thus, the uprising’s electoral politicization pushed social demands aside, disempowered the people again. In Bahrain, the only Gulf monarchy to experience mass protests, the uprising was suppressed with the help of the Saudi regime, which prevented riots in its country with mass subsidies to the population. At a time of brutal repression of protesters and growing sectarian hatred, Islamists have found fertile ground for their actions in Syria and elsewhere, and ISIL appeared. Their growth culminated in 2014 when the Islamic State declared a caliphate in Iraq and Syria.

At the geopolitical level, the West, failed to anticipate but initially supported Arab revolutions. The West have distanced themselves from supporting some regional dictators for decades but offered no alternative. Turkey and Russia have been embroiled in numerous conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Libya. Trump moved the Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. His ‘peace plan’ for Israel and Palestine, the drafting of which did not involve the Palestinians, exemplifies political dilettantism, dangerous diversion, and a substantial break with the policies of all previous US administrations because it abandons the assumption that the state was to be established throughout the territory of the West Bank. If we analyze the details, the Palestinians will not get a real state, but a state with limited sovereignty, over which Israel would keep security control. Israel seems to be the substantial victor of these realignments because it moves towards recognition by a larger number of Arab monarchies, which receive even greater guarantees from the US, and which discourages democratic activists in those countries.

The conflicts in Syria have destroyed the country and created the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, with deep roots in the Arab Spring. The nation-state model has undergone significant globalized world changes, becoming less sustainable and less critical for cultural, political, and economic processes. Due to the growing economic insecurity and the fear of losing national identities in an environment of globalized culture, some have perceived multiculturalism as a threat. Moreover, apart from the call for greater social justice, there was no magic wand for the liberal reforms and economy in the Middle East. Some Islamists were more preoccupied with enforcing strict religious norms.

Yesterday’s idealists from the streets are resigned today because conservatives of various profiles stole their “revolution”. A new Cold War is raging in the Middle East, produced by Saudi Arabia and Iran in the struggle for supremacy in the region after the US catastrophic adventure in Iraq. In the “theological offensive” within this battle, Saudi Arabia is, for the time being, more radical, with appetites spilling over historical limits of influence.

However, the question arises. Are the people’s revolutions in the region so impersonal and without identity that they were called the Arab Spring only because of their initiators’ Arabic language? Is there a value, norm, goal, or intellectual leadership in these revolutions that would be the basis of their appointment? Certainly not.

Conclusion

Given the bitter historical experience – the dominance of Arab nationalism over Islamic unity – one should be wary of Western and non-Western constructions that impose Arab sentiments under the Arab Spring banner on the Islamic awakening. In any case, the project suffered defeat, and even if it exists today in the minds of the region’s revolutionaries, it was not an alternative to the notion of Islamic awakening.

Any violence regarding identity change provokes resistance and new violence. Resolving mechanisms need to be where the spatial roots are. The long-term effect of the Arab Spring is the most significant global refugee crisis since World War II with its sociopolitical, economic, and human rights consequences. The events and processes compromise the EU and US role as mediator. Moreover, without considering the wider impact on Palestine, Israel has enjoyed closer relationships with a number of Gulf states. One thing seems inevitable; it cannot return to the status quo. Although many dilemmas and risks still prevail, a new era in the Arab world and a new opportunity for non-Muslims and Muslims to coexist peacefully in that world seems to have begun.

References

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