One year later: three lessons from the Arab Spring
By Reuters Sunday, 27 November 2011 1:10 PM
When Mohamed Bouazizi, a jobless graduate in the provincial city of Sidi Bouzid
in Tunisia, about 200km southwest of the capital Tunis, set himself on fire on
December 18, 2010 after police had confiscated a cart from which he was selling
fruit and vegetables, few would have predicted that this event would spark the
phenomenon we now refer to as the Arab Spring. Protests quickly escalated in
Tunisia and within four weeks Tunisian President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali had to
flee to Saudi Arabia having failed to stop the protests either by repression of
promises of reform.
On 17 January, one day after Ben Alis departure, another young man set himself
alight near the Egyptian parliament. Within a week, coordinated mass protests
began in Tahrir Square, and forced the resignation of long-serving Egyptian
President Hosni Mubarak, who handed power to the military on 11 February.
Since then, the transitions in Tunisia and Egypt have made at best incremental
progress in some areas. In Tunisia, the first elections anywhere as a result of
the Arab Spring went ahead in October and the newly elected parliament had its
inaugural session on November 22nd. The election winners, the moderate Islamist
party Ennahda (Renaissance) will have a coalition arrangement with a liberal
and a centre-left party. While Tunisia avoided the appalling violence that
characterised the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Yemen, the new
government and parliament still face an up-hill battle in the transition to a
more democratic political system, including drafting a new constitution.
In Egypt, the military was instrumental in pushing Mubarak out of office, but
the slow progress towards democratic reforms, several deadly sectarian clashes
between Islamists and Christian copts, tensions and violence on the border with
Israel, and a heavy-handed police crack-down on continuing protests in Tahrir
Square do not bode well for the countrys immediate futureeven if
parliamentary elections go ahead on 28 November. While the army seems keen not
to want to actually govern the country, they seem equally determined not to
give up their privileged position that gives them political influence and
control over significant economic assets.
Elsewhere in the Arab world, it seems as if the old regimes are determined to
hold on to power at all cost, and despite diminishing chances of success. In
Yemen, a crisis that had engulfed the regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh
long before the Arab Spring began is nowhere closer to a resolution even after
Saleh at long last agreed to a transition plan sponsored by the Gulf
Cooperation Council. This plan saw Saleh hand over power to his Vice President
(not the opposition), allows him to retain the title of President for another
three months, guaranteed him immunity, and left his assets untouched and
members of his family in charge of most of the governments hard power. Forcing
Saleh out of office does also not address at least two of the countrys major
crisesthe Houthi rebellion in the North and the secessionist insurgency in the
south, the latter of which has formed an alliance of convenience with al-Qaeda
in the Arab Peninsula. Unsurprisingly, violence in Yemen has continued
unabated since Saleh signed the GCC transition plan on 23 November
In Syria, Bashir al-Assad has, so far successfully, clung onto power regardless
of the mounting death toll among protesters. Like elsewhere in the Arab Spring,
an initially peaceful protest movement has turned into an armed insurgency, but
one that lacks a unified political opposition. The Arab League has increased
pressure on the Assad regime, albeit not unanimously and so far only threatens
sanctions, while France, in an eerie déjà vu of events in Libya, has called for
humanitarian corridors and safe zones inside Syria to protect civilians from an
ever more violent regime crack-down and has recognised the opposition.
Libya continues to stand apart from all other countries in the Arab world in
which people took to the streets to demand freedom, jobs and democracy. But the
reasons for this are no longer all positive. The country remains divided and an
Interim Government was only sworn in on 24 November, after weeks of protracted
power struggles, tensions and occasionally serious violence between various
armed groups that once made up the patch-work of rebel factions that ousted
Gadhafi. Already Berber groups have suspended any cooperation with the National
Transitional Council as they resent what they see as their under-representation
in the new cabinet. At the same time, question marks remain over the
apprehension and killing of Colonel Gadhafi and whether the Libyan justice
system is able to give a fair trial for his son, Saif al-Islam, even after the
International Criminal Court has accepted that he can be tried in Libya. On top
of all that, serious and credible allegations persist about abuses of former
regime supporters. Libya might yet turn a corner toward a stable and more
democratic political system, but the obstacles in the way of such a transition
are mounting.
Almost one year on from the beginning of the Arab Spring it may be too early to
judge its outcome, but some crucial lessons should be borne in mind on the road
ahead:
1. Transitions from authoritarian rule are, for the most part, violent affairs
in which all sides are likely to commit abuses. Pushed into a corner regimes
desperately cling onto power; once victorious, rebels find it hard to resist
exacting revenge on members and supporters of the old regime.
2. Disparate rebel movements are united at best in their desire to get rid of
the old regime, but what motivates their members is a whole range of different
causes and more often than not there is no common vision for the future among
them.
3. As a result, the departure of the old regime does not automatically lead to
peace, stability and democracy.
It will take years, if not decades, for us to understand in full the
consequences of the Arab Spring. But local leaders and activists in the Middle
East and North Africa, regional and international organisations like the Arab
League and the Gulf Cooperation Council, the European Union and the United
Nations all have a responsibility to make sure that the revolutions of the Arab
Spring in the end improve the living conditions of the people in the region
rather than install just a different brand of self-serving rulers that only pay
lip-service to human rights, democracy, and individuals well-being.
This will be a long and at times frustrating endeavour, and while we must
remain realistic about the speed and comprehensiveness of its success, we
should remain equally committed and determined in our support of the genuine
democratic aspirations of the people who have started these revolutions.
(Stefan Wolff is a Reuters Analysis & Opinion columnist. The opinions expressed
are his own.)
http://www.arabianbusiness.com/one-year ... tml?page=1
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