Each successive anniversary of the Arab Spring
dampens the initial enthusiasm for the uprisings a little more.
At the three-year mark from the Tunisian and Egyptian revolts, the Middle East and North Africa now generate progressively more disquieting headlines. Even those observers who held the lowest expectations in 2011 might be shocked at how badly things have turned out.
In Egypt, the army is more fully in control after bludgeoning a new constitution into being. It is introducing restrictions on political freedoms that appear more draconian than those that existed under former president Hosni Mubarak.
In Syria, nearly as many people have died since 2011 as during the entirety of Algeria’s brutal civil war in the 1990s. Peace talks are struggling to gain traction. Militias run riot in Libya, able to sequester a prime minister with apparent impunity. Far from standing as a shining city on the hill, Turkey is mired in its own democratic unraveling.
Read more: The Arab Spring Three Years On - Carnegie Europe
At the three-year mark from the Tunisian and Egyptian revolts, the Middle East and North Africa now generate progressively more disquieting headlines. Even those observers who held the lowest expectations in 2011 might be shocked at how badly things have turned out.
In Egypt, the army is more fully in control after bludgeoning a new constitution into being. It is introducing restrictions on political freedoms that appear more draconian than those that existed under former president Hosni Mubarak.
In Syria, nearly as many people have died since 2011 as during the entirety of Algeria’s brutal civil war in the 1990s. Peace talks are struggling to gain traction. Militias run riot in Libya, able to sequester a prime minister with apparent impunity. Far from standing as a shining city on the hill, Turkey is mired in its own democratic unraveling.
Crucially, there is variety to the region’s authoritarian resilience.
Resistance to reform ranges from the brutal (Syria) through the
familiarly draconian (Egypt) to the more subtle (Morocco). In the Gulf
states, those in power have resorted to the tactics of financial
payoffs.
Radical jihadists have reestablished themselves after a pre–Arab Spring period in which the loose al-Qaeda franchise was palpably on the back foot. Jihadists have gained an unprecedented foothold even in Tunisia—the one country that remains on track toward something broadly recognizable as a democratic transition.
Unsurprisingly, against this background, the litanies of gloom are numerous and sobering. But is the picture as unremittingly despairing as it seems?
Arguably, the most negative possible reversal has not happened: on balance, people in the region have not lost their conviction in open politics.
Nearly every region in the world has passed through a “valley of tears” after initial democratic breakthroughs—a period of crushed expectations in which citizens question the merits of democracy. In the Middle East, some illiberal preferences have taken root, but polls constantly show a popular hunger for democratic change.
When the Muslim Brotherhood began contravening the core aims of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, even some Islamists turned against then president Mohamed Morsi. Many who sympathized with the army’s coup in July 2013, which ousted Morsi, now protest against it. Opinion in Egypt is changeable, as political alliances fluctuate.
Egypt’s problem is less a reversion to the status quo ante than a case of popular unease with power grabs by both the army and the Muslim Brotherhood. It is unclear whether Egypt is heading toward the restoration of full authoritarianism or a limited form of competitive autocracy.
The most striking feature of the Middle East three years on from the first uprisings is its indeterminacy. In many Arab states, there is no single, clear direction of travel. Small advances in democratic rights, stasis, and counterrevolution all occur simultaneously, clashing and colliding in increasingly unpredictable combinations.
Radical jihadists have reestablished themselves after a pre–Arab Spring period in which the loose al-Qaeda franchise was palpably on the back foot. Jihadists have gained an unprecedented foothold even in Tunisia—the one country that remains on track toward something broadly recognizable as a democratic transition.
Unsurprisingly, against this background, the litanies of gloom are numerous and sobering. But is the picture as unremittingly despairing as it seems?
Arguably, the most negative possible reversal has not happened: on balance, people in the region have not lost their conviction in open politics.
Nearly every region in the world has passed through a “valley of tears” after initial democratic breakthroughs—a period of crushed expectations in which citizens question the merits of democracy. In the Middle East, some illiberal preferences have taken root, but polls constantly show a popular hunger for democratic change.
When the Muslim Brotherhood began contravening the core aims of Egypt’s 2011 revolution, even some Islamists turned against then president Mohamed Morsi. Many who sympathized with the army’s coup in July 2013, which ousted Morsi, now protest against it. Opinion in Egypt is changeable, as political alliances fluctuate.
Egypt’s problem is less a reversion to the status quo ante than a case of popular unease with power grabs by both the army and the Muslim Brotherhood. It is unclear whether Egypt is heading toward the restoration of full authoritarianism or a limited form of competitive autocracy.
The most striking feature of the Middle East three years on from the first uprisings is its indeterminacy. In many Arab states, there is no single, clear direction of travel. Small advances in democratic rights, stasis, and counterrevolution all occur simultaneously, clashing and colliding in increasingly unpredictable combinations.
Read more: The Arab Spring Three Years On - Carnegie Europe
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