Arab Spring Flashcards
Arab Spring on the map
Spread from the Egypt expansionally
Arab Spring: Beginning
- Uprisings since December 2010
- Fruit vendor Mohammad Bouazizi set himself on fire → trigger for other states
- Slowly expanding
- accelerator of demonstrations: social media (+multinational TV), youths can organise easily
Causes of uprisings:
- unsatisfaction with national politics
- poor economic policies → poor economic condition
- unemployment → frustration → no future
- absence of freedom of speech and express
Arab Spring: Precursor
National self-determination since 19th century
- Arab identity, influence of European nationalism and of Western ideologies
- different manifestation of Arab nationalism: Pan-Arabism, Arab socialism (Baath party), particular nationalism (pan-syrianism)
First wave of Arabism around WW I:
- 3 issues in the interwar era: Lebanon, Israel-Palestine, Iraq
- Interwar era- low change for independence
Second wave of Arabism
- After WW II, establishment of LAS
- Decolonisation x bipolar world
- Cold War in ME: USSR (Hussein, Arafat) vs. US (Tunisia, Jordan - king)
- Support of Islamists during the Cold War → West support (Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Syria, Afgh.); similarly Israel
- West concerned for the Arab Spring and new establishment in the ME
Arab Spring: After the revolutions
- Arab Spring (2010-2011 or 2012) hold up the hope → as will produce democracy
- Some observers: as parallel to E Europe demonstrations in 1989
- Transition in democracy difficult → more often fails
- 8 yrs after uprisings: violence, instability and uncertainty mark the politics of ME
- Arab spring “success story”
- Transition has not been smooth → 2012 assassination of 2 politicians ¨Coalition of society groups won the Nobel Peace prize in 2015
- Did not allow extremism and polarization to undermine the goals
- 2014: adoption of new Constitution election of a new parliament, new president
- Politics remain uncertain
- terrorist attacks → undermining the government
Yemen
- early 2012 pres. Ali Abdullah Sales step down (22 yrs of ruling)
- Political infighting, demonstrations, violence
- 2014 Houthis battle the central government and seized the capital Sana’s
- president Abd Rabun Mansur Hadi
- Intervention of KSA, UAE, and others to stop Iranian penetration into the Arabian peninsula through Houthis allies
- Humanitarian disaster
- Becoming a failed state
Syria
3/2011: youth in Daraa spray painted → arrested and tortured
- Security forces fired on demonstrators
- Setting off a nation wide protest movement → civil war → proxy war
- Violence and chaos → rise of the ‘Islamic state’
- Assad regime controls the fraction of Syrian territory - assistance of Iran and Russia
- Syrian Kurdish forces (backed by US) rolled back IS in N
- Peace talks in Vienna, Geneva, Sochi
- Iran, Russia for Assad x Gulf states, US, Turkey against Assad
Syria who controls what (2012ish):
Egypt
Hosni Mubarak president (1981-2011)
- After his overthrow Egyptians have participated in 6 rounds of parliamentary elections, 3 presidential elections and 3 constitutional referendums, coup d’etat
leader: Abdul Fatah Sisi (since 2013) - After military ended the presidency of Mursi
- Insists that Egypt is on a path of democracy
- Muslim Brotherhood considered as terrorist organization
Bahrain
2011 demonstrations in Manama
Sectarian dimension: Shia protests demanding change from Sunni that hold all the power in state
Bahrain security forces responded with heavy hand:
- Bahrain, UAE, KSA leaders saw Iran’s hand in demonstration
- ‘invitation’ of Bahraini leader of UAE and KSA military troops
Libya
Muammar Gaddafi (1969-2011)
- Ruling system: through informal coalition and network of supporters under the guide what he called the direct democracy
8 months of civil war → include the establishment of NATO no-fly zone
- Gaddafi captured and killed
Summer 2012 elections → Libya has fractured → 2 different fractions claiming to be the legitimate government
→ result: civil war and chaos
Middle East
- Most are autocratic
- in UAE Saudi Arabia and Oman demonstrations pulled back by the rulers
The messy Mosaic of actor relations in ME
lack of support for Al-Qaeda and ISIL
