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Assess the Political, Cultural and Economic causes of the Arab

Spring
In late 2010 and early 2011, the Arab World was turned upside down.
Economic, political and cultural causes drove millions of young men and
women to challenge the ruling elites and to overthrow the status quo. The
people wanted change; they wanted a state which worked and was fair for
everyone not just the elites and their cohorts. King Abdullah of Jordan lays out
the best reasons for the Arab Spring in the foreword to his book ‘Our Last Best
Chance’

“Economic, political and social frustrations have driven millions of young men
and women in the Arab world to challenge the status quo in an unprecedented
manner. They want change: change that will deliver jobs in a region whose
youth suffers from the highest unemployment rate in the world; change that
will end their marginalization in the economic and political life of their
countries. They want to feel that they matter and have a role to play in their
societies.” (Abdullah, 2012)

I will be using King Abdullah’s outline for this assessment. I will be adding to
this by looking at Hamid Dabashi’s theory that the Arab Spring was inspired by
the Green movement in Iran. I will also go back further and look at whether the
invasion of Iraq in 2003 had any effect upon the emergence of the Arab Spring.
I will be looking at the political reasons; with leaders like Ben Ali (Tunisia), Al-
Qaddafi (Libya) and Mubarak (Egypt) who have all run their respective
countries for extensive periods of time and as such have become complacent
and no longer provided their people with the opportunities and amenities they
needed. I will be looking at the state of the economy in Libya, Tunisia and
Egypt and what effect that, coupled with the high level of unemployment had
towards creating the situation. I will be analysing the idea of the Rentier state
put forward by Hussein Mahdavy and the idea of how these economies
function and the problems that can arise when they start to stall.

The Arab Spring was one of the most tumultuous events since the end of the
Cold War, where we saw a move towards a new wave of democratisation. The
west has always looked to promote democracy and human rights within the
region; now we are seeing those labours bear fruit, as the Middle East slowly
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turns towards the point to which they can be called functioning democracies.
This was brought on by the new cultural wave helped on by a younger
population demographic; better educated band more able to freely access
information from across the country and from around the world. This new
cultural identity is another cause which I will be analysing to show how and
why the Arab Spring began and where it may end up.

In December 2010, a Tunisian fruit vendor, Muhammed Bouazizi set himself on

fire in protest at the regime and in its continuing support of an unfair society.
Bouazizi had for most of his life been selling fruit in an unlicensed stall in an
informal market. This experience gave him first-hand knowledge of the level of
corruption that had trickled through Tunisia all the way from the very top
levels of Government, down to the local bureaucracies. Life would have been
easier for him if he did actually acquire a permit, but to do so he would have
had to bribe an official which he did not have the money for. He would usually
gather up his products and flee when the authorities would come round, but
on the 17th December 2010 something changed; he decided he no longer
wanted to run and that he would stand his ground. His property was
confiscated and he was humiliated by the authorities, he decided that he
would go to the regional offices to complain and hopefully get his property
back. The regional government would not help him; he had no money to bribe
anyone nor did he have ability to contest the situation in the courts and so he
decided he would protest in the only way he believed possible by dousing
himself in lighter fluid and setting himself alight.

“He was just a poor guy who set himself on fire because of injustice and
pressure. The government officers pushed him into doing it. He talked of
injustice as if it was one of life’s immutable facts, like the weather, or growing
old.” (Bowen, 2013, pg35)

Bouazizi’s protest started a national conversation about how corrupt the

government was, which turned quickly into a new protest movement which
turned into an international protest movement.

Corruption in Tunisia was rife and it did not look like stopping anytime soon.
Whether it was cash, services, property or land Ben Ali and his family coveted
it. Their power and wealth had seemingly put them above the law, where the

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police would report directly to the family and would act as their enforcers if
anyone looked to challenge the regime.

There was a disconnect between the elites who seemingly ran the country for
themselves at the expense of the average Tunisian. The economy was in crisis
and any wealth that was generated did not trickle down to the general
populace, but was kept within the ruling family, which of course weakened the
economy even further. The US Ambassador Robert Godec wrote back to the
US state department saying that the Ben Ali regime.

“…. have lost touch with the Tunisian people. They tolerate no advice or
criticism, whether domestic or international. Increasingly, they rely on the
police for control and focus on preserving power. And, corruption in the inner
circle is growing. Even average Tunisians are now keenly aware of it, and the
chorus of complaints is rising. Tunisians intensely dislike, even hate, First lady
Leila Trabelsi and her family. In private, regime opponents mock her; even
those close to the government express dismay at her reported behaviour.
Meanwhile, anger is growing at Tunisia’s high unemployment and regional
inequities. As a consequence, the risks to the regime’s long term stability are
increasing” (Godec, 2010 found in Bowen 2013)

The corrupt way in which the family ran the country created a resentful and
impoverished class of Tunisians who had grown tired of the level of inequality
that had systemically grown over the years. This high level of inequalities,
matched with high unemployment figures which were as high as 14% in Tunisia
(FT.Com) had created a ‘powder keg’ and all that was needed was a spark, and
this deep hatred and anger would boil over and start a revolution that would
engulf the country and then the region.

With the Arab Spring in full flow and the Green Movement in Iran almost 2
years old, Hamid Dabashi and others have made the case that the two were
not separate entities but in fact the Arab Spring was in succession to the Green
movement, many have even compared it to the Islamic Revolution in Iran in
1979. The response from the activists was that they were emulating neither,
and that this was their own movement to highlight their own situation. Their
sympathies clearly lie with the Green Movement rather than the Islamic
Revolution but not to the extent that some would believe.

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“A survey in Alexandria and Cairo during the week before President Hosni
Mubarak was ousted found only 18 percent of respondents approving of the
Iranian regime, with 47 percent opposing it. (Thirty-six percent of respondents
offered no opinion, perhaps a sign of Egypt’s lack of interest in Iran.” (Kurzman,
2012)

From the survey which Kurzman mentions we can see that the protestors
shared no affinity with the Islamic Revolution or an affinity with the Iranian
government. They defied any Iranian involvement as ‘a foreign hand’ like the
Americans or the Europeans; they even publicly rejected the claims that
Khamenei made that the Arab spring echoed the Islamic Revolution.

“’Egypt will not be another Iran. We will not be governed by a religious

dictatorship, as in Iran.’ The crowd then chanted anti-Iranian slogans. A
statement by Egyptian activists denounced Khamenei for trying to “drive a
wedge in the nation’s fabric by talking about an Islamic revolution in an
attempt to eliminate our Coptic brothers from our revolution.” (Kurzman, 2012)

The Muslim Brotherhood, who at the time were Egypt’s largest Islamist
organization thanked Khamenei for his support but stressed that Egypt and
Iran were different and faced different challenges, and that it was not an
Islamic revolution but an Egyptian one, and that it should be up to the Egyptian
people to decide the make-up of the Egyptian government, and that should be
respected by all countries, including Iran. Another spokesman went further
rejecting any Iranian involvement all together and that the Muslim
Brotherhood and the internal conditions in Egypt led to the uprising, and not
Iran or Islam.

The Green movement was not the sole inspiration for the Arab Spring but one
of many factors that led to the uprisings. The Green movement achieved very
little in comparison and was considerably smaller and more sporadic than the
scenes we saw in Tahir Square or on the streets of Tunis. The Arab Spring was
about a whole lot more than religious doctrine, it was about freedom throwing
of the shackles of the post-colonial era and moving towards something new.

The Green movement galvanised public anger towards the political elites in
Iran, but it failed to overthrow those in power. While in the Arab Spring, three
of the longest serving leaders in the world were all removed with varying
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degrees of violence. In Tunisia and Egypt they removed the leader, but failed
to topple the entire regime and were left with a situation not too dissimilar to
that prior to 2010. While in Libya the revolution was made bloodier by the
involvement of NATO and US military power. Dabashi argues that the Green
movement and the Arab Spring were different models of revolution from what
we in the west have become accustomed to.

“These weren’t traditional revolutions as we’ve seen in the past with China and
France for example there has been no definitive end for the Arab world. The
Arab Spring has changed certain aspects of society but the underlying factors
still remain of an unfair society and slow paced economy that still does not
provide enough job and security for their families. Eventually these uprisings
will leave no stone unturned political, cultural, social and economic reasoning’s
for the revolutions will be solved and it will change the Middle East
geopolitically it will also shape the way the world looks at the Middle East. We
have seen uprisings in both allies and enemies of the ‘West’ altering the way
the world works opening up the world and throwing the shackles of post
colonialism. “This is no longer the middle of anybody’s East, or the north of any
colonial divide in Africa.” (Dabashi, 2012).

As Dabsahsi argues the Arab Spring was like nothing we have seen before; it
changed the whole meaning of revolution as it does not fit the western model
of revolution. The Arab Spring has changed the region, but much still remains
to be done and the path to fully fledged democracy still looks precarious. There
are many counter-revolutionary forces that would look to possibly undermine
their good work. The counter-revolutionary forces are working towards trying
to undermine these uprisings. These forces are not limited to the likes of US
and NATO military intervention, especially in Libya where they tried to force an
outcome which would have been seen as beneficial to the ‘West’. Many
commentators in the US and in Europe have used Orientalist clichés when
talking about the Arab regimes both prior and post Arab Spring. They are
scared about the prospect of these new independent states being able to
make up their own allegiances and throw the western geopolitical sphere in
the mire.

Prior to the Green Movement the last major change in the region was when
the US and the Allied forces invaded Iraq and removed Saddam Hussein from
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power. The drastic change in the balance of power changed the region and the
geopolitical structure radically as Iraq who under Saddam was considered one
of the major powers of the region had often acted as a buffer against Iran.
When the Allied Forces toppled Saddam they questioned the legitimacy of all
the autocratic states in the region, which for decades the Americans and
Europeans had backed without question as they looked to expand their own
sphere of influence.

This began a new age of relationships between the ‘West’ and the Middle East.
American officials in 2006 persuaded Hosni Mubarak to allow for more free
elections and for less government crackdowns on those who protested against
the regime. This new level of freedom coupled with access to the internet
becoming more readily available allowed for a new wave of critical writing
which challenged the existing system.

The Arab Spring is now six years old and the rules that once governed the Arab
world have been turned upside down. Iraq is viewed as the start of the change
as at it showed that the West’s policy had changed and was now not going to
automatically back autocracies, and was indeed looking to promote democracy
within the region.

“For all its bungling, the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq exposed a
fundamental truth of modern Arab politics. Washington’s longstanding support
for autocracy and dictatorship in the Middle East, a core principle of American
foreign policy for decades, had helped stoke a deep-seated political malaise in
the region that produced both Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. By 2003,
American support for Arab autocrats was no longer politically sustainable.”
(Makiya, 2013)

The Democratic domino theory spilled over into the neighbouring countries, it
is one of numerous reasons for why the Arab Spring began. Many scholars and
protestors have described the Iraq invasion as colonialist and illegitimate, and
undoubtedly the invasion did create a power vacuum within the region which
many have been scrambling to fill. Without their natural ally, the extremist
wing of the Iranian government began to lose their grip on power which
allowed for the Green movement to emerge which eventually led to the Arab
Spring. The Arab Spring was inspired by many movements, but it was also a

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reaction and answer to the political and economic problems which they faced
in their own countries.

The three main Arab Spring countries Libya, Tunisia and Egypt as the wider
MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region had deep economic problems that
the ruling elites had no answers for. The Arab economies are varied in design
but the main driver of the economy the state; this is a common trend through
many Arab countries. There has been movement to open the economy up
further to the private sector but these private enterprises generally still have
strong ties to the State with many of them being run by the State or by
members of the ruling families. This move has failed to create the vast number
of jobs needed to accommodate the large number of young educated workers
who were now entering the work force.

"What has often emerged is a politically favoured group, still highly dependent
on the state. Large formal enterprises, owned either by the state or by friends
of the state, have failed to provide significant employment growth for the large
number of youth entering the world force. Young people, despite being
increasingly better educated, have preferred to wait for a public sector job
rather than a private sector” (Amin et al, 2012)

There was limited room for advancement and there were few prospects for
people to get good paying jobs. For many young people who wanted a good
career migration was the only answer, but again only a few could do this and
those who were too poor to leave were forced to take menial low paying jobs
which caused resentment and anger towards the ruling elites. This
disenfranchisement would never have hit the heights it did without the high
levels of unemployment and low living standards that the people in Tunisia,
Egypt and Libya suffered. The idea of families and children especially suffering
from high living costs and living in relative squalor transcended both
ideological and class divisions.

The levels of unemployment across the region reached 25% for young men and
40% for young women and with the workforce expanding rapidly, possibly
reaching 185 million by 2020 across the region, this would require the region
to open its private sector even more to both foreign and domestic companies
in order that they could provide more opportunities for young people. Almost

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two thirds of the MENA population is under the age of 30, young people are
demanding wage and job equality, and they also want the revenue arising from
their countries resources to be distributed more evenly.

The MENA economies need to modernize, especially the public sector, albeit
that there is still a lingering suspicion over what the impact of liberalising the
economy and becoming more western in their economic structure would be.
Whilst in Eastern Europe it quickly became the consensus that they needed to
change their entire economic model to be able to find a place in the world’s
economy in the MENA states the changes to the economy would not be so
sweeping and it would most likely be small incremental changes that would
need to take place. There is also a definite need to diversify the MENA states
economies, as currently they are narrow in their design and whilst they do
create some growth and development it is not enough for what is needed to
effectively deliver a strong and viable economy.

There is a direct line between the private sector and the public sector with
many of the larger corporations run by members of the extended families of
the ruling class. The Private sector has become synonymous with corruption
and this perceived level of corruption needs to be addressed if these states are
going to develop. The state sector can still remain the principal driver of the
economy but the private sector is needed to both strengthen the economy and
also help the economy to diversify to create both growth and jobs.; two things
that the MENA states are missing.

Low job growth and low productivity would force any country into the kind of
recession which would have lost a generation of talented people. But in the
MENA region it meant that the state struggled to collect and distribute the
rents it so badly needed for its economy to survive. Many MENA states that do
not have access to large pools of natural resources have been able to profit
from those whose natural resources have given them added economic
stimulus.

Most MENA states live off large external rent payments this is not exclusive to
the oil and gas producing states but also the ‘transit states’ such as Egypt,
Jordan, Lebanon and Syria who receive large rent payments so that other
states or operatives can use their pipelines, waterways and the Suez Canal.

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These so-called Rentier States are so named from a theory which was
presented by Hussein Mahdavy in the article ‘The Patterns and Problems of
Economic Development in the Rentier States: The case of Iran” the thesis was
written in 1970, albeit in a more modern version we would probably emit
Yemen, Morocco and the Gaza strip who have all received payments in military
hardware, financial aid and workers fees for their help in transiting oil and gas
across their borders.

These large payments made possible the large public expenditure programmes
which the MENA states had become so accustomed too. The state had not
needed to resort to high levels of taxation without running into a financial
crisis, which usually is a situation that other emerging economies have to face,
although having these rents coming in does create a system where there is a
lack of urgency to develop other sectors of the economy. These Rentier states
suffer from inefficiency to effectively redistribute the funds garnered from
rents and this concentration of funds creates resentment and anger amongst
the general population. They created the impression that the economy was
working by building large western designed cities that inspire the idea of
prosperity and wealth but actually the opposite was true, as the rest of the
country is still deprived and under developed due to the fact that the rapid
growth seen in the urban areas means there is no urgency or political will to
develop the rural areas at the same time.

These Rentier states are in a unique position, they have an economy based on
commodities that are needed all over the world to run our cars, heat our
homes and keep the lights on. However this economic model needs to branch
out as it is too narrow and has caused a stagnant growth rate, and has
encouraged complacency within the ruling classes. In essence it has caused
large divisions between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’. This concentration of
revenue has enhanced the autonomy that the ruling class enjoys. Which
created a state of dependency where the states citizens require the state to
provide for them, which creates a level hesitance to overthrow the regime in
fear of losing what they have. Being so open to western markets means they
are vulnerable to sanctions and to fluctuations in the markets, but many
autocratic leaders allow this because if they were to diversify their economy

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this would strengthen those who speak out against the government as they
would no longer require the state for their livelihood.

One major criticism of the government of these Rentier States has been the
level of Education provided by the state. As in most countries we are seeing a
growing trend of young people choosing to further their education. As they
finish their studies there are not adequate job opportunities to match their
newly developed skills. Forcing many of them to either be underemployed in
roles not suited to their education or they find themselves having to emigrate
to countries who offer better job opportunities. These new graduates are
increasingly connected both national and internationally by better technology,
social media and more and more online opportunities. Young people have
more ample opportunities than ever before to learn and understand the rest of
the world.

However the MENA region is stuck in a cycle of repeating old problems of a

draconian rote system of education which promotes uniformity, when it
should be promoting expression, imagination and creativity. This needs to
change if the MENA region is to develop and be able to develop a generation
of workers and thinkers that can compete with the rest of the world on the job
market. An important step towards democracy or a MENA version of such is to
create progress in the post-secondary education system.

During the last decade, the number of universities within the region doubled.
This expansion was due to the large investment that was put into University
education by the Gulf States. New campuses were all the rage across the
region as it became a symbol of status to found a new university. This was only
possible because the demand for university places was now so much higher
from educated teenagers than ever before. This was true for both genders;
both men and women flocked to University to expand their minds and
horizons. With women being able to study at this high a level it was seen as a
social victory for women. However, there was still a large disconnect between
the skills they were learning at university and the skills required in the job
market.

“One of the roots of the Arab Spring was the imbalance between schooling
opportunities and job market offerings. Many educated youth lost hope and

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desperately embraced any job after graduation. A state of despair reigned in

the region and ‘most of the Middle East countries that have been at the centre
of violent protests exhibited large schooling gains and poor employment…[and
the educated] who had not seen that education rewarded in the labour
market…would …channel their efforts towards political action, and political
protest in particular’” (Mohamed, E. Gerber, H. and Aboulkacem, S, 2016)

The MENA region schools put more emphasis on the study of religious doctrine
rather than on skills which are required for the workforce. This gap has caused
many young people to lack the abilities required to acquire well-paid jobs.
There needs to be reform and a modernization in the education sector at all
levels, there is a place in education for theology but this needs to be balanced
with more vocational skills so that when these graduates leave education they
have the ability to compete with graduates from around the world.

Social media is a key tool in the modern world; one that is essential for the way
we do business and the way we communicate with others. Social media was a
vital tool for the protestors in the Arab Spring. The first mass protest of the
Arab Spring was in Egypt and was announced and arranged on Facebook by an
anonymous group. In a few days they had managed to attract tens of
thousands of followers. It had helped attract new followers, and connect
people from across the country that otherwise may never had been able to
contact each other. This new tool meant that they could outwit the authorities
who did not understand Social media and did not have the technical
capabilities to quell talk of revolution.

“Social media is one of the most important global leaps forward in recent
human history. It provides for self-expression and promotes mutual
understanding. It enables rapid formation of networks and demonstrates our
common humanity across cultural differences. It connects people, their ideas
and values, like never before.” (Omidyar, 2014)

Social Media allowed for communities and countries to communicate and

spread the word of the revolution. This helped spread the word across the
region and demonstrated the contagion theory as to how this movement
managed to spread so far and so fast.

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A month after the downfall of Tunisian dictator in January 2011, the protests
had spread across the region, they copied their tactics with the same desire
and intensity. The world’s media allowed the region and the world to watch in
awe as a part of the world which was generally viewed negatively was now
looking to build something beautiful. Tunisia led the way for the rest of region,

“It gave people courage to do something similar. Because they saw that it was
possible. Other people did it. This small country that beats us in football, in
African tournaments, has removed it president why the hell cannot we do that?
Let’s do it. And they did it.”(Bowen, 2012)

As Egypt watched in envy of Tunisia the rest in the region watched in awe as
Egypt removed on of the most powerful dictators in the Gulf. They also could
see no reason why they could not do it either.

“And Arabs in every other part of the Middle east and North Africa were
watching what was happening in Egypt live on television, and seeing no reason
why they could not try to do the same thing” (Bowen, 2012)

These acts of inspiration and envy changed the MENA region forever.

Samuel Huntington and others have talked about the ‘The Third Wave’ of
democratization from the 1970s to the early 1990s and continuing on with the
soviet bloc being broken up, and states in Latin America overthrowing the
military juntas. The only major region to miss out seemingly is the MENA
region. According to a study conducted by the Open University they say there
are only two Liberal democracies in the region, Turkey and Israel. With Liberal
Democracy not flourishing in the way the West wants, this has added fuel to
the argument of Middle East ‘exceptionalism’ in Huntington’s book the ‘Clash
of Civilizations’ (2002). Hhe claims that there are fundamental cultural
differences between the MENA region and the West. He claims that a Liberal
Democracy and a capitalistic economy are the default position for any state. If
he were writing today he would probably say that the region is merely
defaulting to its ‘natural’ position of becoming a liberal democracy and not
revolting for political reasons such as education, unemployment or corruption.
Francis Fukuyama in the book ‘The Orgins of Political Order’ (2011) talks about
how the British tried to enforce a Westminster style parliament upon the
pacific island nations but it didn’t work because it did not resemble their own
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society. The same is true in the MENA region, there are cultural differences
between the Middle East and the West but that’s means the Middle East
should a have political structure that resembles their own culture if that be
religious based like in Iran or based on strength of political institutions like in
the US. The reason it took so long for revolution is because economically and
politically there was no need. They were willing to accept a lack of basic
freedoms as long as the state provided them jobs, social services and
education.

“Human beings are rule-following animals by nature; they are born to conform
to the social norms they see around them, and they entrench those rules with
often transcendent meaning and value. When the surrounding environment
changes and new challenges arise, there is often disjunction between existing
institutions and present needs. Those institutions are supported by legions of
entrenched stakeholders who oppose any fundamental change.” (Fukuyama,
2011)

When we saw the surrounding environment change as we did with the

economy stalling and because of a lack of inaction to diversify and lack of
political will to change, then we saw the people take their frustrations to the
streets and we saw a change in the system to provide better services.

The Arab Spring has changed the region forever as it has now thrown off the
shackles of imperialism, if you are to believe Dabashi, and opens a new chapter
for the region as a whole. Political institutions take time to build and can only
really take effect if they reflect the people’s beliefs and ideals. Huntington is
correct that there are cultural differences between the West and the Middle
East, but that means they should have a political system that reflects that
difference not just simply the assumption that the western model is the best or
only model. The Arab Spring happened because the governments no longer
provided for the people; they were so ‘hell bent’ on protecting their own
power that they became complacent. Human beings as Fukuyama claims are
willing to accept levels of autocratic rule as long as the state provides for the
people and when it did not the status quo had to be changed. That is what
happened here; the Arab Spring did not happen because they were just
defaulting back to their ‘natural’ position of liberal democracy, they were just
trying to get a government that could provide jobs and security. Changes do
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need to happen to the region; they need to expand their economic strategies
and develop their education systems or they will fall behind in the new
globalised economy. They have taken great inspiration from around the region
from the changes in Iran and Iraq but they don’t want to be like them, either
supported by an American military occupation or by having a government that
is backed by religious doctrine. They want their own government, best suited
to their societal and cultural norms; we in the west would oust governments
that had such levels of corruption or economic instability, so why cannot they. I
don’t agree with Dabashi who says the Arab Spring was the Middle East
throwing off the shackles of colonialism or Huntington’s theory of the Middle
East reverting back to a states ‘natural’ position of being a liberal democracy.
The Arab Spring happened because of political reasons, the states were ripe
with corruption, there was distinct lack of an effective education model and an
economy that had failed to diversify and as such failed to provide jobs and
social services that were effective.

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