GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF MIDDLE EAST

ASSIGNMENT

IR 8 B

GROUP MEMBERS:

AROOJ FATIMA

SALMA JALIL

ZARYAB ALI
Arab Spring:
Arab spring was wave of pro-democratic uprisings and movements that spread throughout the
Middle East. It was started in 2010 and spread in the region during 2011. The goal of these
movements was to topple the authoritarian regimes and to end the corruption, economic
inequality and political oppression which people were facing for many years. These protests first
overthrew the authoritarian regime of Tunisia and then other Arab states also got inspired from
it. The wave began from Tunisia which is also known as Jasmine revolution. When a street
vendor Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire on Dec 17, 2010 due to the harassment and
corruption of police. This was the key event which become the catalyst for the widespread
movement. Mass demonstration where conduct across the country due to this reason. People
were demanding their political rights, resignation of current ruler Ben Ali and end of corruption.
Ben Ali was dictator who ruled Tunisia for 23 years and after the death of Mohammed Bouazizi
when things became out of his control he fled to Saudi Arab with his family. The activists of
neighbor states inspired from this event and started this movement in their own states. But not
every state saw success because of this movement as some states suffered with brutal
crackdowns by their police and forces. Protestors were brutally oppressed by the security forces
in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen and Syria. Egypt was returned to military rule after the political
turmoil caused by these uprisings. Yemen also had to experience prolonged political instability.
In Syria and Libya these protests turned into civil war. These countries’ experiences shows that
this political uprising varied in its outcomes which explains that transition of political system is
complex and there is uncertainty in its results.

Arab spring in Egypt

Protests in Tunisia did not remain limited to one place only but also sparked series of protests in
the region starting from north Africa and spreading towards Asian middle east. In Egypt, protests
started from January 25 2011, during the protests many other-wise opposing groups such as
feminists, islamist secularists etc. came together to rise against the existing regime. As such
different and opposing people were rising for the same cause, thus there was no centralized
leadership in Egyptian Arab spring.
Like in case of Tunisia, where death of a young man sparked nationwide protests, in Egypt one
death played important role to bring people into streets against the government. In 2010, a young
man named Khalid Saeed was beaten to death by police in Alexandria. Although his death
resulted in small protests in few places but police rejected killing allegations at that time. Later,
an Egyptian man who was google executive in Dubai, shared pictures of disfigured body of
young Khalid on Facebook in a group named “WE ARE ALL KHALID SAEED”. This brought
attention of many thousands on social media and also across the country. Saeed’s death was
treated as martyrdom as he was neither a political figure, nor related to any organization but a
common man killed by police brutality. Discourse against state brutality, injustice was set around
Saeed’s death and that’s why every kind of group started to protest. Even though police rejected
at first, but later examinations confirmed that death was caused by beating by the policy not
suffocation while trying to swallow a bag of drugs as claimed by the police. That social media
campaign resulted in mass protests of 25 January, on national police day, which basically started
Arab spring in Egypt.

Arab spring protests were started with chants of “the people want to bring down regime” and
people demanded change of government. At that time, Hosni Mubarak was in power since 1981,
his regime was corrupt, unjust, oppressing and stagnant and people from all groups wanted to
bring that down. Among protesting groups, feminists, labor activists, secularists, islamist and
people of Islamic brotherhood were included. Among Arab spring protests, most famous were
Tahir square protests and others were civil disobedience labor strikes and clashes with armed
forces.

In short run, protests were successful as it resulted in ousting Hosni Mubarak on 11 February
2011 and parliament was dissolved by SCAF and suspended the constitution. Mubarak was given
life time prison sentence but later released after military coup government came in 2013. Arab
spring allowed islamist parties to form their political parties and most prominent among them
was Muslim brotherhood whose candidate was Mohammad Morsi who won the first democratic
election in Egypt. Newly elected government was never stable and Islamic party coming into
power also increased inter-religious tensions in heretofore harmonious society. Even after Morsi
was removed from power, islamist attacked Christians and called them responsible of his
ousting.
In 2013, Abdel Fattah El-Sisi and army led by him ousted president Morsi in a military coup and
charged him for “aggressive acts”. This government amended Egyptian constitution, banned
islamist groups from forming political parties and most famous of them brotherhood, was banned
and was labelled as it period started as Abdel-Fattah won the presidential election. Newly elected
government undermined free speech, free movement, ban of any kind of gathering, and many
groups were denied of human rights. In coming years, government faced issues with ISIS and
other such organization thus regulations were made stricter on the people. in 2018, Morsi was re-
elected and has been in power since then.

After Effects of Arab Spring in Egypt

Like many other countries where people protested, Egyptian people protested for democracy,
economic stability, progressive society with better life standard. But today, when a decade has
been passed since the “democratic government” is in power, one can see that none of those goals
are achieved.

Politically, there is restriction on political parties and elections are not democratic and apart from
that, no one can talk against El-Sisi regime. El-Sisi is in power since 2014, elected two times,
shows that the democracy, that according to protesters was pre-requisite for all other demands,
failed and in reality they saw transition from dictatorship to authoritarianism.

Economically, Egypt suffered more than they did under Mubarak’ regime, in fact, although
under his dictatorship human rights were denied but one has to admit the economic progress that
Egyptians enjoyed. With the outbreak of Arab spring, tourism halted, unemployed and inflation
increased upto new heights. GDP of Egypt declines during this time and it was only in 2018 that
country’s GDP returned back pre-Arab spring %age. Unemployment and inflation also started
improve only to be increased during the Covid pandemic.

Socially, society suffered as el-Sisi government banned free speech, free movement of people
and all those rights that people were fighting for against Mubarak’s regime are still not given to
them. with the start of Arab spring, people were optimistic for a positive change as during early
days of the movement, it seemed to be a successful revolution but now even after decade long
uprisings there is suppression of people. The only change that Arab spring brought is from
dictatorship to authoritarianism with same characteristics and outlook.