Produce
seller Mohammad Bouazizi cried out for relief from the oppressive life
inflicted on Tunisians by taking his own in December 2010. His death
from self-immolation was an act of desperation focusing on the lack of …
The
headline-grabbing revolutions that gripped the Middle East in early
2011 brought the promise of an “Arab Spring,” a new dawn for democracy
in a region with a history of autocracy. But the real result, as it
turned out, was in many cases almost the opposite: a wave of violence,
repression and civil war. One shining exception has been Tunisia. That
Northern African nation’s peaceful transition from Islamist rule and
adoption of a new democratic constitution brought important recognition
to four civil society groups that have worked to achieve peaceful
political dialogue: the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize.
TUNISIA: A pushcart vendor’s desperate act galvanizes the Arab world
Police
scatter demonstrators with teargas on Jan. 14, 2011, the day Tunisia's
long-time autocrat fled the country. (Christophe Ena / Associated Press)
Produce
seller Mohammad Bouazizi cried out for relief from the oppressive life
inflicted on Tunisians by taking his own in December 2010. His death
from self-immolation was an act of desperation focusing on the lack of
opportunity in a country ruled by corrupt autocrat Zine el Abidine ben
Ali for 23 years. The suicide sparked a month of pro-reform protests
that drove Ben Ali, his wife and much of his entourage to flee abroad.
The ex-ruler was convicted in absentia of embezzlement and other
charges in June 2011 and sentenced to 35 years in prison. Unemployment
still afflicts at least 15% of Tunisians and the country has been the
target of Islamist extremists bent on thwarting the Arab Spring’s most
peaceable and inclusive political transformation. Presidential and
parliamentary elections last year brought to power a coalition of
secular and Islamist leaders collaborating – unlike elsewhere in the
region – in strengthening pluralism and development to build on the
accomplishments of the revolution.
EGYPT: One brand of autocracy and turmoil replaces another, and another
Egyptian
soldiers atop a wall at Cairo’s Tahrir Square as young protesters
demand on Nov. 24, 2011, that the interim military leadership resign.
(Khalil Hamra / Associated Press)
Massive protests in
Cairo’s Tahrir Square in the late winter and spring of 2011 cast a
spotlight on the brave face of young Egyptians demanding an end to the
30-year rule of strongman Hosni Mubarak, who was forced to resign after
weeks of violent protests in February 2011. A military-led interim
leadership was succeeded by election of Muslim Brotherhood leader
Mohamed Morsi in 2012, whose imposition of Islamist rule spurred
counter-protests by former Mubarak government supporters and secular
Egyptians. Constant turmoil and terrorist acts devastated Egypt’s vital
tourism industry and led to the popularly supported coup that brought
Gen. Abdel Fattah Sisi to power in 2013. Mubarak, 87, is confined to a
military prison hospital and facing a potential third trial on
corruption and murder charges. Morsi also languishes in prison awaiting
appeal of his death sentence for plotting a 2011 prison break that freed
20,000 convicts, many of them Brotherhood members who helped fuel the
protests that brought down Mubarak. Sisi won election to the presidency
in May 2014 but his government has postponed parliamentary elections in
the Arab world’s most populous country, one still roiling in unrest and
dissatisfaction with the fruits of the revolution.
LIBYA: Flamboyant dictator Kadafi ousted and killed, leaving deadly chaos in his wake
Libyan
strongman Moammar Kadafi ruled the North African state for 42 years
before his Oct. 20, 2011, capture and killing. (John Redman / Associated
Press)
Inspired by the ouster of long-reigning autocrats
elsewhere in the region, Libyan rebels of myriad political and sectarian
stripes rose up against the erratic and dictatorial leadership of
Moammar Kadafi in early 2011. Backed by a seven-month-long campaign of
NATO airstrikes, the rebel militias captured and killed Kadafi in
October 2011, ending his 42-year domination of the oil-rich North
African nation but igniting a bloody power struggle that afflicts Libya
and its 6 million citizens to this day. Rival governments in Benghazi
and Tripoli have both failed to restore order, leaving Libya fertile
recruiting ground for Islamic State and other militant groups. Amid the
lawlessness, human smugglers have made Libya’s Mediterranean Sea ports
the hub of their trafficking of desperate Syrian migrants.
BAHRAIN: Reform-seeking Shiite majority stifled by Sunni monarchy
A
woman passes a wall on March 24, 2011, in Karkazan, Bahrain, where
graffiti reads “our demand is the fall of the unjust regime.” (Hasan
Jamali / Associated Press)
The demands for more
participatory government spread from North Africa to the tiny island
emirate of Bahrain in February 2011, drawing hundreds of young
protesters, mostly of the Shiite Muslim majority, to demonstrations
against the political and social strictures of the Sunni monarchy. Riot
police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets, and at least 50
protesters were killed before opposition demonstrations were outlawed in
2012 and only modest reforms considered. While the United States was
supportive of most Arab Spring uprisings, Washington said little to
encourage the protesters’ demands for release of political prisoners and
investigation of corruption and torture – apparently reluctant to
offend the ruling Khalifa family that has hosted the U.S. Navy’s Fifth
Fleet for decades.
YEMEN: An uprising against poverty and corruption replaces it with war and chaos
A
Houthi militiaman passes the site of a suicide bombing in the Yemeni
capital, Sana, on Oct. 7, 2015. (Yahya Arhab / European Pressphoto
Agency)
Poverty, corruption and the indifference to
widespread suffering during the 33-year rule of President Ali Abdullah
Saleh lured Yemenis into the Arab Spring revolutions in January 2011,
driving the autocrat to flee a year later. Longtime rival Abdu Rabu
Mansour Hadi was elected president in 2012, but reform and stability
have been elusive amid the remains of Saleh’s military allies in the
country, Al Qaeda’s most active terrorist franchise and a rebellion by
the Iranian-backed Houthi minority that last year seized control of the
capital, Sana. Hadi’s government, which had been collaborating with U.S.
intelligence in the campaign to drive out Islamist militants including
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has been forced into de facto exile
in the port city of Aden. CIA and U.S. military drone strikes have
killed some key extremists holed up in Yemen, most famously
American-born Muslim cleric Anwar Awlaki in 2011. But the conditions
that sparked revolution nearly five years ago persist and sectarian
fighting has taken an even deeper toll on the country’s battered
infrastructure and economy.
SYRIA: Protest begets rebellion, civil war and global power plays, while Assad remains
Pro-government
Syrians rally on March 24, 2012, in Damascus in support of President
Bashar Assad and his ally, Russian President Vladimir Putin. (Muzaffar
Salman / Associated Press)
While most of the Arab Spring
revolutions accomplished little more than deposing one repressive leader
to be followed by another, Syrians have failed in their nearly
five-year battle to oust President Bashar Assad. What began as political
opposition rallies against the 40-year-old dynastic rule that began
with his father, Hafez Assad, escalated into armed rebellion with the
Damascus government’s brutal crackdown on dissent. U.S. and other
Western states backed what were moderate rebel groups in the early
months of the civil war that broke out in March 2011 and attracted Sunni
militants from across the Arab world to the fight against Assad’s
Shiite-affiliated Alawite minority. Islamic State extremists have
proclaimed a medieval-style “caliphate” across half of Syria and huge
areas of neighboring Iraq and threaten to overrun the major city of
Aleppo and potentially the capital soon after. That looming debacle has
prompted Russia to intervene in the multinational and uncoordinated
bombing campaign against the militants in an effort to shore up Assad, a
longtime Kremlin ally. An estimated 250,000 Syrians have been killed in
the conflict and U.N. officials say half the country’s 24 million
citizens have been driven from their homes.
end quote from: Where the Arab Spring revolutions went wrong
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