UNDERSTANDING THE ARAB SPRING :Examining Civil Resistance Theory

Ashish Roshan Tete, PG Student at School of International Studies (SIS) and Kamala Kanta Dash, Faculty at SIS in Ravenshaw.

Background Developments in the Arab World since 18 December 2010 leading to massive protests and large scale demonstrations crossing national boundaries have been controversially named as “Arab Spring”.

This as a transnational civil resistance movement has swept across the region challenging the global policy makers and thinkers alike to make sense of its significance for International Politics and IR theory.

Towards (a) Theory(ies) of Arab Spring

It is true that the Arab Spring has attracted global attention but very few attempts have been made at theorising these phenomena.

Time definitely is a constraint as developments in the Arab World is in a constant flux adding new possible dimensions to the already existing ones. Nevertheless, there have been a few brave voices asking for a rethinking of the regional and international politics in the prism of the Arab Spring.

Advocating for a “universal geopolitics of hope”, Columbia Professor Hamid Dabashi has called for “re-imagining the moral map” of the Middle East.

Focus of the Paper This paper is an attempt to critically analyse the underlying forces that shaped the Arab Spring and understand the role and perception(s) of the West, controversies in naming it as Arab Spring along with the emergence of a Dabashian politics of hope.

It further explores whether Arab Spring fits into Non-Violent Civil Resistance and whether it will succeed or fail in bringing freedom, justice and dignity in the Arab World.

Understanding Arab Spring English poet PB Shelly famously mentioned “If Winter Comes Can Spring Be Far Behind” which refers to the symbolic value of Spring in his poem Ode to the West Wind (1920). Here Spring for him is a time full of hope and energy that relives pain and agony and brings in joy and happiness.

Arab Spring, though a controversial term in itself, nevertheless has gathered a brand name to describe a series of events that refers to a revolutionary tsunami of demonstrations and protests, a series of democratic peaceful and at times violent uprisings, riots and civil wars that have happened in last three years and continue in one form or the other in many countries of the Arab World

Arab Spring: Western Origin?

In the West, Arab Spring is used in the context that it will usher in much required changes to bring in democracy to give hope to the youth and the new generation of the Arab World.

The term is said to have been coined by the American leading journal Foreign Policy and critics have cited this as an American agenda to name the Arab Revolution as Arab Spring.

Naming Arab Spring: American Design?

Joseph Massad of Columbia University ((Al Jazeera 29 Aug 2012) argues that “the first use of "Spring" was used in reference to "The Spring of Nations", describing the 1848 European revolutions, the term "Spring" as a reference to liberalising regimes deemed dictatorial has an American Cold War anti-Soviet genealogy.”

He further goes on to say that the “Spring” was used by the Americans last time with the Prague Spring (1968) which was a top-down movement and was labelled so to reflect the reforms and liberalisation of the economy in Czechoslovakia. Massad stresses that it was more of an American Spring than a Czech Spring. He asserts that America has great interest in the Arab World and has a desire to shape the region so as to benefit American interest.

Arab Spring or American Spring?

Massad believes that “the battle of the seasons is on”, and there is every possibility that Americans would like this to be “an American Spring in the Arab world” and he warns that such a spring “will only be experienced as another American-sponsored Summer drought for the majority of the people of the region.”. His warning to the Americans is that “the Arab peoples are working to transform the recent uprisings into nothing short of a cold American Winter.”

History of the MovementThe movement triggered after the news of the death of

Mohammed Bouazizi was announced on 4th January 2011. Bouazizi, a grocery vendor in the city of Sidi Bouazid, committed suicide by setting himself on fire on 17 December 2010 to protest against the police brutality in Tunisia. More than 5000 people hit the Sidi Bouazid streets “to demand better living conditions and a stop to police brutality and corruption in Tunisia.” The demonstrations and protests become bigger and larger even lead to the death of dozens of lives mainly due to the clashes between security forces and the protestors in capital Tunis. As the situation seemed to be out of control Tunisian President Zine el-Abidinde Ben Ali stepped and escaped to Saudi Arabia. The fleeing of Ben Ali inspired and emboldened the protestors in great a way, as it was a moral victory for them in Tunisia. This moral victory encouraged Egyptian to hit the street and demand removal of President Hosni Mubarak. Interestingly the chant or slogan was “Ben Ali, tell Mubarak there is a plane waiting for him too”. Scholars have agreed that Ben Ali’s escape had contagion effect in the region affecting countries like Algeria, Jordan, Syria, Yemen and Egypt.

Evolution of Movement It is only matter of a few weeks rather than months that the protests spread to the wider region reaching Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, Bahrain, Syria and Libya ultimately emerged as a historic movement in the Arab World never seen in recent history. The movement which is considered as the most important trans-national movement in the 21st century has interestingly a strong national character.

Nevertheless, it has trans-national or regional appeals where everyone identifies with every other protestor beyond their borders. It can be called as a normative-solidarity movement that has inspired similar approaches across borders for protesting against their governments’ apathy and corruption.

A European study of the Arab Spring found that the reasons for the movement is not only political rather have economic and social components as well. Quoting the protestors from Tahrir Square, the report mentions that the aim of the protestors was to “change of political regime to guarantee all citizens freedom, dignity and social justice.”

Primoz Manfreda, a Middle East analyst has identified Five key reasons that have triggered the Arab Spring.

1) Youth and unemployment as the major reasons 2) followed by corruption and dictatorship. 3) Some other have identified that inflation leading price rise was also a major reason to have developed disaffection for the governments in the region.

4) National Appeal of the Arab Spring, Leaderless Revolt, Bungled State Response and Rallying Call of Mosques as other major reasons that have contributed to the uprising.

5) The social media also ranks as a prominent factor to have shaped the Arab Spring and the Primoz Manfreda, The Reasons for the Arab Spring: The Root Causes of the Arab Awakening in 2011

Reasons for Arab Uprising

Limitations of the Movement Roger Hardy in a BBC Report (11 July 2013) has mentioned the four limitations of the Arab Spring.

The Arab Spring is a process, not an event.

There is no fixed pattern of the uprisings

The Islamists are at crossroads People power is not enough

Hamid Dabashi on Arab Spring

Prof Dabashi is an expert on Iran and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, USA. He has been an important voice on Arab Spring.

Despite the scepticism and the limitations, Dabashi feels strongly about the Arab Spring. He says “ The world keeps discovering, keeps inventing, keeps overcoming itself. Because of the Arab Spring, the world is once again pregnant with better and more hopeful versions of itself

Arab Spring: Long Over Due?

Dabashi further stresses that Arab Spring was about to happen. He locates the Arab Spring in the glorious tradition of historic revolution that has followed the French Revolution. He says “The world, and not just "the Muslim world", has long been dreaming of these uprisings.

Since at least the French Revolution of 1789, the European revolutions of 1848, the Russian Revolution of 1917, since the British packed their belongings and left India in 1948, since the French left Algeria, the Italians left Libya, the world has been dreaming of the Arab Spring.

Arab Spring:Call for Freedom, Justice and

Dignity Dabashi: From the time the colonial world began lowering European flags, and as the postcolonial world was raising new ones, the world has been dreaming of the emblematic slogan, now chanted by people from one end of the Arab world to another: Huriyyah, Adalah Ijtima'iyah, Karamah, "Freedom, Social Justice, Dignity".

Hamid Dabashi-Arab Spring

Arab Spring and Civil Resistance

Social Movements which normally target the authorities with peaceful demonstrations and civil resistance have a greater record of success as argued and demonstrated by Maria J. Stephan and Erica Chenoweth (2011) in their path breaking work on Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict. They argue that mass participation is the crucial source and is at the heart of the success of non-violent resistance and becomes more powerful to erode or remove a regime’s main sources of power when participants represent diverse sections of society.

Why Civil Resistance Works

Arab Spring and Violence

It is true that the diverse sections of societies including women and minorities have participated in the Arab Spring and they have collectively also helped to topple regimes in Tunisia, Yemen, Egypt and Libya. But the major question remains on Syria that has seen thousands of innocents being killed in the civil war. The death tolls are rising, since the Arab Spring thousands of civilians have been killed by military and opposition forces and not to dismiss the scud missiles, fighter jets and drones.

 

Conclusion So it is not easy to get a clear picture as of now on the trajectory of Arab Spring and how it will shape and whether it will successfully represent the voices and aspirations remains to be seen. But Dabashi, a long time observer of the region is hopeful that Arab Spring is a welcome development in International Relations, that has not only rejected the western stereotypes on democracy and social movements, but has advanced a new approach to understand the politics in the MENA region taking into account the complex realities of religion, power and legitimate demands of citizens.