In early 2010, protests erupted in Tunisia in response to the rising government corruption and the resulting economic stagnation. These protests that had begun in Tunisia spread to five other countries in the Middle East: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain.
The protests in Tunisia spread rapidly because of the rise of social media, which widely publicized the efforts in Tunisia to hold their government accountable for generations of abuse. These uprisings caused President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to flee to Saudi Arabia after holding power for 23 years. The publicizing of the turmoil in Tunisian is what inspired other countries such as neighboring Bahrain to call for the release of political prisoners and governmental reform. Effects reached as far as Egypt, where protests forced President Hosni Mubarak to step down after 30 years in office. In Kuwait, the protests forced the pro-government parliament to be dissolved due to public pressure. Muammar Gaddafi of Libya and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen abdicated their positions of leadership as a result of the revolts spreading to their countries as well.
However, despite the initial success of the Arab Spring rebellions, 10 years later, little progress has been shown in the region. As stated in the play Hamilton, “Winning was easy young man, governing’s harder.”
Many of the protests yielded no results and despite some dictators fleeing their countries, the violence conceived under their rules continued. In Syria, matters were actually worsened: overthrowing the government led to the United States being drawn into a costly war in the Middle East.
Looking back at Arab Spring, it seems that the costs of the uprisings outweigh the benefits of establishing democratic governments. The director of the Brookings Doha Center, Tarik Yousef stated that returning home is to return to “fear and intimidation [with] the region experienc[ing] setbacks at every turn.” The aftermath of the Arab Spring shows that the corruption of the governments was so deeply entrenched in society that a few turnovers in administrations would not be enough to wash it out.
Of the countries that rose up in rebellion against their autocratic leaders, only Tunisia remains a democracy. Tunisia is the only country to institute a new constitution, which gave more rights to its citizens through the National Assembly. Comparatively, Egypt and Libya both briefly established democratic governments, but the success was short-lived with both countries returning to autocratic leadership within 2 years. Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria all remained autocratic and continue to be to this day.
The situation within the countries has not improved despite the protests. The job market in countries such as Egypt has continued to decline. According to Ragui Assaad, a research fellow at Cairo Economic Research Forum, the chances for a male Egyptian college graduate to find a job is less than 25% as of 2016. Even in Tunisia, despite reforms and improvements, there are still extremely high unemployment rates, having risen to 37% in 2021.
Part of the problem is the lack of foreign and domestic investment in these countries. There is a vicious cycle in these countries because of a lack of private investors. Investors fear investing their money in the country due to the instability but the lack of investments continues to cause these countries to become increasingly more unstable.
The lack of investment in the countries has sent them into a downward spiral into poverty. Egypt’s economy, despite being the same size as South Korea in 1960 is now less than ¼ the size despite its population being nearly double that of South Korea. The IMF predicted a 4.1% decline in the Middle Eastern economies, part of which can also be attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic and falling oil prices. The stagnation of the economy and the rampant poverty caused another wave of protests that, unfortunately, have gone nowhere. In Iraq, protests were quelled by the use of deadly force where 500 protesters were killed and other activists have been assassinated. In addition, the Covid-19 pandemic allowed many states to implement restrictions on crowds preventing further protests.
An unintended consequence of the Arab Spring uprisings has caused the new authoritarian leaders to tighten their grip on their countries. Many doubt that there will be another uprising as “the first time was kind of [a] miracle. People were fearless and the regime was weak. But now everyone has lost hope. Everyone sees the revolution as a failure that caused more economic problems and more oppression.”
While at the time the Arab Spring uprisings seemed to herald a new era for countries that had languished under brutal authoritarian regimes for decades, the reality was unsuccessful revolutions that led to greater oppression and hopelessness. The Arab Spring has simply become a page in another history book instead of global change. If the Arab Spring had been successful in its goal of establishing democratic governments in countries that had been authoritarian for decades, it could have set a precedent for the spread of democracy around the world. However, the protests never bore the desired fruit, and instead, despite initial progress, internal and external factors have prevented real change from occurring in these countries.
