The Arab Spring: A Work in Progress

The Arab Spring (Arabic: الربيع العربي‎, ar-rabīˁ al-ˁarabī) is a term for ther evolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests (both non-violent and violent), riots, and civil wars in the Arab world that began on 18 December 2010.

By December 2013 rulers had been forced from power in Tunisia, Egypt(twice), Libya,and Yemen; civil uprisings have erupted in Bahrain and Syria; major protests have broken out in Algeria, Iraq, Jordan,Kuwait, Morocco, and Sudan; and minor protests have occurred in Mauritania,Oman, Saudi Arabia,Djibouti, Western Sahara,and the Palestinian Authority.

Weapons and Tuareg fighters returning from the Libyan civil war stoked a simmering conflict in Mali which has been described as "fallout" from the Arab Spring in North Africa. The sectarian clashes in Lebanon were described as a spillover violence of the Syrian uprising and hence the regional Arab Spring.

The protests have shared some techniques of civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches, and rallies, as well as the effective use of social media to organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and Internet censorship.

Many Arab Spring demonstrations have been met with violent responses from authorities, as well as from pro-government militias and counter-demonstrators. These attacks have been answered with violence from protestors in some cases. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world has been Ash-sha`b yurid isqat an-nizam ("the people want to bring down the regime").

Some observers have drawn comparisons between the Arab Spring movements and the Revolutions of 1989 (also known as the "Autumn of Nations") that swept through Eastern Europe and the Second World, in terms of their scale and significance. Others, however, have pointed out that there are several key differences between the movements, such as the desired outcomes and the organizational role of internet technology in the Arab revolutions.

The term "Arab Spring" is an allusion to the Revolutions of 1848, which is sometimes referred to as "Springtime of the People", and the Prague Spring in 1968. In the aftermath of the Iraq War it was used by various commentators and bloggers who anticipated a major Arab movement towards democratization. The first specific use of the term Arab Spring as used to denote these events may have started with the American political journal Foreign Policy. Marc Lynch, referring to his article in Foreign Policy,writes "Arab Spring—a term I may have unintentionally coined in a January 6, 2011 article". Joseph Massad on Al Jazeera said the term was "part of a US strategy of controlling [the movement's] aims and goals" and directing it towards American-style liberal democracy. Due to the electoral success of Islamist parties following the protests in many Arab countries, the events have also come to be known as "Islamist Spring" or "Islamist Winter".

The Arab Spring is widely believed to have been instigated by dissatisfaction with the rule of local governments, though some have speculated that wide gaps in income levels may have had a hand as well. Numerous factors have led to the protests, including issues such as dictatorship or absolute monarchy, human rights violations, political corruption (demonstrated by Wikileaks diplomatic cables), economic decline, unemployment, extreme poverty, and a number of demographic structural factors, such as a large percentage of educated but dissatisfied youth within the population. Also, some - like Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek - name the 2009–2010 Iranian election protests as an additional reason behind the Arab Spring. The Kyrgyz Revolution of 2010 might also have been a factor influencing its beginning. Catalysts for the revolts in all Northern African and Persian Gulf countries have included the concentration of wealth in the hands of autocrats in power for decades, insufficient transparency of its redistribution, corruption, and especially the refusal of the youth to accept the status quo. Increasing food prices and global famine rates have also been a significant factor, as they involve threats to food security worldwide and prices that approach levels of the 2007–2008 world food price crisis.

In recent decades rising living standards and literacy rates, as well as the increased availability of higher education, have resulted in an improved Human Development Index in the affected countries.The tension between rising aspirations and a lack of government reform may have been a contributing factor in all of the protests. Many of the Internet-savvy youth of these countries have, increasingly over the years,^{[citation needed]} been viewing autocrats and absolute monarchies as anachronisms. An Oman university professor, Al-Najma Zidjaly, referred to this upheaval as youthquake.

Tunisia and Egypt, the first to witness major uprisings, differ from other North African and Middle Eastern nations such as Algeria and Libya in that they lack significant oil revenue, and were thus unable to make concessions to calm the masses.

The relative success of the democratic Republic of Turkey, with its substantially free and vigorously contested but peaceful elections, fast-growing but liberal economy, secular constitution but Islamist government, created a model (the Turkish model) if not a motivation for protestors in neighbouring states.This view, however, has been contested and put into perspective by recent waves of anti-government protests in Turkey.

he current wave of the protests is not an entirely new phenomenon, resulting in part from the activities of dissident activists as well as members of a variety of social and union organizations that have been active for years in Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt, and other countries in the area, as well as in the territory of Western Sahara.

Revolts have been occurring in the Arab area since the 1800s, but only recently have these revolts been redirected from foreign rulers to the Arab states themselves. The revolution in the summer of 2011 marked the end of the old phase national liberation from colonial rule; now revolutions are inwardly directed at the problems of Arab society.

Tunisia experienced a series of conflicts over the past three years, the most notable occurring in the mining area of Gafsa in 2008, where protests continued for many months. These protests included rallies, sit-ins, and strikes, during which there were two fatalities, an unspecified number of wounded, and dozens of arrests. The Egyptian labor movement had been strong for years, with more than 3,000 labor actions since 2004. One important demonstration was an attempted workers' strike on 6 April 2008 at the state-run textile factories of al-Mahalla al-Kubra, just outside Cairo. The idea for this type of demonstration spread throughout the country, promoted by computer-literate working class youths and their supporters among middle-class college students. A Facebook page, set up to promote the strike, attracted tens of thousands of followers. The government mobilized to break the strike through infiltration and riot police, and while the regime was somewhat successful in forestalling a strike, dissidents formed the "6 April Committee" of youths and labor activists, which became one of the major forces calling for the anti-Mubarak demonstration on 25 January in Tahrir Square.

In Algeria, discontent had been building for years over a number of issues. In February 2008, United States Ambassador Robert Ford wrote in a leaked diplomatic cable that Algeria is 'unhappy' with long-standing political alienation; that social discontent persisted throughout the country, with food strikes occurring almost every week; that there were demonstrations every day somewhere in the country; and that the Algerian government was corrupt and fragile. Some have claimed that during 2010 there were as many as '9,700 riots and unrests' throughout the country. Many protests focused on issues such as education and health care, while others cited rampant corruption.

In Western Sahara, the Gdeim Izik protest camp was erected 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) south-east of El Aaiún by a group of young Sahrawis on 9 October 2010. Their intention was to demonstrate against labor discrimination, unemployment, looting of resources, and human rights abuses. The camp contained between 12,000 and 20,000 inhabitants, but on 8 November 2010 it was destroyed and its inhabitants evicted by Moroccan security forces. The security forces faced strong opposition from some young Sahrawi civilians, and rioting soon spread to El Aaiún and other towns within the territory, resulting in an unknown number of injuries and deaths. Violence against Sahrawis in the aftermath of the protests was cited as a reason for renewed protests months later, after the start of the Arab Spring.

The catalyst for the current escalation of protests was the self-immolation of Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi. Unable to find work and selling fruit at a roadside stand, on 17 December 2010, a municipal inspector confiscated his wares. An hour later he doused himself with gasoline and set himself afire. His death on 4 January 2011brought together various groups dissatisfied with the existing system, including many unemployed, political and human rights activists, labor, trade unionists, students, professors, lawyers, and others to begin the Tunisian revolution.