The
Arab Spring was a series of
anti-government protests, uprisings, and
armed rebellions that spread across much of the
Arab world in the
early 2010s. It began in response to corruption and
economic stagnation and was influenced by the
Tunisian Revolution. From Tunisia, the protests then spread to
five other countries:
Libya,
Egypt,
Yemen,
Syria, and
Bahrain, where either the
ruler was deposed (
Zine El Abidine Ben Ali,
Muammar Gaddafi,
Hosni Mubarak, and
Ali Abdullah Saleh)
or major uprisings and social violence occurred including riots, civil wars, or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in
Morocco,
Iraq,
Algeria,
Iranian Khuzestan,[
citation needed]
Lebanon,
Jordan,
Kuwait,
Oman, and
Sudan. Minor protests took place in
Djibouti,
Mauritania,
Palestine,
Saudi Arabia, and the
Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is
ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām! ("the people want to bring down the regime").
The
importance of external factors versus internal factors to the protests' spread and success is
contested. Social media is one way governments try to inhibit protests. In many countries,
governments shut down certain sites or blocked Internet service entirely, especially in the times preceding a major rally.
Governments also accused content creators of unrelated crimes or shutting down communication on specific sites or groups, such as
Facebook. In the news,
social media has been heralded as the
driving force behind the swift spread of revolution throughout the world, as new protests appear in response to success stories shared from those taking place in other countries.
The wave of initial revolutions and protests faded by
mid-2012, as many Arab Spring demonstrations met with
violent responses from authorities, as well as from pro-government militias, counter-demonstrators, and militaries. These attacks were answered with v
iolence from protesters in some cases.
Large-scale conflicts resulted: the
Syrian Civil War; the rise of
ISIL,
insurgency in Iraq and the
following civil war; the
Egyptian Crisis,
coup, and
subsequent unrest and
insurgency; the
Libyan Civil War; and the
Yemeni Crisis and
following civil war. Regimes that lacked major oil wealth and hereditary succession arrangements were more likely to undergo regime change.
A
power struggle continued after the immediate response to the Arab Spring. While
leadership changed and regimes were held accountable, power vacuums opened across the Arab world. Ultimately, it resulted in a
contentious battle between a consolidation of power by religious elites and the growing support for democracy in many Muslim-majority states. The
early hopes that these popular movements would end corruption, increase political participation, and bring about greater economic equity
quickly collapsed in the wake of the
counter-revolutionary moves by foreign state actors in Yemen, the regional and international military interventions in Bahrain and Yemen, and the destructive civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen.
[2021] Some have referred to the
succeeding and still ongoing conflicts as the Arab Winter. As of
May 2018,
only the uprising in Tunisia has resulted in a transition to constitutional democratic governance. Recent uprisings in
Sudan and
Algeria show that the
conditions that started the Arab Spring have not faded and
political movements against authoritarianism and exploitation are still occurring. In 2019,
multiple uprisings and protest movements in Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt have been seen as a continuation of the Arab Spring.
In
2021, multiple conflicts are still continuing that might be seen as a result of the Arab Spring. The
Syrian Civil War has caused massive political instability and economic hardship in Syria, with the
Syrian pound plunging to new lows. In
Libya, a major civil war recently concluded, with Western powers and Russia sending in proxy fighters. In
Yemen, a
civil war continues to affect the country. In
Lebanon, a
major banking crisis is threatening the country's economy as well as that of neighboring Syria.
The
Arab Winter is a term for the
resurgence of authoritarianism and Islamic extremism evolving in the aftermath of the Arab Spring protests in Arab countries. The term "Arab Winter" refers to the
events across Arab League countries in the
Middle East and North Africa, including the
Syrian Civil War, the
Iraqi insurgency and the subsequent
War in Iraq, the
Egyptian Crisis, the
First Libyan Civil War and the subsequent
Second Libyan Civil War, and the
Yemeni Civil War. Events referred to as the Arab Winter include those in
Egypt that led to the removal of
Mohamed Morsi and the seizure of power by General
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in the
2013 Egyptian coup d'état.
The term was first coined by
Chinese political scientist Zhang Weiwei during a debate with
American political scientist Francis Fukuyama on June 27, 2011.
Fukuyama believed the
Arab Spring movement would inevitably spread to
China [wrongly as of 2021], while
Zhang predicted the Arab Spring will soon turn into an
Arab Winter [correctly as of 2021].
According to scholars of the
University of Warsaw, the
Arab Spring fully devolved into the Arab Winter four years after its onset, in 2014. The Arab Winter is characterized by the emergence of
multiple regional wars, mounting regional instability, economic and demographic decline of Arab countries, and ethno-religious sectarian strife. According to a study by the
American University of Beirut, by the summer of 2014, the
Arab Winter had resulted in
nearly a quarter of a million deaths and millions of refugees. Perhaps the most significant event in the Arab Winter was the rise of the
extremist group Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, which controlled swathes of land in the region from
2014 to 2019.
In
2021,
multiple armed conflicts are
still continuing that might be seen as a result of the Arab Spring. The
Syrian Civil War has caused
massive political instability and
economic hardship in Syria, with the Syrian currency plunging to new lows. In Yemen, a civil war and subsequent
intervention by Saudi Arabia continues to affect the country. In Lebanon, a major banking crisis is threatening the economy of neighboring Syria.
