The Arab Spring (1): why was it called that?
This weekend, I attended the first a number of short courses that I will be attending this summer at the City Literary Institute in central London. The title was “The Arab Spring” and the lecturer was Dr James Chiriyankandath of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London. It was a comprehensive day with handouts that mentioned 14 states across north Africa, the Arabian peninsula, and the Middle East with timelines for the initial protests of early 2011 up to the present day.
We began the day by discussing why the events have been called the Arab spring.
What is it that unites the Arab world? Above all, it is the Arabic language that is spoken throughout the region although with many different dialects. To large extent, it is the Islamic religion. However, there is the very important difference between Sunni and Shia streams of Islam which (unlike the schisms in the Christian world) are divided not so much by doctrinal differences but by differences in issues of legitimacy of succession and authority.
But, of course, all of the states in the Arab world have some ethnic minorities and Iran and Turkey – the most populous and powerful states historically – are not Arab.
Also there are profound economic and geographic differences. Large parts of the Arab world are sparsely populated because of the dessert terrain. The region is oil-rich but the most oil-rich are those states with the smallest populations. So there is a growing economic disparity between the oil-rich states and other states in the region.
Finally on this Arab appellation, it should be remembered that only a third of Arab states experienced significant unrest and only four states had actual regime change.
As for the use of the word ‘spring’, we were told that the many revolutions throughout Europe which began in February 1848 were the original use of the term ‘Spring’ as a portmanteau word for revolution. Those events were known as ‘the Spring of Nations’, ‘People’s Spring’ and ‘Springtime of the Peoples’.
There was an Arab Spring in 2005 with the assassination of the Lebanese prime minister. Responsibility for this was attributed to Syria and there were mass demonstrations against the presence of Syrian forces in the country that were forced to withdraw. This was called the Lebanese Spring.
Some describe the Arab Soring of 2011 it as the first act in the second Arab awakening – the first was at the end of the 19th century For their part, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood was late to the revolution but used the term ‘awakening’ to refer to it.
Our lecturer insisted that, for all the use of this seasonal term, in political terms Summer does not necessarily follow Spring and he suggested that, in this case, one could argue that the hopes of Spring have been followed by the reality of Winter.