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The Arab Spring (Arabic: have been revolutions in Tunisia in Bahrain, in Algeria, Arabia,
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ar-Rab andEgypt;
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Arabiyy), otherwise known as the Arab Awakening, is a revolutionary


wave of demonstrationsand protests occurring in the Arab world that began on Saturday, 18 December 2010. To date, there a civil war in Libya resulting in the fall of its governm ent;
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civil uprisings

Syria, Iraq,



major protests Mauritania, Saudi




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and Oman;


and minor protests in Lebanon,




and Western Sahara.

Clashes at the borders of Israel in May 2011 and thePalestine 194 movement

are also inspired by the regional Arab Spring.


Many dem onstrations have met violent responses from authorities, demonstrators.


as well as from pro-government militias and counter-

A major slogan of the dem onstrators in the Arab world has been ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam ("the

people want to bring down the regime").

The series of protests and demonstrations across the Middle East and North Africa has become known as the "Arab Spring", and sometimes as the "Arab Spring and Winter", "Arab Awakening" or "Arab Uprisings" even though not all the participants in the protests are Arab. It was sparked by the first protests that occurred in Tunisia on 18 December 2010 following Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation in protest of police corruption and ill treatment. With the success of the protests in Tunisia, a wave of unrest sparked by the Tunisian "Burning Man" struck Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, and Yemen,
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rage", usually Friday after noon prayers.

The protests have also triggered similar unrest outside the region.

As of November 2011, governments have been overthrown in three countries. Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on 14 January following the Tunisian revolution protests. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak resigned on 11 February 2011 after 18 days of massive protests, ending his 30-year presidency. The Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown on 23 August 2011, after the National Transitional Council (NTC) took control of Bab al-Azizia. He was killed on 20 October 2011, in his hom etown of Sirte after the NTC took control of the city. During this period of regional unrest, several leaders announced their intentions to step down at the end of their current terms. SudanesePresident Omar al-Bashir announced that he would not seek re-election in 2015, as did Iraqi Prime [43] Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose term ends in 2014, although there have been increasingly violent demonstrations demanding his immediate resignation. Protests in Jordan have also caused the sacking of two successive governments by King [47] Abdullah. Another leader, President Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen, announced on 23 April that he would step down within 30 days in exchange for immunity,
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a deal the Yemeni opposition informally accepted on 26 April;



Saleh then reneged on the

deal, prolonging the Yemeni uprising.

The geopolitical implications of the protests have drawn global attention,



including the suggestion that some protesters may


[edit]Motivations Numerous factors have led to the protests, including issues such as dictatorship or absolute monarchy, human rights violations, government corruption (demonstrated by Wikileaks diplomatic cables), economic decline, unemployment, [142] extreme poverty, and a number of demographic structural factors, such as a large percentage of educated but dissatisfied attribute the 2009 Iranian protests as one of the reasons behind the Arab youth within the population. Also, some [144] Spring. The catalysts for the revolts in all Northern African and Persian Gulf countries have been 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 20072008 world food price crisis.
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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 [145][148][149] 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, been viewing autocrats and absolute monarchies as anachronisms. A [145] university professor of Oman, 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 current wave of 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 [150] other countries in the area, as well as in the territory of Western Sahara. 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 [152] 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-Kabra, 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 [152] 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 som ewhat 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.
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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 alm ost every week; that there were demonstrations [153] 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. [155] as education and health care, while others cited rampant corruption.

Many protests focused on issues such

In Western Sahara, the Gdeim Izik protest camp was erected 12 km south-east of El Aain by a group of young Sahrawis on 9 October 2010. Their intention was to demonstrate against labor discrimination, unemployment, looting of resources, and human [156] 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 Aain 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 individuals such as Mohamed Bouazizi, which brought together various groups dissatisfied with the existing system, including many unemployed, political and human rights [150] activists, labor, trade unionists, students, professors, lawyers, and others. These groups have become an unprecedented movement that has built sufficient momentum to engender the current scope of events.
Following the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in Sidi Bouzid, a series of increasingly violent street demonstrations through December 2010 ultimately led to the ouster of longtime President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on 14 January 2011. The demonstrations were preceded by high [158] unemployment, food inflation, corruption, lack of freedom of speech and other forms of political [159] freedom, and poor living conditions. The protests constituted the most dramatic wave of social and [160][161] political unrest in Tunisia in three decades, and have resulted in scores of deaths and injuries, most of which were the result of action by police and security forces against demonstrators. Ben Ali [162][163] fled into exile in Saudi Arabia, ending his 23 years in power. Following Ben Ali's departure, a state of emergency was declared and a caretaker coalition government was created, which included members of Ben Ali's party, the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD), as well as opposition figures from other ministries. However, the five newly appointed

non-RCD ministers resigned almost immediately.[164][165] As a result of continued daily protests, on 27 January Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi reshuffled the government, removing all former RCD members other than himself, and on 6 February the former ruling party was suspended; [166] later, on 9 [167] March, it was dissolved. Following further public protests, Ghannouchi himself resigned on 27 February, and Beji Caid el Sebsi became Prime Minister.

The protests were also called an "uprising" because of "a lethal combination of poverty, unemployment and political repression: three characteristics of most Arab societies." Another cause for the uprising has been attributed to the inability of the Tunisian government from being able to censor information from reaching the Tunisian people, such as information from

WikiLeaksdescribing rampant corruption in the Tunisian government.

Impact of the Arab Spring

Main article: Impact of the Arab Spring The regional unrest has not been limited to countries of the Arab world. The early success of uprisings in North Africa was inspired by the uprisings of disenchanted people in the Middle Eastern states of Iran and Turkey to take to the streets [390] and agitate for reforms. These protests, especially those in Iran, are considered by many commentators to be part of the same wave that began in Iran and later Tunisia and has gripped the broader Middle Eastern and North African regions. In the countries of the neighboring South Caucasusnamely Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia as well as some [394] [395] [396] countries in Europe, including Albania, Croatia, and Spain; countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Burkina Faso, Djibouti, and Uganda; and countries in other parts of Asia, including the Maldives and the People's [402] Republic of China, demonstrators and opposition figures claiming inspiration from the examples of Tunisia and Egypt have staged their own popular protests. The bid for statehood by Palestine at the UN on 23 September 2011 is also regarded as drawing inspiration from the Arab Spring after years of failed peace negotiations with Israel. In the West Bank, schools and government offices were shut to allow demonstrations backing the UN membership bid in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus and Hebron; echoing similar peaceful [403] protests from other Arab countries. The 15 October 2011 global protests and the Occupy Wall Street movement, which started in the United States and has since spread to Asia and Europe, drew direct inspiration from the Arab Spring, with organizers asking U.S. citizens "Are you ready for a Tahrir moment?"
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curbing corporate power and control in Western governments. [edit]International


Main article: International reactions to the Arab Spring Protests in many countries affected by the Arab Spring have attracted widespread support from the international community, [406][407][408][409] while harsh government responses have generally met condemnation. In the case of the Bahraini, Moroccan, and Syrian protests, the international response has been considerably more nuanced.


Noam Chomsky accused the Obama administration of



Protests have also affected oil prices, contributing to the 2011 energy crisis. The International Monetary Fund said oil prices were likely to be higher than originally forecast due to unrest in the Middle East and North Africa, major regions of oil [417] production. Kenan Engin, a German-Turkish political scientist, identified the new uprising in Arab and Islamic countries as the "fifth wave of democracy" because of evident features qualitatively similar to the "third wave of democracy" in Latin America that took place in the '70s and '80s.