Arab Spring
The Arab Spring (Arabic: الربيع العربي, romanized: ar-rabīʻ al-ʻarabī) was a series of pro-democracy anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and economic stagnation.[1][2][3] From Tunisia, the protests initially spread to five other countries: Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain. Rulers were deposed (Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya, and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt all in 2011, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012) and major uprisings and social violence occurred, including riots, civil wars, or insurgencies. Sustained street demonstrations took place in Morocco, Iraq, Algeria, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman and Sudan. Minor protests took place in Djibouti, Mauritania, Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the Western Sahara.[4] A major slogan of the demonstrators in the Arab world is ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām! (Arabic: الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام, lit. 'the people want to bring down the regime').[5] The wave of initial revolutions and protests faded by mid to late 2012, as many Arab Spring demonstrations were met with violent responses from authorities,[6][7][8] pro-government militias, counterdemonstrators, and militaries. These attacks were answered with violence from protesters in some cases.[9][10][11] Multiple large-scale conflicts followed: the Syrian civil war;[12][13] the rise of ISIS,[14] insurgency in Iraq and the following civil war;[15] the Egyptian Crisis, election and removal from office of Mohamed Morsi, and subsequent unrest and insurgency;[16] the Libyan Crisis;[17] and the Yemeni crisis and subsequent civil war.[18] Regimes that lacked major oil wealth and hereditary succession arrangements were more likely to undergo regime change.[19] 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.[20] 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,[21] the regional and international military interventions in Bahrain and Yemen, and the destructive civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen.[22] Some referred to the succeeding and still ongoing conflicts as the Arab Winter.[12][13][15][16][18] A new wave of protests began in 2018 which led to the resignation of prime ministers Haider al-Abadi of Iraq in 2018 and Saad Hariri of Lebanon in 2020, and the overthrow of presidents Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria in 2019. Sometimes called the Second Arab Spring, these events showed how the conditions that started the Arab Spring have not faded and political movements against authoritarianism and exploitation are still ongoing.[23] Continued protest movements in Algeria, Sudan, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, and Syria have been seen as a continuation of the Arab Spring.[24][25] As of 2025, multiple conflicts are still continuing which might be seen as originating in the Arab Spring. A major shift in the Syrian Civil War occurred in December 2024 when a rebel offensive led to the fall of the Assad regime, after over a decade of warfare. In Libya, a major civil war concluded, with foreign powers intervening.[26][27] In Yemen, a civil war continues to affect the country.[28] EtymologyThe denomination "Arab Spring" is contested by some scholars and observers claiming that the term is problematic for several reasons. First, it was coined by Western commentators, not those involved in the events. The first specific use of the term Arab Spring as used to denote these events may have started with the US political journal Foreign Policy.[29] Political scientist Marc Lynch described Arab Spring as "a term I may have unintentionally coined in a 6 January 2011 article" for Foreign Policy magazine.[30][31][32] Protestors involved in the events however described their own political actions as "uprising" (intifada), Arab "awakening" (sahwa) and Arab "renaissance" (nahda), using expressions like al-marar al-Arabi (the Arab bitterness), karama (dignity) and thawra (revolution).[2][19][33] Some authors argue that western governments, scholars and media used the term to minimize people's revolutionary aims and discourse.[21][19][24] 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 Western-style liberal democracy.[29] When Arab Spring protests in some countries were followed by electoral success for Islamist parties, some American pundits coined the terms Islamist Spring[34] and Islamist Winter.[35] The term "Spring" further illustrates the problematic nature of projecting Western expectations onto non-Western actors and practices. The terminology follows the Western example of the Revolutions of 1848 referred to as "Spring of Nations" and the Prague Spring in 1968, in which a Czech student, Jan Palach, set himself on fire as Mohamed Bouazizi did. In the aftermath of the Iraq War, it was used by various commentators and bloggers who anticipated a major Arab movement towards democratization.[36] The term "Arab Spring" is thus contested as it signifies an expectation that the events would replicate the example of democratic revolutions set by the West.[2][19] CausesPressures from withinThe world watched the events of the Arab Spring unfold, "gripped by the narrative of a young generation peacefully rising up against oppressive authoritarianism to secure a more democratic political system and a brighter economic future".[22] The Arab Spring is widely believed to have been instigated by dissatisfaction, particularly of youth and unions, with the rule of local governments, though some have speculated that wide gaps in income levels and pressures caused by the Great Recession may have had a hand as well.[37] Some activists had taken part in programs sponsored by the US-funded National Endowment for Democracy, but the US government claimed that they did not initiate the uprisings.[38] Numerous factors led to the protests, including issues such as reform,[39] human rights violations, political corruption, economic decline, unemployment, extreme poverty, and a number of demographic structural factors,[40] such as a large percentage of educated but dissatisfied youth within the entire population.[41][42] Catalysts for the revolts in all Northern African and Persian Gulf countries included the concentration of wealth in the hands of monarchs in power for decades, insufficient transparency of its redistribution, corruption, and especially the refusal of the youth to accept the status quo.[43]    Total corn production (bushels) (left) Corn used for Ethanol fuel (bushels) (left) Percent of corn used for Ethanol (right) Some protesters looked to the Turkish model as an ideal (contested but peaceful elections, fast-growing but liberal economy, secular constitution but Islamist government).[44][45][46][47] Other analysts blamed the rise in food prices on commodity traders and the conversion of crops to ethanol.[48] Yet others have claimed that the context of high rates of unemployment and corrupt political regimes led to dissent movements within the region.[49][50] Social mediaIn the wake of the Arab Spring protests, a considerable amount of attention focused on the role of social media and digital technologies in allowing citizens within areas affected by "the Arab Uprisings" as a means for collective activism to circumvent state-operated media channels.[51] The influence of social media on political activism during the Arab Spring has, however, been much debated.[52][53][54] Protests took place both in states with a very high level of Internet usage (such as Bahrain with 88% of its population online in 2011) and in states with some of the lowest Internet penetration (Yemen and Libya).[55] The use of social media platforms more than doubled in Arab countries during the protests, with the exception of Libya.[56] Some researchers have shown how collective intelligence, dynamics of the crowd in participatory systems such as social media, has immense power to support a collective action—such as foment a political change.[57][58] As of 5 April 2011[update], the number of Facebook users in the Arab world surpassed 27.7 million people.[56] Some critics have argued that digital technologies and other forms of communication—videos, cellular phones, blogs, photos, emails, and text messages—have brought about the concept of a "digital democracy" in parts of North Africa affected by the uprisings.[59][60] Facebook, Twitter, and other major social media played a key role in the movement of Egyptian and Tunisian activists in particular.[55][61] Nine out of ten Egyptians and Tunisians responded to a poll that they used Facebook to organize protests and spread awareness.[56] This large population of young Egyptian men referred to themselves as "the Facebook generation", exemplifying their escape from their non-modernized past.[62] Furthermore, 28% of Egyptians and 29% of Tunisians from the same poll said that blocking Facebook greatly hindered and/or disrupted communication. Social media sites were a platform for different movements formed by many frustrated citizens, including the 2008 "April 6 Youth Movement" organized by Ahmed Mahed, which set out to organize and promote a nationwide labor strike and which inspired the later creation of the "Progressive Youth of Tunisia".[63] During the Arab Spring, people created pages on Facebook to raise awareness about alleged crimes against humanity, such as police brutality in the Egyptian Revolution (see Wael Ghonim and Death of Khaled Mohamed Saeed).[64] Whether the project of raising awareness was primarily pursued by Arabs themselves or simply advertised by Western social media users is a matter of debate. Jared Keller, a journalist for The Atlantic, claims that most activists and protesters used Facebook (among other social media) to organize; however, what influenced Iran was "good old-fashioned word of mouth". Jared Keller argued that the sudden and anomalous social media output was caused from Westerners witnessing the situation(s), and then broadcasting them. The Middle East and North Africa used texting, emailing, and blogging only to organize and communicate information about internal local protests.[65] A study by Zeynep Tufekci of the University of North Carolina and Christopher Wilson of the United Nations Development Program concluded that "social media in general, and Facebook in particular, provided new sources of information the regime could not easily control and were crucial in shaping how citizens made individual decisions about participating in protests, the logistics of protest, and the likelihood of success."[66] Marc Lynch of George Washington University said, "while social media boosters envisioned the creation of a new public sphere based on dialogue and mutual respect, the reality is that Islamists and their adversaries retreat to their respective camps, reinforcing each other's prejudices while throwing the occasional rhetorical bomb across the no-man's land that the center has become."[66] Lynch also stated in a Foreign Policy article, "There is something very different about scrolling through pictures and videos of unified, chanting Yemeni or Egyptian crowds demanding democratic change and waking up to a gory image of a headless 6-year-old girl on your Facebook news feed."[67] Social networks were not the only instrument for rebels to coordinate their efforts and communicate. In the countries with the lowest Internet penetration and the limited role of social networks, such as Yemen and Libya, the role of mainstream electronic media devices—cellular phones, emails, and video clips (e.g., YouTube)—was very important to cast the light on the situation in the country and spread the word about the protests in the outside world.[55] In Egypt, in Cairo particularly, mosques were one of the main platforms to coordinate the protest actions and raise awareness to the masses.[68] Conversely, scholarship literature on the Middle East, political scientist Gregory Gause has found, had failed to predict the events of the Arab uprisings. Commenting on an early article by Gause whose review of a decade of Middle Eastern studies led him to conclude that almost no scholar foresaw what was coming, Chair of Ottoman and Turkish Studies at Tel Aviv University Ehud R. Toledano writes that Gause's finding is "a strong and sincere mea culpa" and that his criticism of Middle East experts for "underestimating the hidden forces driving change ... while they worked instead to explain the unshakable stability of repressive authoritarian regimes" is well-placed. Toledano then quotes Gause saying, "As they wipe the egg off their faces," those experts "need to reconsider long-held assumptions about the Arab world."[69] TimelineHistoryEvents leading up to the Arab SpringTunisia experienced a series of conflicts during the three years leading up to the Arab Spring, 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.[70][71] In Egypt, the labor movement had been strong for years, with more than 3000 labor actions since 2004, and provided an important venue for organizing protests and collective action.[72] 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.[72] A Facebook page, set up to promote the strike, attracted tens of thousands of followers and provided the platform for sustained political action in pursuit of the "long revolution".[42] 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.[72] In Algeria, discontent had been building for years over a number of issues. In February 2008, US 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.[citation needed] Some claimed that during 2010 there were as many as "9,700 riots and unrests" throughout the country.[73] Many protests focused on issues such as education and health care, while others cited rampant corruption.[74] In Western Sahara, the Gdeim Izik protest camp was erected 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) southeast 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.[75] The camp contained between 12000 and 20000 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.[76] The catalyst for the escalation of protests was the self-immolation of Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi. Unable to find work and selling fruit at a roadside stand, Bouazizi had his wares confiscated by a municipal inspector on 17 December 2010. An hour later he doused himself with gasoline and set himself afire. His death on 4 January 2011[77] brought together various groups dissatisfied with the existing system, including many unemployed persons, political and human rights activists, labor and trade unionists, students, professors, lawyers, and others to begin the Tunisian Revolution.[70] Protests and uprisingsThe series of protests and demonstrations across the Middle East and North Africa that commenced in 2010 became known as the "Arab Spring",[78][79][80] and sometimes as the "Arab Spring and Winter",[81] "Arab Awakening",[82][83] or "Arab Uprisings",[84][85] even though not all the participants in the protests were Arab. It was sparked by the first protests that occurred in Tunisia on 18 December 2010 in Sidi Bouzid, following Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation in protest of police corruption and ill treatment.[86][87] With the success of the protests in Tunisia, a wave of unrest sparked by the Tunisian "Burning Man" struck Algeria, Jordan, Egypt, and Yemen,[88] then spread to other countries. The largest, most organized demonstrations often occurred on a "day of rage", usually Friday afternoon prayers.[89][90][91] The protests also triggered similar unrest outside the region. Contrary to expectations the revolutions were not led by Islamists:
The Arab Spring caused the "biggest transformation of the Middle East since decolonization".[93] By the end of February 2012, rulers had been forced from power in Tunisia,[94] Egypt,[95] Libya,[96] and Yemen;[97] civil uprisings had erupted in Bahrain[98] and Syria;[99] major protests had broken out in Algeria,[100] Iraq,[101] Jordan,[102] Kuwait,[103] Morocco,[104] Oman,[105] and Sudan;[106] and minor protests had occurred in Mauritania,[107] Saudi Arabia,[108] Djibouti,[109] Western Sahara,[110] and Palestine. Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on 14 January 2011 following the Tunisian Revolution protests. Egyptian 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 hometown of Sirte after the NTC took control of the city. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh signed the GCC power-transfer deal in which a presidential election was held, resulting in his successor Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi formally replacing him as president on 27 February 2012 in exchange for immunity from prosecution. Weapons and Tuareg fighters returning from the Libyan Civil War stoked a simmering conflict in Mali that has been described as 'fallout' from the Arab Spring in North Africa.[111] During this period, several leaders announced their intentions to step down at the end of their current terms. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir announced that he would not seek reelection in 2015 (he ultimately retracted his announcement and ran anyway),[112] as did Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, whose term was to end in 2014,[113] although there were violent demonstrations demanding his immediate resignation in 2011.[114] Protests in Jordan also caused the sacking of four successive governments[115][116] by King Abdullah.[117] The popular unrest in Kuwait also resulted in the resignation of Prime Minister Nasser Al-Sabah's cabinet.[118] The geopolitical implications of the protests drew global attention.[119] Some protesters were nominated for the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize.[120] Tawakkol Karman of Yemen was co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize due to her role organizing peaceful protests. In December 2011 Time magazine named "The Protester" its "Person of the Year".[121] Spanish photographer Samuel Aranda won the 2011 World Press Photo award for his image of a Yemeni woman holding an injured family member, taken during the civil uprising in Yemen on 15 October 2011.[122] Summary of conflicts by country
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