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The Arab Spring and the Uncivil StateAuthor(s): Jacqueline S. Ismael and Shereen T. IsmaelSource: Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 3, Special Issue: Perspectives on the ArabUprisings (Summer 2013), pp. 229-240Published by: Pluto JournalsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/arabstudquar.35.3.0229 .Accessed: 05/02/2014 05:25

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THE ARAB SPRING AND THE UNCIVIL STATE

Jacqueline S. Ismael and Shereen T. Ismael

Abstract : This article examines the ongoing Arab Spring uprisings. The Arab Spring is characterizedas a fundamental challenge to the postcolonial political order of the Arab world. The postcolonialArab world has been dened by its oppressive nature and its subjugation within the internationalsystem. This autocratic and peripheral order represents the political legacy of colonial rule, wherethe postcolonial regimes inherited and rened the repressive techniques of the colonial regimes

while, owing to international developments, reinforcing their subjugated status within theinternational system. The Arab Spring has, thus, represented an attempt to chart an independentpath in Arab politics, marked by efforts towards democracy and civil rights. The successes andfailures of the Arab Spring are critically evaluated, paying special attention to the role playedby Islamist political actors. Beyond an evaluation of the domestic factors behind the variousprotests, the regional signicance of the uprisings is evaluated, providing discussion of counter-revolutionary forces and political-sectarian developments.

Keywords : Arab Spring, uncivil state, democratization, Middle East politics

The failures ofintelligence services to predict world changing events are legion: Maos1949 revolution in China took us by surprise, as did North Vietnams 1968 Tet Offensive.The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan was enraged with the CIAs inability to predictthe fall of the Berlin Wall, after years of reporting on the Soviet Unions staying power.Responding to criticisms on Egypt, the Obama Administrations nominee as Director ofNational Intelligence, James Clapper, defended intelligence professionals: the CIA has beentracking unrest in North Africa for years, he said, but we are not clairvoyant. (Perry, 2011)

In the spring of 2011 the Arab world saw a spontaneous explosion of protest and popular political upheaval. Starting in Tunisia, the protest movements in the Arabworld spread region-wide, with democratic movements subsequently gainingmomentum in Egypt, followed by Bahrain, Libya, Yemen and Syria. At its core,the Arab Spring is a popular rejection of the uncivil Arab state, which representsthe historically-discontinuous and colonially-imposed oppressive state apparatuson the Arab world. This oppressive and externally-imposed apparatus, initially

constructed by the former colonial regimes, was subsequently inherited and re ned by the post-colonial indigenous rulers (whether in the form of military-dictator-

Jacqueline S. Ismael is Professor of Social Work, University of Calgary. Shereen T. Ismael is AssociateProfessor of Social Work, Carleton University, Canada.

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ships or traditional-monarchies). By the twenty- rst century, the mass rejection ofthis uncivil state represented not only a struggle for democracy, but an attempt toconstruct an indigenousauthenticnew politics that represents the popular will.

The demonstrators forced the ouster of the most powerful and ruthless dictatorsof the region. Ben Ali of Tunisia was forced from power and exiled to Saudi Arabiain January 2011. Hosni Mubarak was likewise forced from power a month laterand in June 2012 was sentenced to life in prison (Hendawi, 2012). Meanwhile, a

popular revolt against Libyas Muammar Gadda accelerated into an armed con ict,ultimately drawing in a NATO intervention in support of the opposition, on the

purported basis of an international responsibility to protect (Rieff, 2011). Thisculminated in the capture and summary killing of Muammar Gadda by Libyan

rebels in October 2011. Finally, as of writing, Syria is locked in a brutal civil war between Bashar al-Assads regime forces and a disparate Free Syrian Army,where the specter of sectarianism and regional proxy has taken hold (Ghazi andArango, 2012). As of October 2012, the UN estimates 60,000+ have been killed(Enders, 2013).

Aided by modern telecommunication technologies, the Arab Spring movementsubverted the tired repressive technologies of the anciens rgimes of the region.An area of the world that was previously a byword for political stagnation and

autocratic rule was transformed in 2010-12 into an intense battle for the regions political future, bringing in participants representing liberals and leftists, Islamists,nationalists, and elements of the contested regimes.

The Arab Spring is best interpreted on two levels. At the initial level, the ArabSpring isas suggesteda sort of civilizational project, an attempt by the Arabmasses to chart a path independent of their colonial past, and strive for a politicsand statehood that is disconnected from the legacy of the uncivil state. Beyondthis broad understanding of the Arab Spring, there are the speci c revolts of the

Arab Spring, which represent the convergence of several factors: demographicschanges, structural factors, and the emergence of new technologies of dissent.While these discrete factors, especially that of technology and new social mediums,have received the bulk of attention in Western media coverage of the revolts, theunderlying core of the Arab Springthe historical/civilizational projectshould

rst be addressed.

The Arab Spring and the Uncivil State

The direction and outcome of the Arab Spring is, as of writing, only just emerging.While the protests movements have, in some cases, displaced the despised autocrats(Ben Ali, Mubarak, Gadda ), the repressive apparatus of the Arab state transcendsthe individual dictator. In the case of Egyptthe emblematic Arab Spring triumph

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THE ARAB SPRING & THE UNCIVIL STATE 231


Presidential and parliamentary elections saw large victories from Islamist forces(whether the Muslim Brotherhood or the Sala s), while the remnants of the Egyptiandeep stateas embodied in the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces and the

state bureaucracyhas not relented its authority without a ght. In August 2012, theelected government, headed by President Mohamed Morsi succeeded in replacingthe senior leadership of the Egyptian military (Lynch, 2012), while the governmentsPrime Minister Hisham Kandil promised the drafting of a new constitution. The

process of drafting a new constitution highlighted the underlying tensions inthe post-Mubarak political arrangement, with President Morsi and his MuslimBrotherhood supporters politically clashing with secular opposition parties overthe nature of the new Egyptian constitution and hence the post-Mubarak political

order (Bayoumi, 2012). Following a popular referendum and parliamentary vote,the proposed constitution was signed into law by President Morsi. The passage ofthe constitution into law was met with charges by secular forces that Islamist-tingedgovernment intended to exploit loopholes in the charter in order to move Egypttowards theocracy, while leftist former presidential candidate Hamdeen Sabbahiaccused Morsi and his Islamist allies of manipulating religious faith to rally supportfor the constitution in an effort to increase their own power and to support capitalistinterests (Kirkpatrick, 2012).

Hence, the ultimate success or failure of the Arab Spring depends upon morethan the replacement of the individual autocrat, but upon a reconstruction of theArab state and the creation of an open political/social space in Arab society, a civilsociety sphere that is independent and outside the interference and restrictions of thestate apparatus. This transition will require, not only an opposition to the remnantsof the old regimes and their external backers, but a deep skepticism against theirsuccessor regimes.

Not surprisingly, the remnants and defenders of the anciens rgimes whether

represented in the military, an economic elite that had been empowered by theregimes of the uncivil state, or regional and international forces of reaction (i.e.Saudi Arabia)are likewise actively engaged in efforts to restore the deposed andchallenged regimes. The Arab Spring, at this deeper level, represents a reckoningwith history as Arab citizens throw off inherited imperial structures, both externaland internal, and shape for the rst time their own political destinies.

The history of the Arab world is one of a disconnected historical trajectory. TheMiddle East is the only developing world region that is geographically contiguous with

Europe. It is the only area that has been in sustained confrontation with the dominant powers in the West for over 1,400 years, in dimensions at once theological-political,military, and economic. For the bulk of Arab-Islamic history, the regionwhateverthe external threats or internal divisionsmaintained a sense of historical andcultural continuity: a historical-cultural project that, while predominately Arab and

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predominately Islamic, nevertheless contained multitudes of variation, andrelativeto medieval Christendomaccommodated these differences. By the eighteenthcentury, political and economic stagnation allowed for increased penetration by

the European powers. Modern European encroachment began with Russian forays between 1768 and 1774. They were soon followed by Napoleons expedition intoEgypt in 1798, which in turn led to Britains military interference in 1801 to thwart

Napoleonic ambitions in the region. With the piecemeal fragmentation of Ottomanterritory, various modes of imperial power and administration developed in theArab lands.

By the end of the First World War, the Arab East or the Mashriq territories weredismembered from the crumbling Ottoman Empire and parceled into ve distinct

entities under the tutelage of Britain and France: Iraq, Palestine and Transjordanwent to Britain while contemporary Syria and Lebanon came under French control.The heartland of what had been the Ottoman Empire became a Turkish republic.

Non-Arab Turkey and Iran escaped direct colonial rule. Direct colonial settlementwas attempted only by the French, in their attempt to assimilate the indigenous

populations of the Maghrib into the French nation. The British in contrast attemptedto rule indirectly over the local population often through pro-British indigenousallies. Imperial policy met with popular rejection, which developed quickly into

mass protests and the development of nationalist movements for the liberation andindependence of the former Ottoman provinces. Serious uprisings in protest tothe colonial rule took place in Iraq (1920), Syria (1926) and Palestine (1936-39).

Colonial authorities stood at the apex of the socio-economic system and the Arabstate-system. A vast bureaucracy of mostly foreign-born professionals, commercialand administrative agents were ranked just below them as were a nascent group oflocal landlords, largely allied with Western powers. The majority were either mainlyunskilled city laborers or rural farmers, toiling for a pittance. However, opposition

to Western imperialism fused together the nationalist energies of all groups, classesand organizations and served to mobilize them towards a single goal: independence.

Nevertheless, colonialism still imposed distortions on the Arab world includingrapid urbanization without industrialization; formal education without productivetraining; secularization without genuine adoption of scienti c methodology andcapitalism without the discipline of regulatory mechanisms (Fuller and Lesser,1995: 34-35). Colonialism also fostered debilitating contradictions in the MiddleEast, in general, and in Arab society, in particular: between the traditional and

modern sectors; between the monarchical head of state and the legislative bodies; between Arab urbanites and Europeans; and between those trained in Westernscience and adherents to traditional faith practices (ibid.). The creation of a middleclass made it possible to exploit both the human and the natural resources despitethese contradictions.

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The period following the Second World War was one of widespread de-coloniza-tion and the Middle East was no exception. These movements tended to articulatenotions of unity as if social class distinctions did not exist. However, they did exist,

and the new middle classescolonial bureaucrats and comprador bourgeoisie lled the vacuum. Frantz Fanon clearly articulated the consequences: the new middle

classesthe new ruling classgroomed by their colonial overseers were socially,culturally, and, above all, politically alienated and perceived as alien within theirown societies (Fanon, 1968: 148-155). As a result, the national unity proffered

by the new indigenous ruling classes was more often than not more form thansubstanceor in a word, fragile. If the promises of nationalism were insuf cientto galvanize the masses to support the interests of their new rulers, then oppression

would suf ce. Hence, the uncivil Arab state as it came to be in the post-WWII periodcan be understood as a thin edi ce of indigenous rule built upon the regulatory andsecurity apparatus of the preceding colonial regimes.

The uncivil state is simultaneously de ned by its inauthenticitywhich is to sayits historical discontinuityand its oppressiveness. The Arab Spring movement,therefore, is invested in a struggle to challenge and upend a state structure that hasits origins in the colonial apparatuses of the pre-WWII era, and in the succeedingdecades, has had much experience in the repression of the masses. The perpetuation

of these regimes through successive decades, and the re nement of their repressivetechniques, owed much to the patronage of great powers, whether justi ed on the

basis of the Cold-War struggle, or subsequently, by the war on terror. In theaftermath of 9/11, this cooperation between great powers (i.e. the United States)and oppressive Arab regimes reached new heights, including not only cooperation

between the US and traditionally friendly Arab regimes (Human Rights Watch,2011), but also cooperation with historically US-opposed regimes including Syriaand Libya (Nordland, 2009 and 2011). The political upheaval of the Arab Spring thus

represents an attempt by the masses to unravel and reconstruct the uncivil Arab state,including the international arrangements that had perpetuated its form and lifespan.

Methods and Forms of the Arab Spring

While modern technologies (satellite TV, social networking websites) have been prominently featured in the Arab Spring protests, the technological aspect of the protests should not be overstated. While these technologies played a role within the

protest movements, they were a tool, a medium for the dissemination of dissent,rather than a cause for the protest. Indeed, the use of technology in mass protestis hardly new, whether with the use of cassette recordings during the IranianRevolution or with the use of fax machines and photocopiers by the anti-Sovietopposition in the 1980s. Moreover, the use of modern communication technologies

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was not limited to the Arab protestors, but was likewise used as a tool of repression by the Arab regimes (Morozov, 2011).

The causes of the Arab Spring reside in decades-old political grievances, emerging

demographic factors, and economic dif culties. While acknowledging the utilityof new communication mediums (Twitter, Facebook, etc.), in a region of povertyand broad illiteracy, they remain niche tools. Perhaps more revolutionary has beenthe change in the Arab media environment, namely the proliferation of satellitetelevision and the emergence of al-Jazeera. As a technological innovation, the

proliferation of satellite television has allowed the Arab masses to subvert thestate-television model, and the emergence of al-Jazeera as the premier Arab satellitechannel has provided the Arab masses access to a professional, and comparatively

independent, source of regional news coverage. The dif culty of the autocraticregimes to block al-Jazeeras broadcasts (owing to the nature of satellite technology)has allowed al-Jazeera to report the crimes of the regions dictators to the peoplesof the Arab world and beyond. Hence while mediums such as Twitter/Facebookare limited to a cutting-edge middle/upper class, satellite television broadcastshave projected the protest narrative to the masses, across all strata of society. Thecomparative strength of the protesting youth in this regard resided in their creativeability to deprive the uncivil state of its monopoly over mass propaganda. Namely,the uncivil state has gradually lost its ability to restrict information ows. Theemergence of modern telecommunication technologies, the internet, and satellitetelevision has made the traditional state control of information, and hence the abilityto wield mass propaganda unchallenged, highly tenuous. The autocrats of the Arabworld have learned the dif culties of attempting to repress a twenty- rst century

population with twentieth century techniques and technologies.The vitality and cutting-edge sophistication of the contemporary Arab Spring has

illuminated the limitations of previous campaigns to resist the Arab state. Whereasthe contemporary Arab movementin its protest originswas democratic, young,and populist in nature, the old opposition was de ned by its undemocratic structures,lack of dynamism, and the taint of being an of cial opposition. The Arab Spring hasexposed the ossi cation and inef cacies of the old opposition. The old opposition,largely co-opted to start with, were highly centralized and leadership-dependent,rendering them easy to target and paralyze by the state. In Egypt, this happened whenthe leaders of Al-Wafd and Al-Ghad parties were targeted, leading to subsequent

paralysis and elimination of their parties. The success of the Arab Spring movementswas its clear lack of formal organization and its character as a highly decentralizedmass opposition, united only by its zeal and desire to see political change. With theend of Mubarak, the opposition has appropriately broken into ideological tendenciesand normal party organization (liberal, nationalist, Islamist, etc.).

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An exception to this ossi ed opposition (i.e. Al-Wafd and Al-Ghad) was the Islamicsources of opposition, namely the Muslim Brotherhood and the Sala movements.The Islamist parties, representing the social authenticity of religion, proved to

be a more dif cult opposition to control. While the movement came under severerepression during the Nasser period, its social bases (i.e. the Mosque, professionalorganizations, lawyer and doctor guilds) could not be suppressed. Under Sadatand Mubarak, political controls of Brotherhood activity were loosened, allowingthe movement to operate within a non-political space of social activism. Hence,while the Brotherhood were largely quiet during the Arab Spring protests, theywere primed and highly prepared to participate in the subsequent Parliamentary andPresidential elections, where the young protest movement proved to be disorganized

and unprepared for formal politics. Hence, the Brotherhood and the Sala party(Al-Nour) dominated the formal political processes of 2011-12, dominating theEgyptian parliamentary and succeeding in the passage of a constitution criticsalleged to be theocratic in nature (Kirkpatrick, 2012).

A unique aspect of the Arab Spring has been the true regional solidarity that hasemerged in the wake of the events rst in Tunisia, then in Egypt and beyond. Whileeach countrys protest movements face their own unique circumstances, underlyingthem all is the demand for an accountable leadership and an end to autocracy. All in

this sense are revolts against the uncivil state. Moreover, the assorted Arab Springmovements, while unique to their circumstances, have contributed to one another.The Egyptian protesters bene ted from their Tunisian counterparts who acted asthe prototype for them. Tunisians, after the success of their uprising, advised theirEgyptian counterparts to employ creative tactics against the Anti-Riot Forces. Forexample, ghting at night, employing guerrilla tactics (luring security forces toalleys and thus depriving them of the comparative advantages of their equipmentand groupings), protesting in day and night shifts and thus exhausting the security

troops, neutralizing security vehicles by different means (such as black sprayon windshields), etc. Through largely peaceful means of protest, sabotage, andstreet theatre, the protest movements were able to frustrate the tired repressivetechniques of the state. When the regime employed the tactic of cutting off theinternet and phone services, it was again the internet offering recipes to reach outto the international community via proxy servers for ideas, support, and solidarity.Before that, when 3G services were denied to protesters with Blackberries andiPhones in Tahrir square, they were able to login to the worldwide web via the

password-less routers owned by those living in apartments overlooking the square.While the forces of the Arab Spring have bene ted from regional solidarity,so too have the forces of the counter-revolution, with Saudi Arabia as a de facto head of the traditional forces in the region. This owes to its ability to dispensewealth and patronage throughout the region. A new regional dynamic is emerging;

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where the Arab Cold War of the 1960s was represented in the struggle betweennationalist republics (headed by Nasserite Egypt) and the traditional monarchies(Kerr, 1965), a new Arab Cold War is emerging. Saudi Arabia and the Gulf

countries have retained their role as the defenders of status quo, while conversely,representing the countervailing forces is the ideologically and organizationallydiffuse Arab Spring, whose politics range from nationalism, to liberalism, toIslamism, and beyond. On another level, a second regional struggle has boiled over,with Saudi Arabia and its allies struggling against Iranian regional in uence. Thishas been particularly evident in the civil war in Syria, where the peculiar sectariancomposition of the country and its political arrangements has invited aspects ofa proxy-war. Syria has long been patronized by Iran, for their shared rejection of

Israel, shared stratagems in Lebanon, and to a lesser degree, for theological reasons(Syria been ruled by the quasi-Shii Alawi factions). Saudi Arabia and its gulf allies,for their part, have cynically rebuked Syria for using its heavy weapons against its

population and warned Iran against interference (Knickmeyer, 2012). Meanwhile,Saudi Arabia and company have provided (of cially non-lethal) aid to the Syrianrebels, while Sala -oriented ghters have owed into Syria from Saudi Arabia, Iraqand elsewhere (AFP, 2012). As a consequence, the con ict has accelerated, withover 60,000 reportedly having been killed (Enders, 2013), and the prospects for a

peaceful (i.e. non-sectarian) post-Assad outcome unlikely.

The Islamist Role in Developing Civil Society

The Islamic element is of course crucial in understanding both the consolidationof the uncivil state and the eventual emergence of an effective opposition to it.The autocrats of the Arab world regularly used the specter of radical Islamism as

justi cation for their dictatorial regimes both to foreign sponsors and to domestic

elites. However brutal the dictators, they could portray themselves as a preferredalternative to Islamists in power.

However, it would be unwise to ignore the parallel role of the varied Islamistcurrents in the development of social spaces where oppositions to the uncivilstate could coalesce. The reformist Islamists of the twentieth century have had

paramount in uence on the creation and development of civil society beyond therealm of the state, starting with the colonial state and carrying forward to the

post-colonial repressive one. Under occupation, the Muslim Brotherhood began by

educating the masses while simultaneously providing social services that a nascentmodern Westphalian state was incapable of providing, given its focus on ghtingoccupation and other issues mostly irrelevant to the majority of the marginalized.The post-colonial Egyptian state took that lead, liquidated the Brotherhood, andsought to gain legitimacy by ful lling the needs of the masses with the services

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expected from a socialist regime. Of course this meant a secular approach, contraryto what Islamists had established. However, the failure of the secular model, alreadyapparent in the late Sadat years, and the increase in the intensity of oppression of

the state because of the sweeping victory of the open market, provided the religiousestablishment the chance to return to ll the void. For the past three decades, thereligious project succeeded, to some degree, in lling the gap left behind by theoppressive state and its inadequate social policy.

That model was followed by the efforts of secular civil society groups, whoemphasized non-tangible services such as human rights and citizenship that theIslamists had come to endorse as well. As the Islamist and secular elements movedtowards each other, the diverse elements of civil society formed a critical mass of

activism outside state control. However, over the past decade, new social movementswith both Islamist and secular roots have been resurrected and bene ted fromthe internal decay of the uncivil state. It started with the visible weakness of theoppressive state before the neo-colonial project of the West, manifested in boththe second Palestinian Intifada and the occupation of Iraq. In a couple of years,the birth of the Kifaya (Enough) Movement gave resistance and opposition to theoppressive regime a new direction and dimension/magnitude. It decided to resist the

project of patrimony (Tawreeth), and emphasized the need for a new social contractthat lays the foundation for a society of justice and freedom. It is noteworthy thatcentrist Islamist elements, notably those gathered in the Al Wassat Party, participatedin important ways in all of these efforts alongside a wide array of the countrys

political forces. It can be safely said that these calls in 2005 have been adopted by the January 25 revolution that basically called for freedom, social justice, andhuman dignity. Believing in human agency, the revolutions used human creativity,modern technology, and social solidarity that had been nourished over the pastdecade to end the oppressive state.

Conclusion: The Future of the Uncivil State in Arab Politics

At the dawn of the twenty- rst century, the prospects for democratization and popular-driven change in the Middle East did not look hopeful. Certainly, oppositionmovements were active across the region, however the uncivil Arab state remainedthe supreme authority, restricting the activity of independent political movements. In

the aftermath of September 11th, the political prospects for the Arab world lookedeven dimmer, with the specter of the war on terror serving as a justi cation for theredoubling of Americas involvement in the region, i.e. the bolstering of its regionalclients (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel). Worse yet, the project of democratiza-tion was cynically deployed with the Anglo-American invasion and occupation

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of Iraq, igniting a sectarian bloodbath, with prospects of violent sectarianism to become the dominant political force in the region.

While the causes of the Arab Springunrepresentative governance, poor

economic conditions, demographic changes favoring the young, and technologicaldevelopmentshave been individually present for decades, they converged sounexpectedly so as to leave most analysts of the region mystified. The finaldestination of the Arab Spring is, as of yet, unclear. In the case of Egypt, the

passage of the Mubarak regime gave rise to power accommodation between Islamistforces (Muslim Brotherhood and Sala s) and the military-security apparatus,leaving the young activists behind the mass protests of Arab Spring partly shut out.Consequently, post-Mubarak has seen a continued struggle. In Syria, protests against

the Assad regime saw massive state violence, and subsequently, the development ofsectarian-infused civil war. Notwithstanding these very disturbing developments,the Arab Spring did nevertheless shatter the illusion of stability in the region(stable autocracy) and raised the possibility of an alternative politics premised ondemocracy, civil rights, and citizenship. While far from a foregone conclusion, theevents of spring 2011 onward have made it reasonable to hope for a new Arab politic.

With this uncertainty about how the Arab Spring will most likely proceed, itis important to compare the local, regional and international settings with similar

contexts elsewhere that had experienced popular uprisings. Analyzing how they proceeded and the challenges that faced them will very much help assess what might become of the Arab uprisings. Samir Amin has looked to the uprisings of other statesand has re ected on the causes and outcomes and has cautioned that the results whether positive or negativecould take place in the region. Amin investigatedthe cases of Brazil and Bolivia in Latin America, the resulting positive impactand African and Asian uprisings that ended up simply changing the head of statein Mali, Philippines and Indonesia, but leaving the regime intact, and the Eastern

European Colour Revolution of the early 2000s. Amin concludes that the African/Asian experience is the most likely to occur as the conditions surrounding theseuprisings are comparableespecially the embedded nature of Western in uenceand class structure (Amin, 2011: 37-40).

Likewise, analysts of the Arab Spring have drawn historical parallels from theEuropean revolutions of 1848. As with the Arab protests, which were ignited bythe catalyst of Tunisian example, the revolutions of 1848 began with a singularexampleFrancesetting into motion a continental upheaval. In the aftermath

of the French Revolution of 1848, political protest appeared in the German states,Denmark, the Hapsburg Empire, and beyond. The conditions that drove the 1848revolution through Europe are indeed comparable to the social conditions that

preceded the Arab Spring: injustice, lack of human rights and political representation,and economic dislocation caused by structural changes (i.e. industrialization and

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globalization respectively). While occurring in different historical contexts, thelessons of the European revolts can be applied in the Arab case. However, minimalchange occurred, few demands of the revolutionaries were met, although in some

areas, feudalism was abolished. According to some opinions, the Spring of Nations,1848, failed. Likewise, the Arab protestsalthough having inexorably changed theregionare not immune to neutralization and cooption by remnants of the ancienrgime and the military-security apparatuses. Additionally, it is not inconceivablethat the successor regimes could trend in anti-democratic directions, betraying therevolutions that brought them to power.

The fact that Samir Amin drafted his book at an earlier stage, almost simultaneouswith the uprising in Egypt, helped him neutrally present the possible scenarios that

follow revolutions and uprisings. But in light of the historical lessons derived fromthe 1848 experience, it is important to analyze our contemporary uprisings throughthis lens. Pessimists see quite a resemblance, especially with the deeply embeddedinterests of multinational corporations and the in uence of the Washington Consensusrepresenting neo-liberalism against which those uprisings primarily erupted.Optimists on the other hand perceive it as a victory for the democratic forces thatgot rid of the heads of regimes that have acted for long as compradors facilitatingthese interests. In between, it is de nite that this was a blow to the uncivil state, andas much as democratic forces will cling to this new margin of hope, as much as the

potential for the civil state will grow. Nevertheless, the situation is very uid anductuates between hope and despair. The Latin model was mainly successful because

the popular uprisings are deeply rooted in the culture, and were spearheaded by progressive labor activists who understand very well the nature of the internationalorder and its imbedded interests. On the other hand, the failure of the African/Asianmodel lay in the predominance of the reactionary forces, and the abuse of the commonelement of Islam to pacify the masses. In between, the East European model stilloscillates, but succeeded in ending the uncivil legacy of the USSR.

Ultimately, the protestors of the Arab Spring will chart their own battle, strugglingfor a better form of regional politics, pitting them against: a) the regional defendersof tradition (chie y Saudi Arabia); b) those who would hijack the political tumultto impose a sectarian or divisive political order on the post-autocratic regimes (seethe increasingly sectarian composition of the Syrian con ict); and nally, c) theinterests of the major Western powers, headed by the United States, whorhetoricto the contraryhave not shown a historical commitment to the emergence ofdemocratic movements in the Middle East region.

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AFP. (2012). GCC states rebuke Syria and Iran. Al-Arabiya (September 2), http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/09/02/235739.html (accessed September 2, 2012).

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Amin, Samir. (2011). Thawrat Masr wa Ilqatiha bil Azmah Al-lamiyya (Egypts Revolution and itsConnection to the International Crisis). Alexandria: El-Ain Publishing.

Bayoumi, Alaa. (2012). Morsi faces feuds over Egypt charter. Al Jazeera, October 30, http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/10/20121028113252278259.html (accessed October 30, 2012).

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