When 26-year-old fruit seller Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire 10 years ago this week, he could not have known that his suicide in Tunisia would ignite the entire Middle East and North Africa, with millions demanding changes from the sclerotic regimes that have long dominated the region.
A decade later, Tunisia enjoys relative security and freedom, but all other countries burned by the fires of the Arab Spring have suffered instability, war or have not changed much. And since successive revolutions failed to reward Arabs with democracy or prosperity, the turbulent years proved to be a massive advantage for all the autocrats they had to depose.
“The complaints we talked about, the complaints that were there in 2010, are still there in 2020,” said Youssef Cherif, a Tunisian political analyst and director of the Columbia Global Centers, speaking from Tunisia’s capital, Tunis. “And so the people who came out in 2010 are still upset.”
Those who knew Bouazizi said his self-immolation was meant to protest against corruption, political repression and youth unemployment that has assaulted Tunisia and the Arab world for generations under a cabal of elderly autocrats.
Bouazizi’s frustrations were shared by hundreds of millions of Arabs, who took to the streets shouting a single demand: “People want the regime to fall.”
But even if the demand was the same, the results varied: protesters overthrew longtime leaders in Egypt, Yemen and Libya. But Libya, Syria and Yemen have since been destroyed by a decade of civil war, while Egypt has returned to military-backed autocracy. Only Tunisia can be called a true democracy.
“At first it seemed that close US allies, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, would be on the wrong side of this, as well as Israel – countries that were generally very reluctant to democratic changes in the Middle East.” said Shadi Hamid, a senior colleague at the Brookings Institution in Washington, referring to the United Arab Emirates.
“But there has been a pretty big change in which, over time, the big winners, at least for now, are those countries after the Arab Spring.”
Perhaps the most enduring “regime change” that has emerged since the Arab Spring was in fact a fundamental change in perspective and policy towards Israel, a nation that has long been anathema to most governments and citizens in the region.
Certainly, the Gulf monarchies have long been powerful. But with traditional Arab nationalist powers such as Egypt, Libya and Syria brought down by internal instability, monarchies have used their growing power to repel one of the Arab world’s most enduring concerns: antipathy to Israel.
Threatened by both Iran’s rise and Islamist political groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which Gulf monarchies see as a threat to their power, oil-rich states have found an unlikely friend in an old enemy whose needs security converge with theirs.
Over the decade, Iran has used Shiite Muslim empowered forces, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria and Houthis in Yemen, to expand its power throughout the region. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-dominated kingdoms perceived Iran’s movements as a threat to their power.
So are groups like the Muslim Brotherhood, whose calls for both democracy and conservative Islam have made them attractive to millions across the region.
“From the point of view of these leaders, there has been a deep concern in the Arab Spring that groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood could capitalize on much of the public frustration to seize power,” said Sarah Feuer, a researcher at the Institute for Human Studies. National Security in Tel Aviv, referring to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates “I think what we have seen in recent years … in a way must have a lot to do with the recent normalization agreements with Israel.”
Four Arab nations have normalized diplomatic relations with Israel in as many months – an astonishing development in a region where popular sympathy for the Palestinian cause is high and where most governments have long vowed to isolate the Jewish state.
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These discoveries were led by the Trump administration, whose distrust of Iran and political Islam, along with its embrace of Israel, Gulf monarchies and Arab autocrats, such as Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, helped strengthen the new balance. power of the Middle East.
But that could mean challenges for Biden. Some Arab autocrats and monarchs are worried that it will perpetuate President Barack Obama’s policy of supporting democracy in the Middle East.
“The [Biden] the administration will probably have to reassure the traditional American allies in the region, “Feuer said. “We will have to face the perception that Biden is essentially a third Obama term, and all the insecurity and the kind of baggage that can cause America’s relations with some of these countries.”
For now, the Arab Spring is in a familiar stalemate.
Libya, Syria and Yemen remain unleashed by stubborn internal conflicts. Egypt flirted with democracy for more than a year before the country’s first freely elected president was ousted in a popularly backed coup.
And the Arab monarchies have learned that calming their subjects with generous documents has done more to alleviate internal unrest than to provide genuine freedom, suffrage or even the much-sought-after economic opportunities for young people in the region.
“Unfortunately, one of the lessons of the Arab Spring is that repression works,” said Hamid of the Brookings Institution. “That the wall of fear can be rebuilt.”
But the Arab Spring is not over, even if it has calmed down. In most Arab countries, the grievances that have sparked riots – poverty, corruption, youth unemployment and political oppression – are as bad now as they were 10 years ago, if not worse.
Bouazizi said those complaints provided enough ignition to set the entire Middle East on fire.
And they could do it again – if they have the right spark.