Region of Middle East after Arab Spring

Running head: REGION OF MIDDLE EAST AFTER ARAB SPRING
Region of Middle East after Arab Spring
Name of the Student
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Author Note

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The nation states of the world are always on constant conflict with one another due to
their objective of trying to attain their national interests. Often times it is observed that the
national interest of the states are not in sync with each other, which, in turn, leads to the rising
conflict in the region. The region of the Middle East is a largely conflicted region (Bayat 2017).
However, a unique feature which can be noticed in this region is that the conflict is more in
existence due to the internal conflicts of the countries. In other words, the nations in this region
are facing trouble from both the frontiers that is in their home ground as well as with the external
states of the land. Such a situation is inexistence primarily because of the nature of the states
where the governments of the nations adhere to the Islamic ideology as their state doctrines
(Acemoglu, Hassan and Tahoun 2017). The intermixing of the political framework with the
religious doctrines has ignited reluctances and protests from the people living in this region. The
people again are divided in to two categories where one segment believes in the authority of the
religious doctrines of the land and wants them to be imposed on their daily lives too, while the
other segment believes that religion is a private affair and it should be separated from the
functioning of the state. The conflicts among the people and in the two fields of religion and
politics is what has made this region of the Middle East too unstable due to the break out of a
number of conflicts over the years (Asongu and Nwachukwu 2016). This essay seeks to analyze
the impact of the Arab Spring which occurred in the year 2011, within the context of the Middle
East region. Furthermore, the essay looks in to the fact that despite the popular uprisings in the
region after 2011, why does the region still continue to be one of the most unstable land in the
world. The essay concludes with the importance of a democratic political framework for
maintaining peace and stability in the region.
REGION OF MIDDLE EAST AFTER ARAB SPRING

2
The nation states existing within the territorial boundary of what has been termed as the
‘Middle East’ are popularly known for their strict adherence to the religious doctrines of Islam
and is Holy Scripture in the form of Quran. The government of such countries are run by people
who are extremely religious in nature and hence, they believe in the implementation of the
religious teachings and doctrines within the political functioning of the state (Brownlee, Masoud
and Reynolds 2015). Such a thought process has had a wide repercussive reaction by the people
of such states. The adherence of the religious teachings in their political and social activities
meant that much of their basic human freedom were curtailed to a considerable extent. They had
no freedom in choosing their life partners from other religions and the lives of the women were
the worst off in the Islamic society. It was in this atmosphere of great dislike and suffering that
an event occurred in the year 2011. On 17th December, 2010, a man named Mohammad Bouazizi
set himself on fire in a public street in Tunisia as he was depressed with police harassment
(Steinert-Threlkeld 2017). This event worked as a fueling point for the start of the Arab Spring
where localized revolutions started to spring off as a result of the atrocious activities of the
governments and their agencies of the nation states in the region of Middle East.
The Arab Spring can be defined as the series of events, each of which were anti-
government in its orientation (Davis 2016). People took to armed rebellion and uprising in order
to protest against the activities of the government and the ascription to the religious doctrines in
their way of life. Arab Spring was mainly against the oppressive regimes of the states which
culminated in a low standard of living for the people with no basic human rights or freedom
provided to them (Ghanem 2016).
However, this event failed to reap the desired results of the people. The governments,
instead, of understanding the needs and wants of the people and trying to find a compromise for
REGION OF MIDDLE EAST AFTER ARAB SPRING

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the people, turned more hostile (Ghosh 2016). They started to use arms and ammunitions in
order to fight with their own people whom, they had the sole responsibility to protect. Moreover,
the governments of such nation states also resorted to blocking the social media sites so that the
news about the revolt would not spread to the other parts of the region, trying to garner support
for the people. The actions of the governments of the Middle East during this time period were
criticized in the global forum by several other countries of the world, such as that of the United
States of America. Moreover, the different organizations working for the benefit of the human
rights and its guarantee to the people, also condemned the activities of such nation states
(Esposito, Sonn and Voll 2015). As a consequence, it can be observed that in spite of the
struggles of the people to bring about a change in their political systems, all their attempts were
in vain. After a period of five years, the human rights in the region are still under threat. This is
evident from the fact that most of the human rights activists in Bahrain and the political leaders
who were advocating for a democratic political system, were arrested and imprisoned (Roy
2017). Moreover, in the context of Syria, Egypt and Bahrain, the governments are periodically
attacking the freedom of speech of the people. The citizens of these countries no longer have the
right to criticize the actions of the governments or talk about counter terrorism.
Several incidents in the region of the Middle East can be analyzed and looked in to in a
detailed manner in order to understand the undemocratic nature of the region. The Arab Spring
began from the area of Tahir Square in Egypt (Fisher and Stewart 2015). It serves as an
important emblem of the movement but over the years, it has lost its significance as the starting
point of the resilience. The Tahir Square is now under the control of several fascist regimes of
the country who are more totalitarian than its predecessor that is Hosni Mubarak who was the
leader of Egypt during the time of Arab Spring (Arampatzi et al. 2018). Moreover, in the years
REGION OF MIDDLE EAST AFTER ARAB SPRING