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Perspectives
Last Updated: 14th November 2012
Perspectives
Author: IISS
Publication: Strategic Survey, 2012
After a short burst of bewildering change, the year to mid-2012 was one in which people whose interests were threatened tried to apply the brakes. Even as the Arab revolutions of 2011 were taking place, the extent to which youthful rebels would succeed in overturning the established order of their societies was questionable. In the aftermath, there was inevitable disillusionment: Egypt, for example, went through a remarkable series of elections, yet afterwards a military junta still wielded a great deal of power.
This is not to belittle what had been achieved by people power since Mohamed Bouazizi, a Tunisian street vendor, had set fire to himself in December 2010, epitomising the frustration felt by millions at their lack of opportunity in the face of venal bureaucracy and entrenched, corrupt dictatorships.
The rapid removal of regimes in Tunisia and Egypt was followed by the more contested departures of Muammar Gadhafi in Libya and Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, after tenures respectively of 42 and 34 years. Almost all the remaining Arab monarchies and regimes - in 2011 there were protests in 19 of the 22 countries of the Arab League - managed to deal with the popular forces that had been unleashed, some by enacting modest reforms. Notwithstanding the short civil war in Libya and continuing conflict in Yemen, these upheavals occurred with remarkably little bloodshed.
Purchase access to this article here: Perspectives, Strategic Survey, 2011- Perspectives
Author: IISS
Publication: Strategic Survey, 2012
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