Definition of Arab Spring (2010)

To a greater or lesser extent, the desire for freedom remains anchored in the people who, periodically, in one place or another in the world, claim it; it happened in North America in 1776, it happened in France in 1789, in various European cities in 1848, in 1956 in Hungary, and in 1968 in Prague, Paris and Mexico.

The cry for freedom, expressed throughout history in many languages ​​and in many places around the world, was uttered with an Arabic accent in several countries starting in 2010.

The call Arab Spring (although it should be more accurately called Arab springs) consisted of a series of popular movements demanding political and social changes in the Arab countries.

These movements ended in various ways: with the overthrow of the government (as in the case of Tunisia and Egypt) or the civil war (case of Syria and Libya), or in more or less heard protests. In cases like the Egyptian one, the new government has ended up ignoring a good part of the popular demands.

The Arab Spring movement broke out in Tunisia in December 2010.

Although the last straw was the suicide by self-immolation (a terribly painful way to die) of a street vendor because the police had seized all his merchandise and, therefore, faced starvation for not being able to sell or buy anything else, the truth is that this was only the fuse that lit the powder keg of general discontent of the population Tunisian with his government due to the poor conditions and poverty in which most of the population lived.

To this must be added the lack of political freedoms of the Ben Ali regime, something common to many states in the Arab sphere.

In fact, the Spring Arab was not an isolated event, but an explosion caused by years of protests more or less disseminated and repressed by the governments of the countries where the riots took place.

The catalyst that allowed both the riots to spread, and the world to see, were the Internet and smartphones.

Despite the censorship existing in many countries on the Internet network (and not only the Arab countries), it is virtually impossible to put doors to the field, and it was not only about information that flowed from citizens to the media, but among citizens themselves and between countries, bypassing censorship in the media.

In addition, the network also allowed collaboration between activists and movements, facilitating calls for demonstrations and different subversive acts.

It was in this way that the revolution fed back and spread, since as it broke out in some countries, it influenced the citizenship of others. The role of the Internet throughout the movement it cannot be minimized, as it was fundamental.

The revolution in Tunisia succeeded in overthrowing the government. The protesters had the support of the army, a very powerful factor in any of these cases. After Tunisia, it was Egypt's turn.

Chaired by Hosni Mubarak (who rather acted like an oriental kinglet) since the assassination of Anwar el-Sadat in 1981, Egypt It was a dictatorship in which Mubarak had systematically suppressed any hint of opposition and openness, relying on the Law from Emergency, in force since 1967 and which granted broad powers to the army and the police, taking them away from the citizenry.

The protests broke out on January 25, 2011, mimicking those in Tunisia that had overthrown Ben Ali, and with the same intention of overthrowing Mubarak and his corrupt and nepotic government.

In a panic, the Egyptian government tried to cut off access to the Internet, and although this left many citizens unable to access the network and therefore Thus, uninformed, many others managed to gain access through foreign providers, or coordinated through word of mouth from the entire lifetime.

The epicenter of the protest was Cairo's Tahrir Square, which became a symbol of anti-government demonstrations. The shock was when the soldiers disobeyed orders to shoot at the crowd.

The troops empathized with the protesters, although the officers were probably on the government side at first, although it is likely that seeing that their Soldiers did not obey, from the same army they began to put pressure on Mubarak, who in his turn was also a military man (since Nasser, Egypt had been ruled by military).

Mubarak became nervous and had his entire cabinet resign, promising reforms. It was too late for the regime, the protesters no longer wanted small changes, but for the dictator to leave, which he ended up doing on February 11.

A posteriori, and despite having made progress in the democracy, the demands of the movement were diluted, and for example, the elected Mohamed Morsi was deposed by a military coup led by Abdul Fatah al-Sisi.

Parallel to the demonstrations in Egypt, the revolutionary fuse also lit in Libya, a country chaired by Muammar Gaddafi since 1969.

Promising in its beginnings, in which he opened the country and granted wide freedoms to a people that until then had had them in droppers, Gaddafi ended allowing himself to be corrupted by the absolute power he wielded, turning his regime into a personalist, and subjecting his population to his whims and arbitrariness. Famous is his personal guard exclusively made up of women (his “Amazons”), on whom he also committed all kinds of abuses.

In Libya, the fall of Gaddafi would be made possible by a factor that the other revolts had not had: foreign intervention.

Certain international powers, led by the United States, “wanted” Gaddafi, reason why they did not hesitate to support the opposition groups grouped in the National Council of Transition.

Here, again the people asked to get out of poverty, and again the means of communication used to coordinate was the Internet.

The peaceful demonstrations were repressed with violence by the police and the army, which led to the transmutation of pacifism into violence also by the opposition; a civil war was beginning.

Part of the army joined the opposition coalition, which made it easier for the latter to have the necessary material to face an open war, such as armor, artillery and even aviation.

Gradually losing support, Gaddafi was left alone and losing control of the country, until at the end of August he had no choice but to flee from the rebels as best he could. In October, rebel forces launched after the last strongholds of pro-Gaddafi resistance.

On October 20, 2011, and while he was fleeing Sirte, Gaddafi's vehicle was forcibly located international air force that supported the rebels, and the information transmitted by radio to the forces opponents.

From here, what happened probably Gaddafi deserved it, although it is still shocking: the column of vehicles was attacked, and Gaddafi hid, alone, in a large pipe a short distance from the road, being found by the fighters rebels.

Before being lynched by the crowd, and while he begged for mercy, he was beaten and tortured, even believed to have been sodomized with some object.

The war did not end in Libya, a country that in recent years has lived in an almost anarchic state, in the midst of the confrontation between two opposing governments, that of Tripolitania and that of Cyrenaica.

Syria is another example of a country in which the protests deteriorated into a civil war but, here, and unlike the previous one, the regime has been able to preserve its position.

And that has been thanks to the international aid provided by Russia, an ally of Bashar al-Asad.

The first protests in Syria occurred in March 2011, which (and following a predictable pre-established script) were violently repressed.

In July 2011, the Free Syrian Army was born, a group of rebel forces that had the support of soldiers who had deserted the government army. In the conflict Islamic fundamentalists (ISIS and Al Qaeda), and the Kurdish independence movement were also involved.

The first phase of the conflict was characterized by the advance of opposition groups (branded terrorists by the al-Assad regime). The turning point in the conflict occurred in June 2013, when the opposition in Al-Qusayr was defeated.

In 2015, Russia began its intervention in favor of the al-Assad regime, which definitely tipped the balance in favor of it. At the same time, the United States sent aid to the Kurds who, in the north, continued to resist.

The civil war continues to this day; the fundamentalist organizations have almost disappeared from Syrian territory, swept away by the government offensive with Russian support, and also almost all the opposition other than the Kurdish one.

The Kurds maintain a free territory to the north, but the question remains as to what will happen to them in the long run.

As for the rest of the countries in the Arab sphere, all of them have been more or less influenced by the demands for freedom of the Arab Spring.

In Morocco and Algeria there have also been protests, although not as forceful or with as much result as in Tunisia; Although the civil war in Yemen responds to other circumstances, it has also been influenced; in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf monarchies there have been some timid attempts to open up that have crystallized, for example, in the permission for women to drive in Saudi Arabia, or to open rooms cinema.

There have been authors who have considered the riots that occurred in the Arab world in the framework of the Arab Spring, as part of a global movement that would also include movements such as the Spanish 15M, or Occupy Wall Street North American.

Fotolia photos: Sergio / Trrent

Themes in Arab Spring (2010)