The label given to the cultural revolution that has enveloped the Middle East has been deceptive to everyone who has used it. It was being called the 'Arab Spring' at least as early as March. A populist movement, it was widely regarded as a force for the Good of the region. But this simplification made it easy to ignore the complexities. The ground-breaking revolution of Tunisia, the expulsion of Mubarak from Egypt and the romantic war of the Libyans - which was only viewed as brutal with the death of Qaddafi, no longer a pharoahic figure but a victim of war. These overshadowed the struggles of Yemen, Bahrain and even to some extent Syria.
To call it the 'Arab Spring' is to paint the whole movement with a single brush, ignoring all the intricacies unique to each nation. It is a simplification that reeks of pan-Arabism and glosses over the difference in every country.
The term 'Arab Spring' has a poetic edge to it that implies inherent goodness in the movement, with the further implication that the problems these countries faced up until now was in the past. The future is only bright. Taking Egypt as an example, how many people were wary of the military who had just ousted Mubarak back in February? Yet since the recent repression in November, the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) suddenly became a 'junta' in the eyes of media - but that word was rarely used before, reflecting the easy version of events we were so happy to accept.
Now, in the last month especially, we have been hearing of the 'Arab Winter'. A quick google search shows its prevalence. 'After spring, winter' went the leading article of the Spectator's 26th November issue. And for what reason has the Spring leapt past summer and autumn into the cold of a Winter? It is because Islamists are overwhelmingly leading the way in these new democracies while other revolutions have floundered. Yet the story of the new Middle East is still in its infancy.
Of course the Islamists are gaining momentum - they have decades of political experience ahead of the competition. But what about in the next election, or the one after that? Will they still have their current political clout when the opposition improves with experience? And perhaps most importantly, when they're losing in the polls, will they use their power to flout democratic process and stay, or will they step down, as a party in any real democracy would? If it is the former, then that country truly is in a political winter. But if it is the latter, then what's the fuss? Even if the party in power is unpopular with Western leaders, if it's a real democracy, then the people are truly victorious.
The truth is that it's far too early to say whether the movement that began with a poor man's self-immolation has been successful or not. We will have to wait for the post-revolutionary generation to come into its own first. We naturally want to believe that this movement is a 'Spring', a new beginning. And as an effect of this belief, the moment reality is greyer than the label of 'Spring', the knee-jerk reaction has been to call it a 'Winter'. The social, cultural, intellectual and political change is a step towards a better future, this we cannot deny. But let's not paint it to be a perfect future with the term 'Arab Spring', or consider it as a wintery failure because of birthing pains. Let's look past these comfortable labels that gloss over the bigger picture, and see the movement as it truly is: an infant with potential.
---
EDIT: Patrick Cockburn used the term 'Arab Awakening' in this recent article. I dismissed this phrase months ago as there is another historic movement sometimes called the Arab awakening, but I think it's the term for this movement that 'Spring' isn't. Personally, it's what I'll be calling it from now on.
No comments:
Post a Comment