Op-Ed: Is the Failed Experiment of the Arab Spring Still Valuable for Protesters?
By: Salah-Dean Satouri
Word Count: 998
In late 2010, Mohammad Bouazizi lit himself aflame in a righteous act of protest against
the oppressive regime of Zine Abidine Ben Ali, setting off the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring
was a series of pro-democracy protests that began in Tunisia and spread across the Arab World.
According to Emad El-Din Shahin, protesters across the region were motivated by economic and
political grievances, such as high youth unemployment, corruption, income inequality, and
authoritarianism, culminating in an unrelenting grassroots movement. As a Tunisian-American, I
was able to experience firsthand the change over time in the country's landscape, psychology,
and politics before and after the revolution. Almost overnight, the banners of Ben Ali that rested
on the sides of historical landmarks and billboards were ripped apart and graffitied in a decisive
stand of resistance.
However, ten years later, it is clear that robust political change cannot be sustained purely
on revolutionary excitement. Many states that were home to Arab Spring protests devolved into
civil war, relapsed into autocratic regimes, or failed to depose their respective dictators. By
focusing on Egypt and Tunisia, two countries that overthrew their longtime dictators: Ben Ali in
Tunisia and Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, I will highlight three critical characteristics that future
protestors can implement to best overthrow their dictators. At the risk of being incomplete, this
discussion will not focus on consolidating democracy after a revolution, just the process of massinduced regime change. Although I will be discussing the Egyptian and Tunisian cases together,
I acknowledge that they are not identical. Nevertheless, by analyzing them together, the
subsequent analysis’s explanatory power will be broadened and provide more complete lessons
for protesters.
1. Power of the Street
One of the most important factors that made the Tunisian and Egyptian revolution
successful was that they were bolstered by a remarkably large number of protesters regardless of
class, religion, or ideology. These protests proved, as MIT economist Daron Acemoglu noted,
the ‘power of the street.’ In both cases, the once perceived to be infallible autocrats were not
defeated by the elites or violent action but by the people. The size of the demonstrations lowered
individuals’ revolutionary threshold and made the protesters’ demands unignorable. Jeff
Goodwin argued that, once the protests began in the south of Tunisia, a “revolutionary
bandwagon” formed, and the perception of risk for individuals to protest against the autocratic
government lowered. The bandwagon occurred due to the salient structural grievances, the fervor
of the protests, and the use of traditional and social media. It must be noted that the Tunisian and
Egyptian revolutions were watershed movements that resulted from decades of psychologically
degrading authoritarian rule. As a result, the powerful mobilization witnessed during the Arab
Spring is unlikely to occur without widespread resentment that crosses demographic, political,
and economic boundaries.
Nevertheless, one can learn from the ability of Tunisians and Egyptians to mobilize by
utilizing their networks and their refusal to alienate certain groups in the protest. According to
Amira Aleya-Schaier, Tunisians and Egyptians created solidarity with their community and
mobilized quickly by tugging on their social networks and steering clear of potentially alienating
ideology. Instead, they focused on widespread grievances that resonated with people of different
religions, classes, and sex. As a result, both countries made the protests more accessible and
created sympathy for each other’s united cause: to depose the dictator.
2. Power of the Flower
Another important lesson from the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions concerns the power
of controlling the discourse. Although both movements were spontaneous and lacked centralized
leadership, they were not without strategy. The protests in Tunisia and Egypt were characterized
by overwhelmingly peaceful means, including marches, sit-ins, and roadblocks. Their “weapons
were their voices,” and it manifested itself in unifying slogans that focused on the general
demands of the protesters. For example, “Ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām,” often translated as,
“the people want to bring down the regime,” became a rallying cry for protesters of all
backgrounds and laid out the protests’ expressed goal—moreover, the nonviolent strategy and
unifying demands allowed for a broad base of support. The ‘power of the flower1’ refers to the
viral photographs of protesters giving flowers to security forces, who throughout the
demonstrations used violent means. These photos projected a stark dissonance between the nonviolent protesters and the violent regimes, creating a ‘good v. evil’ dichotomy. Consequently,
this dichotomy generated sympathy within the international community and domestic
institutions, such as the military. Furthermore, both movements deliberately attempted to limit
divisive rhetoric, such as refraining from the use of religious slogans, in an effort to control the
discourse, attract a broader base, and limit the regime’s ability to characterize the protesters as a
specific entity, such as radical Islamists.
3. Power in the Façade
Another critical facet of both the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions was their ability to
hold a mirror up to their respective authoritarian regimes. Close relations with the West bolstered
the regimes of Ben Ali and Mubarak; thus, they “found themselves forced to behave in a manner
broadly acceptable to their Western patrons.” This meant that they were forced to set-up façade
democracies that rhetorically embraced liberal democratic values, but in reality, never intended
to live up to them. These hypocritical claims of democracy would ultimately be leveraged
against them and be used to take down the regime during the Arab Spring. Protesters in Tunisia
and Egypt attempted to hold leaders accountable by “pointing to discrepancies between rhetoric
and reality.” Furthermore, when millions took to the streets to protest against their dictator, an
‘iron cage of liberalism’ was formed, which trapped autocrats within their rhetoric, allowed the
protesters a focal point, and forced the West to sympathize with their demands. Non-violent
protests are not intrinsically effective but can constitute an existential threat when coupled with
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the ‘iron cage of liberalism.’ Future protesters should thus aim to expose and utilize the rhetoric
of a particular regime against itself to rally support and put pressure on the autocrat.