The pandemic; the situation in our own neighbourhood and the China factor; the dramas of the Trump presidency and its end; a war in Europe have all worked to erase our memory banks about the intensity of events that enveloped a large swathe of the Arab world a decade earlier. K.P. Fabian’s book, The Arab Spring That Was and Wasn’t, captures all the dramatic force of ‘Arab Spring’ beginning with its eruption in Tunisia in 2011. It brings us more or less up to date on each of the countries that were enveloped by its civic ferment against regimes perceived as non-representative and repressive.
Protesters shout during a rally organised by the Moroccan Arab Spring movement in Casablanca, Morocco, in 2011, in a mass popular call to bring more democracy into this North African kingdom. | Photo Credit: AP
As a diplomat who has had a close interface with the region during his service career and post retirement has devoted himself to its study, Fabian is well equipped to evaluate the entire phenomenon of the Arab Spring and situate it in the wider geopolitics of the Arab world. His canvas is a wide one: Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria and the Sudan in North Africa; and Syria, Yemen and the Arabian Gulf Sheikhdoms in West Asia. The term ‘Arab Spring’, Fabian points out, was coined in the West to aggregate a diverse range of national experiences. His treatment brings out how this can obscure the different impulses operating, although there is a common thread that runs through in terms of civil society demands for greater freedom and representative government.
A supporter of the Party Democratic Progress (PDP) waves a Tunisian flag during a rally in Ariyana district, south of Tunisia, in 2011. | Photo Credit: REUTERS
Differences on the ground
Nevertheless, the differences are significant. In Tunisia and Egypt ‘Arab Spring’ was a series of popular movements against autocrats of long standing. Their initial success suggested to outside observers that something new was brewing in the Arab world and its progressive democratisation was now on the cards. This expectation of linear progress was, the book brings out, not just facile but it ignored the diversity and complexity of what lies under the general rubric of ‘Arab Spring’. In Syria, repressive measures sparked resistance and soon the country was the theatre of a major civil war in which both regional powers and countries from outside the region were equal players. The resultant humanitarian and refugee crisis this caused had an impact far beyond Syria.
In this April 1, 2011 photo, Egyptian women chant slogans as they attend a demonstration in Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt. | Photo Credit: AP
Conflict also unleashed forces of radicalisation that pushed the original impulse of seeking democratic institutions far into the background. In Libya, similarly, the principal engine of change was civil war which provided the beachhead for a successful external intervention to bring about regime change. The French and NATO intervention was cast in a narrative of advancing freedom and democracy, but it had straightforward mercenary motives which Fabian ably details. A similar complexity emerges from Yemen where the trend that played out was more a tribal and a geopolitical dynamic than any impulse towards liberal democracy. Even in Egypt the initial enthusiasm around Tahrir Square gave way to a coup that restored a system that looks a great deal like the ancient regime that the street protests initially undermined.
Bahraini demonstrators chant anti-government slogans during a march even as they wave flags of Yemen, Libya, Jordan, Egypt and Tunisia along with Bahraini flags in A’ali, Bahrain, in 2011. | Photo Credit: AP
A mixed bag
In brief the generic term ‘Arab Spring’ suggesting a clear direction of change can be misleading. The title Fabian has given to his book is therefore appropriate: The Arab Spring That Was and Wasn’t. His conclusions include the observation that possible success of at least some of these diverse movements were eroded from the start by Western powers who essentially find an absence of democracy in the Arab world more suited to their interests. But despite the numerous setbacks can ‘Arab Spring’ be termed a failure? Fabian’s answer is a resounding ‘No!’ In his words: “There was an Arab Spring that has survived in Tunisia. There was an Arab Spring that appears dead and buried in Egypt. There is an Arab Spring active in Algeria and Sudan. There is an Arab Spring dead and buried in Bahrain. There is an Arab Spring springing back to life in Libya. There is an Arab Spring in distress in Yemen.” This is a mixed bag, therefore, where the failures appear to outweigh easily the success. But perhaps a more useful way of measuring elemental change is a historical perspective and the author appears entirely consistent in reminding us of his main thesis that “Arab Spring corresponds in a way to the 1848 Revolution in Europe”. That seminal event was rolled back within a year but contributed greatly to initiating a process of reform that finally led to the cementing of democracy in many parts of Europe. The past decade in the Arab world is in fact “an unfolding unscripted drama” and we are at too incipient a stage to reach a lasting judgement on it.
The Arab Spring That Was and Wasn’t; K.P. Fabian, Indian Council of World Affairs/ Macmillan, ₹685.
The reviewer is a former Indian High Commissioner to Singapore and Pakistan.
