Cairo (Abi) – Is this real?
All of these have been completely destroyed, and there has been so much bloodshed and destruction in the last decade. The idea that millions of people in the Middle East are on the streets for a moment wanting freedom and change seems like a nostalgia for love.
“It simply came to our notice then. It was very brief, ”said Badr Elbendari, an Egyptian activist.
When Elbendery was blindfolded on the third day of his country’s uprising in 2011, security forces shot him in the face. It happened during a clash between Egypt’s “revolutionaries” and ended with police scattering as protesters and police fought for hours on a bridge over the Nile in Cairo.
Today, he is in the United States. He cannot return home. Many of his comrades have been imprisoned in Egypt since the protests.
In December 2010, the uprising began in Tunisia and spread rapidly from country to country in revolts against longtime dictators. It was known as the Arab Spring, but those who took to the streets called it a “revolution.”
The uprisings were more than the removal of the dictators. At their heart, they were a voice for better governance and economies, the rule of law, greater rights and, above all, how they treat their countries.
For a time after 2011, the upsurge towards those dreams seemed irreversible. Now they are more than ever. Believers believe that longing is real and will last – or that people around the Arab world will struggle with bad economies and severe oppression. Eventually, they say, it will re-emerge.
“We have subdued our dreams,” said Syrian doctor Amani Pallur, who ran an underground clinic outside the Damascus to treat casualties in the opposition in Kota until it collapsed in 2018 under a long, brutal siege by Syrian government forces. He was expelled by other residents to northwestern Syria, from where he fled the country.
“The spirit of the protests may be over now … but for all those affected by the war, from the regime’s repression, they will not abide by it,” he said from Germany. “Even in areas controlled by the regime, great frustration and anger develop among the people.”
The “end” may be years.
The region has been shocked and exhausted by the most devastating decade of the modern era, the most devastating in centuries.
Across Syria, Yemen and Iraq, millions of people have lost their homes in the war and are struggling to find a livelihood, educate their children or feed themselves. In those countries and in Libya, armed groups are proliferating, raising money and recruiting young people to find some other way. Poverty rates are high in the region, especially due to the corona virus outbreak.
There is a decade to explore why activists and analysts made mistakes.
The secular liberals have failed to present a coherent front or leadership. Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood exaggerated their hand. For decades the authoritarian regime has failed to advance into a powerful mobilization or political force by neutral labor organizations. It is no coincidence that there were strong labor and professional movements in some countries, including Tunisia and Sudan.
The international scene was set against the uprisings. The United States and Europe were confused by their responses and torn between their rhetoric of supporting democracy, their interest in stability, and their concerns about Islamists. In the end, they often asked the latter.
The Gulf monarchies used oil wealth to cover up any revolutionary wave and reactionary forces. Russia, Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates are sending their own troops or armed units to wars in the region.
In the end, some expect how broadly some leaders are willing to open the gates of hell to retain power.
Bashar Assad of Syria proved to be very ruthless. In the face of the armed uprising, he and his Russian and Iranian allies destroyed cities, and he used chemical weapons against his own people, defending his rule by pushing back the central and major cities of Syria.
In Yemen, the strong Ali Abdullah Saleh faced protests in late 2011. But he soon sought to regain power by forming an alliance with his longtime rival Iranian-backed Shiite Houthi rebels. Together, they captured the capital and northern Yemen and dragged Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states into a US-backed government-recovery campaign.
The resulting civil war was catastrophic, killing tens of thousands and starving people to the worst humanitarian catastrophe in the world. Saleh was killed when he suspected that the Houthis had turned them away.
In Libya, the United States and European nations have retreated following the bombing that helped oust Gaddafi. The oil-rich Mediterranean nation continued to plummet immediately into a continuing civil war. Over the years, several local militias, including units of the old National Army, al-Qaeda, the Islamic State group, Russian mercenaries and Turkish-backed Syrian fighters, have been at least two – at one point three – rival claimant governments.
Europe’s top priority is to prevent the flow of African migrants from Libya across the Mediterranean. Thus, Libya has become a terrible impasse to see thousands of men and women trying to immigrate from Central and East Africa locked up and tortured.
The Syrian civil war renamed the former Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda as the Islamic State group, which was a theater. From there it announces the creation of an Islamic “caliphate” across Syria and part of Iraq – opening up another war that has wreaked havoc in Iraq.
In Egypt, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi often points to the ruins surrounding the region, one of his key claims for legitimacy – “without me, chaos.”
L-Sissy has taken the lesson since 2011, and even the slightest opening gives a foothold to turmoil, often saying he needs sustainability as he transforms the economy. This is an argument that resonates not only with the wars in Syria and Libya, but also with the turmoil in Egypt many years after the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
The result is the suppression of dissent beyond what is seen under Mubarak. The crushing of the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists included a brutal attack on a settlement, which killed hundreds. In recent years, his government has arrested secular activists and others, often presenting them in terrorist courts.
Yet, even with much of the era in the Arab Spring, uprisings for change are erupting.
Mass demonstrations spread in Lebanon and Iraq in late 2019 and early 2020, a rally demanding the removal of the entire ruling class.
In Sudan, protesters ousted longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir. They have learned a lesson since 2011 and have continued their protests, trying to oust the military from power. They were only partially successful.
Those uprisings point to how the aspirations of the early uprisings resonate around the region. But for now, even the increasing change often seems too much to believe.
Rami Yacoub, who was involved in Egypt’s struggles and post – revolutionary politics in the harsh days after Mubarak’s fall, said, “Before I die, my dream is to see less torture, fewer arrests and a real, better economy.” .
“It’s as realistic as I can be.”
“Change does not happen overnight. I do not want to say that the French Revolution took decades, but it did. This will not happen in a year or two, ”said Yakub, who now heads the Tahrir Institute for the Middle East in Washington.
Some enthusiasts have turned to improving themselves, studying, developing skills, and avoiding frustration.
Elbendari regained partial vision in one eye – he said it stunned him after he became accustomed to blindness. Over the years since his departure from Egypt, he has been doing consulting work on community organizing, policy research, independent media development and conflict resolution around the region. A brief visit to Egypt in late 2018 and early 2019 made it clear that his stay was not safe.
Now in Washington, he is being deported. He celebrates his rise by saying “my rebirth” on his Twitter bio. There is hope with generations who will one day gain knowledge that will benefit their homeland.
But when?
With so much hope for so many years, he said – not for real change, “for a small opening, a small margin where we can breathe.”