Arab Spring

Context: K.P. Fabian’s newly launched book, ‘The Arab Spring That Was and Wasn’t’ was seen in the news recently.

About Arab Spring:

• The Arab Spring was a series of pro-democracy uprisings that enveloped several largely Muslim countries, including Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Bahrain.
• The events in these nations generally began in the spring of 2011, which led to the name.
  • However, the political and social impact of these popular uprisings remains significant today, years after many of them ended.
• When protests broke out in Tunisia in late 2010 and spread to other countries, there were hopes that the Arab world was in for massive changes.
• The expectation was that in countries where people rose, such as Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain and Syria, the old autocracies would be replaced with new democracies.
• But Tunisia is the only country where the revolutionaries outwitted the counter-revolutionaries.
  • They overthrew Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s dictatorship, and the country transitioned to a multi-party democracy.
• But except Tunisia, the country-specific stories of the Arab uprising were tragic.

Source: Indian Express