Essay 1: Comparing and Contrasting the Arab Uprisings in Libya, Syria and Yemen
Scholars such as Lynch, Freelon, and Aday (2014) argue that despite the geographical locations of Libya, Syria, and Yemen, these countries share an unusually intense degree of transnational linkages cited to be responsible for the unity, diffusion of ideas, procedures, practices, and actions from one country to another. Despite significant similarities between these countries, differences also exist between then and understanding their role in the outset and aftermath of the uprising is crucial. According to Gelvin (2015), the Arab World is a geographical expanse of twenty-two states in which the populations whose dominant language is Arabic, and identify with the Arab culture live. Libya, Syria, and Yemen belong to this world where the majority of the populations are Muslims, but this is not to say there is homogeneity. Muslims are divided into major branches of Shi’is and Sunnis with each having unique sets of beliefs, traditions, and rituals, a divide that in some instances has been exploited by leaders in the Islamic world (Gelivn, 2015). However, there are other groups. For instance, Yemen has a substantial number of Shi’is, Libya is mostly Sunnis, and Syria is ruled by the group from the Alawet sect that comprises 13% of the country’s population.
The rise of Islamic State (IS) played a significant role in advancing the Arab Spring uprising, but it is the outcomes of the aftermath that truly reflect the predicament of Libya, Syria, and Yemen. According to Cordesman (2016), rebuilding these countries requires redress of the factors that caused the uprising in the first place, which evidence shows to have worsened since the uprisings ended, through stable internal politics and leadership and international aid. For instance, Libya, which has a population of 6.4 million comprising mostly of youth (median age 28 years), is 79.7% urbanized, but has unemployment rate of 30% with 48% among the youth. In 2014, 33% of Libyans lived below poverty lines, a situation exacerbated by significant drops in GDP and percapita income due to the effect of civil war on oil exports, which is the main economy driver (Cordesman, 2016). In addition, the transition of economy from Qaddafi to the propositioned socialist model has encountered obstacles, compounding the very situation that was the cause of the uprising as access to clean water, medical services, safe housing, and other amenities is at a record low.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
In Yemen, tribal conflicts (Houthis vs. Hadi) that led to the uprising have transitioned into civil war in the aftermath. The revolution led to a failed transition implying that the country was unable to address preexisting political, social, and economic issues that continue to worsen. Yemen has a population of 27 million mostly comprising of youth (median age 19 year), with overall unemployment at 27% and 37% among the youth. As at 2014, 54% of the population lived below the poverty line, evidence by 40% of children being underweight as per the pre-war figures (Cordsmen, 2016). The figures underline the sorry state of the country that led to the uprising. The country’s sharp growth in population has always been a cause for concern because of the poverty levels, lack of economic development, limited water, and dependence on a narco-economy, issues which the current administration has failed to address.
The political, economic, and social situations in Syria are no different, compounded by what has come to be termed as the “Kurdish problem” because the enclave receives the backing of the; and the Sunni-Shi’ite tensions US (Gelvin, 2015). According to Cordsmen (2016), Syria had a population of 22-24 million, which has been reduced to 17.1 million (median age 23) following the civil war. All sectors have suffered immensely as the economy plummeted. As at 2014, unemployment stood at 57% with 82% of the population living below the poverty line. However, it is important to note that Syria, in contrast to Libya and Yemen, was on the path to prosperity with religious and ethnic groups working collaboratively. However, the economic developments suffered a brutal halt following the crippling drought that hit the country between 2006 and 2009. The agricultural sector was the most affected, and as effects trickled to other areas of economy, they fueled the rebellion against Assad’s regime.
Libya, Syria, and Yemen are classified as developing countries with low economic indices, a predicament which Gelvin (2015) attributed to being victims of authoritarian leadership that is dominant in the Arab world. The political systems in these countries before the uprisings were defined by corrupt and aging leaders who exerted power to stifle civic and economic opportunities and treated the countries as personal fiefdoms. According to Gelvin (2015) Libya, Syria, and Yemen uprisings were inspired by the success of the Egyptian case, a situation made possible by the fact that the Arab identity remains as strong as ever as evidenced through aspects preference of Aljazeera as the news channels and widespread of American activities in the Arab world. According to Lynch (2012), the shared cultural, social, political, and economic spaces across Libya, Syria, and Yemen and other Arab countries enhanced the spread of expectations for victory against incumbent regimes as seen through use of similar tactics in seizing and holding central squares and phrases calling for downfall of the regime.
The influence of international bilateral relations varied from country to another in the wake of the uprising. In Yemen, the US, the Gulf Cooperation Council, the United Nations, and Saudi-association of monarchies brokered a deal to have president Sale step down. However, Libya witnessed a violet uprising that thousands of people lose their lives in the civil war, prompting NATO to provide military support to the rebels in a bid to protect civilians, a move that culminated in the capture and murder of Qaddafi (Gelvin, 2015). In Syria, the situation was compounded by the complex political climate involving the Islamic state. As a result, the early uprising in Syria was modeled after those of other countries in the region in an effort to present it as civic, non-sectarian, and non-Islamist with the hope of attracting international support as was the case in Libya (Lynch, Freelon, & Aday, 2014), instead, the uprising has transformed into one of the deadliest civil wars attracting global attention to the predicament of the Arab world.
Essay 2: Comparing and Contrasting the Arab Uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia
Tunisia is heralded as the birthplace of uprisings in the Arab world, and unlike Egypt, it provided an alternative for examining the profound influence from the rule of Islamists (Al Sharif, 2013). The success in Tunisia serves as a case study for the role of political Islam in the contemporary modern Arab world. It is important to understand that in Tunisia and Egypt, the uprisings were successful in employing peaceful demonstrations to unseat two authoritarian presidents in Zine Al Abidine Bin Ali and Hosni Mubarak respectively because even though chaos erupted in their wake, they never led to civil war as was the case in other affected countries in the Arab world.. According to Beissinger, Jamal, and Mazur (2013), theories have been advanced by scholars and commentators alike that the uprisings in the two countries were outcomes of chronic unemployment among the youth, demands for civil rights by activists and liberalists, deteriorating political and economic environments. Surveys have been conducted by Arab Barometer to prove or discredit these theories, and the findings indicate that despite the difference in outcomes, uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt had more or less the same motivations with the middle class noted to comprise a significant percentage of participants in both cases.
Egypt being the most populous country in the Arab world has an estimated population of 100 million, compared to Tunisia’s population of 10.6 million, and is six times larger. These factors have a direct impact on political and economic wellbeing of the citizens. Gelvin observed that during the uprising, the World Bank classified 80% of population in Tunisia as middle class; while in Egypt more than 40% of the population lived in less than $2 per day. The implication of these findings is that they prove Tunisians were wealthier than Egyptians and their GDP was twice that of Egypt, in addition to most of their country being urbanized. However, during the uprisings, demonstrators in Tunisia and Egypt shouted “Degage!” and “Irhal!” French and Arabic for “Get Out!” respectively (Gelvin, 2015, p. 39). Nevertheless, Tunisia and Egypt share a number of characteristics that might have influenced the outcome of the uprising.
Worth revisiting is the existence of Muslim factions, but Gelvin (2015) observed that Tunisia and Egypt are relatively homogenous, having 98% and 90% population of Sunni respectively. One can argue that these compositions influence the start and aftermath of the uprising. According to Al Sharif (2015), the Muslim Brotherhood came to existence in the two countries post the uprising. However, despite charting their own course in transitioning to democracy, public resentment emerged as fears of the Islamic rule elevated, coupled with the worsening economic climate and attempts to impose a religious state. As a result, violence broke out between proponents and opposition of the grand design of the international Muslim Brotherhood movement. Nevertheless, Tunisia was under Islamists rule, and opted for dialogue informed by the predicament of Egypt, where even the use of military failed to stop relentless efforts by the public to extricate Muslim Brotherhood from the public domain. The contextual differences do not understate the fact that both uprisings were aimed at the authoritarian leadership that is a common phenomenon in the Arab world.
Uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have been branded “Twitter Revolution” because of the widespread use of social media as a conduit for sourcing and routing information (Lotan, Graeff, Ananny et al. , 2011). However, the decision by the Egyptian government to disconnect internet in the wake of the revolution, to some extent, points towards the authoritarian approach by the leadership to stifle freedoms and rights of its citizens. As note by Gelvin (2016), authoritarian leadership is a dominant phenomenon in the Arab world, and links the type of governments to the weak state of countries that gives leaders the autonomy to administrate as they deem fit. Historically, authoritarian governments have been known to perpetuate ethnic, religious, and economic exclusion, creating distrust among large segments of elite populace. In most circumstances, these governments have limited capacity to respond to humanitarian crises, show disinterest in responding to issues among marginalized groups and regions of their countries, and cannot provide alternative jobs for people who move because of dependence agriculture or mining. Therefore, in such countries, any significant factor such as increase in food prices, severe drought, or extreme floods serve as a recipe for people to direct their anger towards the authoritarian regime. Uprising in Tunisia and Egypt were outcomes of these developments, usually in the background because focus is on groups perpetrating the revolutions.
References
Al Sharif, O. (2013, Oct). Egypt and Tunisia: A tale of two uprisings. Gulf News. Retrieved 23/04/2017 from: http://gulfnews.com/opinion/thinkers/egypt-and-tunisia-a-tale-of-two-uprisings-1.1241739.
Beissinger, M., Jamal, A., & Mazur, K. (2013, Apr). The anatomy of protest in Egypt and Tunisia. Foreign Policy (The Middle East Channel). Retrieved 23/04/2017 from: http://foreignpolicy.com/2013/04/15/the-anatomy-of-protest-in-egypt-and-tunisia/.
Cordesman, A. H. (2016, Aug). U.S. wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen: What are the endstates? Center for Strategic & International Studies – CSIS. Retrieved 25/04/2017 from: https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-wars-iraq-syria-libya-and-yemen-what-are-endstates.
Gelvin, J. L. (2015). The Arab uprisings: what everyone needs to know . Oxford University Press, USA.
Lotan, G., Graeff, E., Ananny, M., Gaffney, D., & Pearce, I. (2011). The Arab Spring| the revolutions were tweeted: Information flows during the 2011 Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions. International journal of communication , 5 , 31.
Lynch, M. (2012). The Arab uprising: The unfinished revolutions of the new Middle East . PublicAffairs.
Lynch, M., Freelon, D., & Aday, S. (2014). Syria in the Arab Spring: The integration of Syria’s conflict with the Arab uprisings, 2011–2013. Research & Politics , 1 (3), 2053168014549091.
