In his book , Robert F. Worth narrates the story of the Arab spring of uprisings and revolutions and the aftermath of these riots in different Middle Eastern and North American countries. The Arab spring refers to the period when countries in the Middle East underwent a series of unrests and protests which sought change in governance. The protests that started in Tunisia in January of the year 2011 were closely followed by similar ones in Tahrir square in Egypt where Worth himself was present. These demonstrations that demanded change spread to the rest of the Middle East creating what is now cumulatively referred to as the Arab Spring. Worth, a former correspondent, tells the story of the Arab spring through the individual stories of people who were caught up in the middle of the uprisings. He tries to focus on the human element of the revolutions and wars, in line with the idea of finding the relationship between people and politics. This is different from the view taken by other favorite books on the same issue such as Marc Lynch’s The Arab Uprising: The Unfinished Revolutions of the New Middle East, which just describes events, their aftermaths and suggests the causes of these events that occurred in the Middle East and North Africa.
Through his stories, Worth argues that while the people were united in their opposition to the old regime and their quest for change, they remained divided and had different ideas on what should come next. The revolutions were a dawn but what followed next was darkness and not the triumph that was hoped for by the people. The citizens became divided regarding race, religion and political belief. In Egypt, Worth documents the jubilation and the celebration that followed the resignation of Hosni Mubarak. The people were united by the common goal of ousting Hosni Mubarak. However, soon after, divisions emerged and the new Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohammed Morsi, was then ousted by the military and replaced by the current military ruler, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Worth notes that it is the power vacuum that resulted after the revolutions that did away with all the optimism that the Middle Eastern people had and is part of what led to the instability and civil war in countries like Libya and Yemen after these revolutions.
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Worth dispels the general belief that the wars that are in the Middle East are as a result of poorly drawn borders between the different countries and the presence of ancient hatred between various groups in the Middle East. He argues that the killings and savagery are a mere consequence of anarchy as a result of the civil war. However, the presence of different identity groups such as the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq, the Sunni and the Alawite in Syria as well as the Cyrenaicans and the Tripolitanians in Libya also played and still play a part in these killings. Civil war and the resulting anarchy causes people to have fear for their lives and those of their families and identity groups. These identity groups then live together suspicious of other groups and seek to protect themselves from the other teams and in the process perform killings which they justify as being acts of self-defense . These acts subsequently spark revenge attacks from different identity groups and lead to the constant warfare. In essence, Worth presents this war as a war of everyone against everyone. Worth uses the story of two Syrian women who had been best friends since childhood. They remained so as Syria plunged into civil war but developed hatred driven by their different identity groups (One, Noura, was a Sunni while the other, Alia, was an Alawite). To contrast this, Worth also tells the story of two power brokers from Tunisia who were brought together by their quest to prevent Tunisia from plummeting into civil war and anarchy like Syria. Their journey was successful, and this effectively saved Tunisia from becoming a failed state.
According to Worth, the long reigns of dictators in these countries weakened and deprived these nations of functional institutions. It is the absence of these organizations that worsened the situation of these countries after the ousting of the old regimes. In Libya for example, Worth proves the poor situation of state institutions by telling the story of a man named Nasser. Nasser’s had been seeking revenge on some of Gaddafi’s men for his brother who had been murdered in prison by the Gaddafi regime. Nasser and his militia capture these killers and choose to hand them over to the nominal government instead of punishing them himself. Their decision is based on ideology and trust in the set institutions. However, with the existing weak organizations in Libya, the evidence he has on the killers gets lost, and his brother’s killers are consequently set free. The poor state of agencies , whether judicial or the police ultimately led to the failure of these countries . Libya and Syria were victims of these situations. Worth, however, notes that some country such as Egypt and Yemen were lucky to sail through this problem of weak institutions.
Worth further argues that it is the resulting state of civil war and anarchy that arose from the revolutions in Libya, Yemen, and Syria that necessarily led to the rise of the Islamic State and increased its allure to the people. Worth argues that the people of the Middle East were mostly driven by their longing for countries that were governed by the rule of law and not just the quest for justice as imagined. They wanted likely and functioning systems that guide their life. This is what ISIS promised. ISIS promised to rule while strictly guided by Islamic principles and consequently deliver the warring states from their state of anarchy. Worth presents this idea through the story of a Jordanian man who was lured by ISIS’ promise and snuck into Iraq to fight for the caliphate but eventually crept back into Jordan due to the cruelty he witnessed.
In conclusion, Worth presents a solid story, brief, and fun to read yet still so informative. Worth presents history like it’s just any other form of literature. He covers the human aspect of the Arab Spring, the revolutions, and the civil wars. This is different from the older approach taken by similar books of just telling accounts of the events that occurred. He describes significant events through the personal accounts of the characters he covers to come up with a good read that is undoubtedly worth anyone’s time.
