After Bashar's return. Is the Arab Spring over or the counter-revolution failing?

In my first book after imprisonment, titled: "The Narrative of the Arab Spring and the Stakes of Reality" – published by Dar Al-Maraya in Cairo in 2021 – I distinguished between the narrative of the Arab Spring, and the forms it takes, including uprisings in squares and streets.

There is a difference between narrative and the forms it expresses, in the first we look for the essence of the aspiration of the peoples of the region, especially young groups and women, to freedom, justice and equality. It is a general human aspiration that does not concern the peoples of the region, so I called on the Al Jazeera Net website that "O protesters of the world unite" and in it I linked neoliberalism with racism; when I imagined that by opposing the first we eliminate the second, and the struggle against racism in its heart is anti-neoliberalism.

Since the beginning of the third millennium, we have witnessed various struggles and protests, which have taken the character of waves that escalate at times and fade at other times, in which demonstrators express their anger at police brutality, corruption, crony capitalism, the arrogance of those in power and those who possess wealth, the manipulation of politics, the weakness of political institutions to represent the people and their collective marginalization, and the exacerbation of inequalities in wealth, income and opportunities... The list goes on, but what unites them is a universal human demand for dignity, justice and freedom.

Thus, the protesters unite, and we see complementarity and synergy between the issues we oppose.

The Arab Spring must be seen from a global perspective that does not concern only the peoples of the region, although the forces of the "counter-revolution" – in the region and beyond – wanted to consider it the main cause of the state of "Arab turmoil" that the region is experiencing in its wake, allowing it to be seen as an exception in everything and everything; a discourse that has become common in the Western view of us, and I fear that it has leaked into some of us.

It helped me to distinguish between the narrative of the Arab Spring – a non-stop search for freedom, justice, dignity and other human values – and the forms that this aspiration can take: uprisings, street protests, and other forms of rebellion against stable taboos in religion, family, culture, and society. It helped me realize this distinction that I got out of prison – three and a half years away – to find that the second wave of Arab uprisings still fills the streets and squares in Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq and Algeria.

The Arab Spring must be seen from a global perspective that does not concern only the people of the region, although the forces of the "counterrevolution" wanted to see it as the main cause of the "Arab turmoil" in the region in its aftermath.

The first wave was supposed to have resulted in three civil wars in Yemen, Syria and Libya, millions of displaced people, the restoration of tyranny as happened in Egypt, and the deterioration of living standards of citizens in the countries of the first wave of the Arab Spring. etc., it was supposed to consider what happened to the peoples of the countries that did not come out in the first wave and refrain from protesting and stop activism, but they did not consider or abstain, so why?

Here, I presented the concept of the "Arab intifada model", according to which we have witnessed 3 waves so far: two in 2010/2011 and 2018/2019, and the third is the Palestinian uprisings launched by the Sword of Jerusalem and are still going on until now.

The Arab uprising model has four features: the human being/secret, the complexity of reality, the specificity and different contexts of each society, and last but not least, the transition from identity ideology to pension discourses.

The Arab uprising model allowed me to argue that the narrative of the Arab Spring heralds the end of twentieth-century formulas, with a post-independence state at its core, which was founded on concepts undergoing a major transformation such as sovereignty and independence... Islamic and secular political movements that were based on totalitarian ideologies, and that we are facing new formulas that have not yet been institutionalized, have been dominated by protest and lack the crystallization of their social base that incubates and motivates them, even if they take deep value, cultural and political manifestations, what has emerged concretely is the inability of social movements or non-social movements (no matter how broad and perseverance, and even when they raise specific demands), their inability to achieve what they aspire to.

According to this perspective, the Arab Spring is an expression of a historical transformation in the region, announcing the end of the old formulas in politics, economy, culture and society, and a search for something new that has not yet crystallized. It is the announcement of the end of an era and the beginning of a new one, as the region is living in a transitional phase between the old and the new that has not yet been institutionalized. Thus, we are living through a period of "vacancy," as Sigmund Baumann put it in his book Modernity and the Holocaust, which I was able to read after being smuggled for the first time in a grave-like Scorpion prison cell.

Stability traps and the failure of the counter-revolution

In a book edited by Nawah on the occasion of a decade since the Arab Spring, my contribution was to discuss the concept of stability in relation to the Arab uprisings.

There is a growing demand from the moment of the Arab Spring explosion until now – a decade later – for stability in the Arab region from all national, regional and international actors, pushing them all to invest in it, but the competition among them over determining its content, trying to impose it and the trade-offs required for it was one of the main reasons behind what has become known as "Arab exhaustion."

The basic assumption behind this article was that: the stability that the region lacked after the Arab uprisings lies in a space where intersecting internal, regional and international factors, and that without creating common spaces in which these three levels harmonize, the region will not be established in the long run.

The Arab uprising model has four features: the human being/secret, the complexity of reality, the specificity of each society and its different contexts, and finally, the transition from identity ideology to pension discourses.

According to this perspective, I have formulated the concept of "stability traps", which means: that arena in which the contradictions of the foundations of stability - as presented by domestic, regional and international actors - accumulate and feed mainly on risks and grievances that are not addressed; Exacerbate these underlying issues that cause grievances and exacerbate risks.

This was achieved in the countries hijacked or recovered by the counter-revolution (Reconquista) in the sense of the Christian kingdoms in Andalusia, so that all these countries became closer to turmoil and instability than to the desired stability, which can be said to have failed the formulas put forward by the counter-revolutions in the region.

Let's give some examples:

• In Sudan, coups have taken place since the popular uprising against President Omar al-Bashir. So far, it has reached four: it started in 2019 against Bashir, followed by another against Awad Auf (the army chief), then against civilian Prime Minister Hamdok in October 2021, and last but not least, the events taking place now, which are the coup d'état of the two military components that led previous coups against each other.
  A wave of coups on top of each other if he takes his hand - the hand of reform - from them barely sees them, and international and regional interests intersect with personal aspirations, and a political economy based on the gold trade, a military commercial component, franchise networks and strategic services provided to regional parties, as happened in the Yemen war.
  I think that Sudan is far from stable, according to this formula, not to mention the repercussions on its people and the entire region.

• Egypt, in which tyranny was restored and increased and extended to several areas. This formula, which has been created by local, regional and international parties, has become, for several reasons, foremost of which is the severe economic crisis, the question of the future and the fear of slipping into social unrest, not to mention the state of exhaustion suffered by society, state institutions and the regime alike.
• Tunisia, hijacked by a populist and authoritarian discourse backed by regional and international powers, as well as the security services, is deepening its economic and political crisis severely. The International Crisis Group's latest briefing concludes: "His actions [meaning Kais Saied] have not yet led to widespread unrest, but without steps to restore economic stability and ease repression, the country may nevertheless face such unrest."

We can cite many examples from Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Libya, which were swept by counter-revolutions that failed to bring stability to their peoples or address their poor living conditions, so Syria, by returning to the Arab League, is heading to the same fate unless a new formula for the future is sought.

Notes on the scene

There are 3 important notes left:

• First, what we witnessed at the last Arab summit in Jeddah on May 19, 2023, is the return of Bashar al-Assad to the official Arab system, not the return of Syria to the Arabs. In the era of the Arab Spring, it was proven that Syria is bigger and wider than Assad, and that there is no complete correspondence between the orientations of Arab public opinion and its regimes, and the best example of this is normalization with the Zionist entity, as it is rejected by an overwhelming majority of the peoples of the region, despite the scramble we have witnessed on normalization agreements.
  In this article, I will not discuss the end of the foundations on which the Arab official system was built, such as the concepts of the national state, independence, and sovereignty. These concepts are now being redefined in full swing, in the sense that they cannot be talked about without renewing the state's assets, reforming its structures, and reformulating the social contracts on which it was based.
• Second: The reasons that brought the masses to the streets, such as rampant corruption, misdistribution of income, opportunities and wealth, violation of human rights and absence of freedoms, still exist, and the formulas put forward so far in the economy and politics have not addressed them, but have exacerbated them as they have been presented.
• Third, the majority of the region's peoples view the Arab Spring remains positive, despite the repercussions that took place after it and the sins attributed to it.

Polls showed that 46% of Arab public opinion viewed the revolutions and protests that took place in 2011 as positive, compared to 39% who viewed them as negative.

The results also showed that the largest mass of public opinion in the region (40%) believes that "the Arab Spring is going through a faltering phase, but it will eventually achieve its goals." While 39% supported the statement that "the Arab Spring is over, and the previous regimes are back in power."

Despite the apparent division among Arabs, this does not mean that there are sectors of it that will not seek or aspire to change in the foreseeable future.