Revisiting the ‘Tahrir Moment’

The Arabs have predominantly been termed as unique though not in an exemplary sense.  They were regarded as the typical ‘Other’ and their existence which has been the subject/theme of various debates has often been labelled as ‘predicament’,  ‘despair’,  ‘impasse’,  ‘lost opportunities’,    and ‘malaise.’  The euphemism for Arabs was ‘deficit’,’ which included deficits in the realm of education, infrastructure, technology, governance and in the domain of women’s empowerment. These accounts ignored the fact that Arabs had been agitating for their rights as citizens for generations. However, cultural preconceptions and political partiality impeded the ability to comprehend the scale of this cynicism. The Arabs were not an exception but the resilience of their rulers was exceptional. The symbolic initiation of the Arab uprisings of December 2010 in Tunisia and the fall of Ben Ali’s regime was hailed by many as the end of Arab exceptionalism but to the sceptics, it was a case of Tunisian exceptionalism. The ouster of Hosni Mubarak, the swift nature and the broad sweep of the protests in the Arab world appeared to indicate the contrary, perhaps signifying that the focus on the Arab world was not for reasons of war or terror but due to a widespread allegiance to and recognition of liberty (Filiu, 2011:5&16). It seemed to suggest the moment of a revolution.

As Alper Dede succinctly sums it while questioning ‘revolution as a means for change’ in the context of the Arab uprisings of 2010-2011, “ Besides several structural factors such as the overall inefficiency of the governments in the region, high rates of unemployment and under employment, mass poverty, authoritarianism, and lack of democracy, two additional factors fuelled the uprisings and exacerbated the situation in the countries:1) the availability of modern means of communication, and 2) the well-educated young masses’ high levels of frustration as a result of stagnancy and inefficiency of the regimes whose only purpose was to maintain the status quo. Without these two factors, the large-scale uprisings on the Arab streets would not have been possible” (Dede, 2011:23). Eric Chaney holds the enfeebling of the historical institutions by way of ‘education,’ ‘secularization’ and ‘external influences’ responsible for the democratic insufficiency and therefore for the Arab uprisings (Chaney, 2012:363-414).

Maryam Jamshidi, in his book The Future of the Arab Spring: Civic Entrepreneurship in Politics, Art, and Technology Startups, argues that the conventional interpretations of ‘revolution,’ ‘ideology’ and ‘democracy’ require a reappraisal in the context of the Arab uprisings.  He contends that there has been, “1) an overly historicized depiction of “revolution;” 2) a definition of “ideology” that is limited to political, religious, or economic dogmas; 3) a reading of “democracy” that relies primarily on the ballot box and excludes social justice issues” (Jamshidi,2014:23).  For Jamshidi, who has emphasised on what he terms as the ‘civic entrepreneurship’ aspect of the Arab uprisings, it is the ‘evolving nature,’ the ‘fluidity’ and ‘subjectivity’ of what constitutes and does not constitute a revolution that is more appropriate to an analysis of the Arab revolts. The Arab uprisings possessed elements of ‘popular involvement’ and ‘progress’ as the protests were initiated at the grassroots level and had extensive popular support. In an ideological sense, the Arab uprisings incorporated a discourse, which encompassed an array of ‘beliefs,’ and varied, competing perspectives, akin to a ‘code of ethics,’ which continues to mould the happenings in the region (Jamshidi, 2014:23).

The clarion call for ‘dignity’ best symbolised the ‘paradigm shift’ in ‘thinking,’ along with the demands for justice—social, political and economic, cutting across ethnic, religious divides, vividly described by Omar Kamel, an Egyptian activist, “[W]e had experienced an Egypt that we had never dared imagine; one in which we could all stand together whether rich or poor, educated or illiterate, religious or secular. No matter what our political ideologies might have been, we formed a community of individuals that cared deeply for one another, one in which you knew that the man or woman standing next to you, whose name you did not happen to know, would risk his or her life to save yours” (Kamel, 2013:29). As a concluding point, as far as democracy is concerned, the Arab uprisings with its focus on “Bread, Freedom, and Dignity,” symbolised a demand for a distinctive, participatory form of democracy where political rights, economic opportunities and social justice are intrinsically interconnected (Jamshidi, 2014:40-41).

The revolts of the so called ‘Arab Spring,’ which was initiated in December 2010, galvanized the masses across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) to overthrow the hitherto unchallenged autocrats.  As the dissection and analysis of the uprisings began, the question that arose was what would be the enduring repercussions— a fresh and constructive chapter for the region or a fleeting pause from the authoritarian past. The evaluation of the accomplishments of the Arab uprisings has mainly focussed on political and socio-economic indicators, so the emphasis has been on the multiple economic crises, the emergence of the Islamist parties, enhanced sectarianism, issues that have overwhelmed many countries in the aftermath of the upheavals. A different methodology could be productive, one which looks at the phenomenal rise in ingenious clusters, movements, organizations, start-ups, and other enterprises shaped by people at the grassroots levels to address countless political, social, economic and cultural concerns.

There has been a paradigm shift in terms of the proliferation of such groups who have contributed to what can be termed as ‘civic entrepreneurism’, — a citizen propelled endeavour to activate groups to react to opportunities or calamities for the sake  of  enhancing collective good. It is believed that the civic entrepreneurship aspect of the Arab uprisings comprised the emergence of protest movements and generated novel approaches to political mobilization and popular resistance, encouraged the formation of new clusters and groupings equipped to deal with local matters and generate civic involvement in regional countries and though evolved at the grassroots, they could have bearings at the national and regional level (Jamshidi, 2014:1-2). The inability to live a dignified life compelled the people of the Arab world to protest and it is the absence of dignity which facilitates the continuance of protest movements. Tahrir gave way to the phenomena of a ‘New’ Egypt, which quintessentially underlines the novel forms of protests that exist alongside the resurgent, overriding state, concurrently, confronting and resisting its dominant ways. As the ‘deep state’ becomes ingrained, protests acquire deeper connotations.

Priya

25/3/2018

References

Chaney, Eric. (2012). ‘Democratic change in the Arab world, past and present’, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, 42(1):363-414.

Dede, Alper Y. (2011). ‘The Arab Uprisings: Debating the “Turkish Model”’, Insight Turkey, 13 (2):23

Filiu, Jean-Pierre. (2011). The Arab Revolution: Ten Lessons from the Democratic Uprising New York: Oxford University Press.

Jamshidi, Maryam. (2014). The Future of the Arab Spring: Civic Entrepreneurship in Politics, Art, and Technology Startups Oxford & San Francisco: Butterworth-Heinemann.

Kamel, Omar. (2013). ‘The Once and Future Egypt’, BRICS Post, January 24. Cited in Maryam Jamshidi, The Future of the Arab Spring: Civic Entrepreneurship in Politics, Art, and Technology Startups: 29.