Eight Years since Arab Spring, is there Hope for Middle East Democracy?
SOURCE: BOSTON GLOBE
BY: INDIRA A.R. LAKSHMANAN
It’s been eight years since a Tunisian fruit seller, driven to desperation by corruption and police brutality, set himself alight outside the office of an official who refused to hear his complaints. His death sparked protests across the region that ousted four despots — in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen — fueling hope that democratic aspirations would topple dictators like dominoes, rewarding 400 million Arabs with political and economic freedoms. So why — outside of Tunisia — did it all go horribly wrong?
This month’s anniversary of the peaceful departure of Tunisian strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and the civil resistance in Cairo’s Tahrir Square is a reminder of the optimism that infused the stirrings of the Arab Spring. We were told — or wanted to believe — the Arab world would go the way of Eastern Europe after the Berlin Wall, would democratize like Latin America after the military juntas.
The conditions weren’t the same; in many Arab countries, there were few functioning institutions, rule of law was scant, and organized democratic political opposition was nonexistent. Where European nations got NATO membership as entree to a military alliance and a club for democracy, there were no such institutions for the Middle East. Where Latin American nations had generous packages from Washington and international financial institutions and positive role models in the Organization of American States, not so for the Arab world.