Today, Explained - The Arab Spring, 10 years later

Episode Date: February 4, 2021

Ten years ago, a Tunisian fruit vendor set himself on fire and set off a revolution across the Middle East and North Africa. The Independent’s Borzou Daragahi says the Arab Spring never ended. Transcript at vox.com/todayexplained. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The all-new FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino is bringing you more action than ever. Want more ways to follow your faves? Check out our new player prop tracking with real-time notifications. Or how about more ways to customize your casino page with our new favorite and recently played games tabs. And to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals. Get more everything with FanDuel Sportsbook and Casino. Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600.

Visit connectsontario.ca. One day in December of 2010, December 17th, a young fruit vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi in central Tunisia got into a spat with a cop and the cop ordered him to close his fruit vending stand. And, you know, in a sort of act of desperation and humiliation, he poured gasoline on himself and set himself on fire in just sort of abject desperation at his plight. And he didn't die right away. He lingered on for weeks. But his plight and what he did inspired protests across Tunisia. They kept growing and growing and growing. The president of Tunisia back then, a thug named Zina Badin Ben Ali,

he tried to placate the people. He made speeches. He visited Mohamed Bouazizi in the hospital. That picture was shocking. You could see nothing of Bouazizi. He was surrounded by band-aids like a mummy. Eventually, Mohamed Bouazizi died from his injuries, and the revolution grew in Tunisia,

and eventually the military pulled the plug on him. They refused to intervene in protests. He fled to Saudi Arabia. I think, like, the majority of the Tunisian people, we were in disbelief. It was the first time an Arab dictator had been toppled by his own people. And that was it. That was the sort of spark, that was the first actual revolution,

popular uprising in the Arab world in memory. You know, like not a coup, not a sort of palace machination, not a foreign invasion, but actual people's uprising leading to the ouster of a dictatorship. And then 11 days later, there was a call for protests in Cairo, in Egypt, demanding freedom, justice, and bread. On coinciding with police day, it was a day of protests that no one thought would amount to much. Even the people who were involved in it were doubtful that people would turn out but it just, it caught like wildfire. People are gathering in the largest demonstrations against President Hosni Mubarak.

The people want to overthrow the regime. The people want to overthrow the regime, or the people demand the fall of the regime. And that was really when it captured the imagination of the world. Listeners will recall the Tahrir Square uprising in central Cairo, where the protesters took control of the center of the city. There were days and days of protests, and eventually... In these difficult circumstances that the country is passing through,

President Mohammad Hosni Mubarak has decided to step down from his post as president of the republic. The military pulled the plug on him, and he resigned from office. Listen to that crowd. That's what they've been waiting for. Hosni Mubarak has gone. Listen to that crowd. That's what they've been waiting for.

Hosni Mubarak has gone. The whole idea of Egyptians just being submissive and worshipping their pharaoh for this, it's just, you know, no one can ever, ever say this again. I am so proud. I am so proud. And that really inspired revolutions across North Africa and other parts of the Middle East. Eventually, you had uprisings in Libya. A year ago, protesters in the eastern port of Benghazi called for a day of rage against the rule of dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Yemen.

Hundreds of anti-government demonstrators have marched through the Yemeni capital of Sana'a to call on President Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down. Bahrain. Zain al-Abidin down. Mubarak down. Al-KhalifaAbidin, down. Mubarak, down. Al-Khalifa, down. Down, down.

In Syria, a month later, in March of 2011. Residents there are unfazed in their attempt to rid themselves of President Bashar al-Assad's government. You had protest movements in Morocco. In the capital Rabat, at least 4,000 turned out to call on King Mohammed to give up some of his powers. Along with constitutional reforms, they want political prisoners released and a clampdown on government corruption. You had calls for change in Saudi Arabia, and many people forget about that, in the United Arab Emirates even. And this was a tidal wave across the Arab world. And even, people won't remember this, but I remember this, even in Iran, which is not part of the Arab world, but part of the Middle East,

there was protests in solidarity with the protesters of the Arab Spring against the regime in Tehran for months and months after what happened here. My name is Mariam Al-Khawaja, and I am a human rights defender from Bahrain. We started organizing as soon as Tunisia and Egypt happened. We started organizing and pushing for people to, and campaigning to push for people to take to the streets in Bahrain. But I took part in the uprising,

witnessed quite a bit of horrific violence from the government towards the protesters, and towards the end of February, I left the country to testify in Geneva at the UN Human Rights Council and to do several talks before what I thought was going back to Bahrain. But of course, by that point, the more heavy-handed crackdown had started. The Saudi troops and the Emirati troops had already arrived in Bahrain, and the crackdown where thousands of people were arrested and tortured began, including my father, my brothers-in-law, some of my cousins, my uncle, and so on. And so I realized that at that point, I could not go back. All of these different uprisings had very similar reasons for why people took to the streets.

And in Bahrain, it was no different. It started out with people demanding the implementation of the promise that the self-acclaimed king had made in 2001, which was the restoration of the 1973 constitution, which gives people a real parliament. And once they started killing people on the streets for making that demand, the demand changed to regime change, as it did with many other movements in the region. I think one of the things that's very frustrating

about the 10-year anniversary is that we continue 10 years later to have prisoners of conscience who are in prison for almost 10 years now. My father will have been in prison for 10 years in April, who were severely tortured, who continue to be harassed and intimidated and abused in prison. And unfortunately, the international community has not stepped up in its responsibility and its role to provide an adequate response for the protection and promotion of human rights as they say they should, especially for countries like Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, where because they are allied with the United States, because they are allied with the United Kingdom, they pretty much get a blank check when it comes to accountability or rather lack thereof. And so my father was sentenced to life along with

several others under so-called anti-terrorism charges, which of course has been used as a tool to target human rights defenders and civil society across the region and beyond since the so-called war on terror that was started by the United States. That's basically the reason my father sits in a prison cell today. I mean, it's a really dark situation right now. And, you know, I just have to say one caveat. It's like a dark situation everywhere in the world right now.

Regardless, just because of the, I mean, unless you're in like Australia or New Zealand, it is like a dark situation everywhere in the world right now, regardless, just because of the, I mean, unless you're in like Australia or New Zealand, it is not a fun time these days. So it's hard to tell where the misery over the Arab Spring starts and where the misery over like COVID and economic collapse starts. But in general, the situation in the Arab world, in these countries that, you know, experienced a revolution, even in Tunisia, which is sort of billed as the success story of the Arab Spring, because it didn't end up in either a military dictatorship or a civil war, there's widespread discontent. And, you know, if you Google it on the news right now you'll find word of protests in Tunisia to this day right now big protests against the government against corruption and against

police brutality which is the sort of sad part they haven't overcome that and then it just goes down from there you look at Libya civil war and separation you look look at Syria, just a nightmare scenario of the dictatorship on the one side and chaos on the other. Yemen, civil war. Egypt, military dictatorship. The Gulf states, tightening authoritarianism. You know, just like very little signs of hope in the Arab world right now. My name is Muhammad Ali Abdullah. I am the senior advisor for the internationally recognized government in Libya for U.S. affairs. My overall feeling is a sense of disappointment, frustration, because I think a lot of us were falsely expecting the change to be a lot easier than what it's proven to be. It is a lot more difficult to govern than it is to be in the opposition. I've come to learn that, you know, the objective behind change sometimes unifies people just because the enemy or the, you know, the obstacle

in front of us is the same. However, the intents and the purpose behind driving for that change is always different. And that comes to surface, you know, once the change is done, you know, people meet at a crossroads to where you find yourself aligned with people that you normally wouldn't have been and vice versa. One, you know, simple example for where that's really been a test is that one of the reasons why we objected and were opposed to Gaddafi was for the widespread corruption and dysfunctional form of government that he was running. After the revolution, a lot of the same individuals who were believers in this opposition to Gaddafi took part in the systematic corruption. As a matter

of fact, tenfold the level of corruption that we saw during the Gaddafi regime was carried out by those who were at one, were his opposers. It's a test. I find myself today aligned with individuals who actually worked with the Qaddafi regime and were a part of his government, just because I've learned that these individuals are actually aiming for, you know, have the same endgame. They have the same objective. They have the same will to be able to drive and achieve a better life for Libyans and a stable Libya,

a fair and just Libya that provides its citizens a better quality of life. Well, I got to say, from my point of view, as someone who, you know, sort of spoke with and befriended these people, I lived in Egypt for four years after the uprising there and, you know, kind of hung out with these people a lot. And it's really sad, you know, like a lot of them are in exile. Many of them are in jail. Like all the people that I know who are like among the Islamists who took part in the revolution and some of whom became part of the government later, they're in jail or in exile. And then, you know, there's really, really sad and like really traumatic cases. Like there was a woman, Razan Zaytuna,

who was a Syrian activist, who I spoke with at one point almost like every other week on Skype from Syria. And it's really terrifying. No one knows what happened to her. She just disappeared off the face of the earth one day. This was a dynamic person. This was a very vocal person, very educated person, very active and smart person who was dedicated to the cause of Syria and, you know, freedom for Syrians and democracy. And she was just one day abducted by gunmen. And we don't know what happened to her to this day. I know this isn't binary, but all told, does the fact that there hasn't been dramatic, lasting, positive change across the region mean that this movement that, you know, caught the entire world's attention and seemed so unprecedented at the time, failed? Well, I think that in many respects, it's too early to say, you know, I mean, that sounds

cheap and easy to say, but it's still unfolding. And in many respects, what happened in 2011, those revolutions, it's still playing out. If you look at the Middle East and North Africa geopolitically, the kind of structures, the axes that were formed because of the Arab Spring are continuing to wrestle with each other. And so you have this axis of conservative autocratic regimes that includes Egypt's government, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Khalifa Haftar in Libya, you know, this sort of warlord in eastern Libya, fighting against this Islamist populist axis that includes Turkey and the remnants of the Muslim Brotherhood and Qatar and the government in Western Libya and a few other parties. And then you have Iran and Syria and Hezbollah and so on.

And so all these forces are still fighting it out. And meanwhile, you have these aspirations on the part of people that are continuing and you still have, you know, massive uprisings. Like, let's not forget, like, that we had a year or two of major protests in Sudan, which is also part of the Arab world. In Algeria, the longtime ruler of Algeria was toppled, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and, you know, still playing out there. You've had protests in Iraq. You've had protests in Lebanon. And all of these incorporated the themes of that Arab Spring uprising in 2011. Many of the ideals were expressed. Many of the tactics were used and so on. So I would say that it's just a long way of saying that it's just still too early to say it was a failure. This is an evolution and there's a lot of pain and trauma,

maybe a lot more pain and trauma that the people expected that were involved in the initial uprisings and definitely a lot more pain and trauma that journalists and political scientists were expecting when this first erupted. And it's been a learning experience for the people of the region, and it's been a learning experience for people watching the region. My name is Ramya Assam. I'm an Egyptian artist living in exile. Before the revolution, I had my political songs, but I was just singing it between my friends and my family and in very, very small kind of events.

But nothing was big before the revolution. And when the revolution started, the first day I joined Tahrir Square, luckily I took the guitar with me because in the beginning I was afraid to take the guitar because the days before that was bloody fight, very violent fight with the police. So there was no chance for any music or guitar. And I was afraid about my guitar,

but my brother and my friends just pushed me to take it because they knew of the songs that I have from before. There was no stage so I was just singing between the people, between the tents and in the streets and for sure also I started to make songs that came from the revolution directly, especially like the song Erhal, which means leave. The concept of Irhal was about how to take the chants that people are already using in the streets and turn them into melody, turn them into song. And I was listening to the chants and they took the main three chants at the time which was يسقط يسقط حصني مبارك داون داون حصني مبارك الشعب يريد اسقاط النظام

الناس يطلبون إزالة النظام هو يمشي مش هنمشي هو يترك نحن نبقى He leaves, we stay. And then I wrote an extra line and was saying, We are all one hand, have one demand, leave. The song Irhal, Leave, it was an anthem for us at that moment and I performed Irhal, Leave, first time I was on the stage in Tahi Square and it was the best moment of my song and it's all of the sound. You'll read

this song. Support for Today Explained comes from Aura. Aura believes that sharing pictures is a great way to keep up with family and Aura says it's never been easier

thanks to their digital picture frames. They were named the number one digital photo frame by Wirecutter. Aura frames make it easy to share unlimited photos and videos directly from your phone to the frame. When you give an aura frame as a gift, you can personalize it, you can preload it with a

thoughtful message, maybe your favorite photos. Our colleague Andrew tried an aura frame for himself. So setup was super simple. In my case, we were celebrating my grandmother's birthday and she's very fortunate. She's got 10 grandkids. And so we wanted to surprise her with the order frame. And because she's a little bit older, it was just easier for us to source all the images together and have them uploaded to the frame itself. And because we're all connected over text message, it was just so easy to send a link to everybody. You can save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get $35 off Aura's best-selling Carvermat frames with promo code EXPLAINED at checkout.

That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com, promo code EXPLAINED. This deal is exclusive to listeners and available just in time for the holidays. Terms and conditions do apply. BetMGM, authorized gaming partner of the NBA, has your back all season long. From tip-off to the final buzzer, you're always taken care of with a sportsbook born in Vegas. That's a feeling you can only get with BetMGM. And no matter your team, your favorite player, or your style, there's something every NBA fan will love about BetMGM. Download the app today and discover why BetMGM is your basketball home for the season.

Raise your game to the next level this year with BetMGM, a sportsbook worth a slam dunk and authorized gaming partner of the NBA. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600

to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Borzu Derigahi, you've been covering the Arab Spring for 10 years, and you just said before the break that this is all still unfolding. Where does it go next? First of all, I would say that we're talking about

multiple societies with various dynamics, you know, unfolding. Where does it go next? First of all, I would say that we're talking about multiple societies with various dynamics, you know, and each one of these countries, like the situation in Sudan is way different than the situation in like Lebanon, than the situation in Egypt. They have different histories and different trajectories and different aspirations. And then you have like, these wild, exceptional stories like Algeria, which has got like this incredible story that is unique in the world is having once been part of France. It was once a department of France, and then it got its independence. So it has a very different growing pains to go through. But I think that, you know, barring ecological catastrophe that could not because they're, you know, based on

some kind of ideals or idealization of models in the West, but just because there's like little choice for these countries. They can remain these autocracies mired in corruption and exclusion and exclusivity in terms of the elite, or they can sort of survive and give everyone in the country a stake in the systems that they have in place. So I think that, you know, eventually, slowly, these countries are moving in the right direction. And this process of democratization, this process of pluralizing and opening the political systems, it just seems to be a lot more painful in the Middle East and North Africa than it was in Latin America or Far East Asia. What do you think the Arab Spring proved?

I mean, it proved that contrary to what a lot of bigots and racists, what we call in the Middle East, the Orientalists were saying, these people who live in these parts of the world, they don't like living under autocracy. It is not cool to live under the rule of one family or one king and so on. And there is this sort of prejudice in the West that people in the Middle East live in this situation and live under these autocracies because that's the way they like it and there's no other way. But, you know, as it turns out, in fact, there's a significant, very significant portion of these populations that really don't like it. And I would say that the people are wise to some extent. And when they see that achieving that pluralistic model right the second

would cost a lot in blood, and they decide sometimes that they don't want to go forward. And I think that's a legitimate calculation when, for example, in certain countries, you go forward and you try to make a change and you see the response of the security forces. And the response of the security forces is utterly brutal and horrific. And you decide, no, that's not worth it. I think that's a sign of maturity that we should respect. My name is Emel. I'm a singer-songwriter from New York, Paris and Tunis. I mean my generation we've only known dictatorship. I was born in the 80s so we grew up under the dictatorship so everything was made for us to become dumb and not think and not

voice any opinion. Dictatorship is very deep. I mean, it might seem funny, but actually, dictatorship does things in a way where they do not want to form thinking people. They just want puppets that they can control and that can be scared. And unfortunately, that was my generation, and I'm not scared to say it. But I'm seeing that actually the new generation that is more informed, that has more access to, you know, like social media, they're seeing what good things are, they're seeing what the other countries are. So they know what they want. And they do not want their country to be what it used to be and what it's looking now. They know what's good

for them and they know where they want to go. I feel like a little bit more than us. So if this isn't over, what needs to happen for the sort of dreams and ideals of the Arab Spring to ultimately be realized? Well, I think that, you know, first of all, one thing that would be super awesome is if, you know, countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, and France, and Germany, and so on, would just stop selling weapons to these people, stop selling them the instruments of repression. That includes, like, tear gas, police equipment, surveillance equipment, electronic stuff. I mean, we're not only not helping in some respects. In the West, we're actually actively supporting these autocratic regimes as they use the most advanced weaponry and crowd control

mechanisms and surveillance technologies to repress their own people. There's a big debate about whether Obama or Trump or, you know, now Biden should call for support for democratic movements in these countries and so on. It's less important that you call for support or what you say than, you know, what you permit to be sold to these countries. I think that would be a great step on the part of the world is to stop selling repressive regimes tools for repression. And also having lived in these countries now for almost 20 years, I can tell you that when the US or the UK or the French or the German embassy invites members of civil society for a lunch or for

conference and so on, it really makes a difference. And I think under Trump, that just completely stopped. There was no more outreach to dissidents. There was no more, you know, kind of cultivating communications with opposition groups and so on in places like Egypt or Lebanon and so on. It was like a lot of support for autocratic regimes and less support and less encouragement for our like-minded folks in these parts of the world. And do you see that changing? I can't name names and I don't want to get anyone into trouble. But I know that these diplomats themselves, our diplomats, our American diplomats, are decent people who have been eager to support like-minded movements in these countries. And I think that under Biden and Blinken, there's all sorts of the correct signals.

I think that it's super interesting. I don't know if listeners will know about this, but Joseph Biden, during the campaign, called for like a democracy conference later this year where, you know, this sort of like-minded democracies would get together in an effort to reinvigorate the idea of democratic pluralism around the world. And I think that's a really interesting idea. And that will give a big boost to these groups and these figures who are fighting for democracy in these very tough environments. And, you know, I mean, it'll be a much better than under Trump. I mean, he was like basically coddling the worst dictators in the region.

He was, you know, I mean, he called Sisi, who is an absolute tyrant, who has turned Egypt into a more brutal dictatorship than it has ever been since World War II. He called him his favorite dictator. He like fettered him in the White House. You know, I mean, I don't think any U.S. president has done that, has like embraced so brutal a dictator so warmly. And I think that anything is better than what we just had over the last four years. But as you said near the top of our conversation, it's hard to tell where the pain in the region begins. Right now, yeah. And where the hardship over the economy or the pandemic in this particular moment starts.

Do the people you talk to who are actually involved in this movement, do they still feel... Absolutely. They're absolutely defiant. My name is Mona Al-Tahawi. I'm an Egyptian-American feminist and writer of Feminist Giant newsletter. I was born in Egypt and I moved to the U.S. in 2000. And I've been moving back and forth between Egypt and the U.S. since then. My relationship to the uprisings and revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa is that they were my dream and a dream of so many of us for all our lives. And when the revolution began in Egypt, I was in my mid-40s and I thought, ah, finally.

So when I myself went and joined the revolution in Egypt in November of 2011, Egyptian riot police broke my left arm, my right hand, and they sexually assaulted me, and their supervising officer threatened to have me gang raped. And I was held incommunicado by the interior ministry for six hours and by military intelligence for another six hours, during which they blindfolded me and interrogated me and denied me medical attention. What happened to me there really changed my life because it made me determined to move back to Egypt to fight the regime in a much more direct way and to signal to the regime that did that to me that they had not terrorized me away from my country of birth. So I moved back to Egypt to directly confront the regime and to become more involved with feminist

activism on the ground. But then also what happened happened to me, and how the revolution changed me, was that it made me even more of a feminist than I was when it began. Because if you ask me now, what has the revolution achieved in Egypt, besides getting rid of Hosni Mubarak, it's that it has gone home. And in the same way that we said no to Hosni Mubarak in Tahrir Square, we have been saying no to Mubarak in the home and Mubarak in the street and Mubarak in the workplace and the Mubarak in the mosque, the Mubarak in the church. Basically, the revolution now has become a revolution of saying no to all forms of authority.

And that, for me, is the biggest indication that the revolution is working. Yeah, there's a few people who were not involved in the protests, who were on the sidelines, who say, oh, it was better back then. You know, let me give you an example, okay? I was in Tunisia just before the pandemic, and I was talking to people, was it worth it? And they're like, you know, bemoaning what the situation is, talking about the economy, how hard it is and so on. And I'm like, yeah, but was it worth it? Was the revolution worth it? And they're like, you know what? As bad as things are right now, at least we can talk about it. Like before we couldn't even talk about it. And it's not even imaginable anymore that we would be in that situation anymore. Like I did a story when I was at BuzzFeed. It was a story about a guy who was accused of being a jihadi by the cops. And he wasn't, but the cops kept hassling him and hassling him and hassling him. And he was saying, you know, under the former regime, I would be hassled too, but then I would just be thrown into jail and so

on. But now I have a lawyer and I'm talking to international media about it and I'm fighting against it. And I wouldn't even be able to imagine that. So as bad as things are right now, it's unimaginable that we would ever go back. So I think that the region has changed. The expectations have changed. The discourse has completely transformed. People have gotten more sophisticated politically. They talk about their political situation in a much different way, in a much more enlightened way, with a much more sophisticated vocabulary.

And there's no putting genie back in the bottle, so to speak. Borzu Deragahi is an international correspondent at The Independent. You can find his work at theindependent.co.uk. I'm Sean Ramos-Furham. This is Today Explained. The team includes Muj Zaydi, Amna Alsadi, Will Reed, Halima Shah, Noam Hassenfeld, and Cecilia Lay, who joined us for real this week. We're very happy to have her.

Music from Breakmaster Cylinder and Noam. Afim Shapiro is the show's engineer. Liz Kelly Nelson is Vox's editorial director of podcasts. Extra help this week from Jillian Weinberger. Today Explained is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network. You can get in touch with us on

Twitter. The show's at today underscore explained. I'm at Ramesh Furum. Our email is todayexplained at Vox.com. If you want to rate or review us wherever you listen, they say it helps other people find the show. Thanks as always for sharing the show with the people you know. Thank you. you