[wanita-muslimah] Failure of Arab Spring

 

http://news.kuwaittimes.net/2013/01/24/failure-of-arab-spring/

 

Failure of Arab Spring

As part of the intensive focus through seminars, studies and lectures in Gulf countries about the nature of Arab Spring movements and how they have impacted these stable and revenue oriented states, the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters, Kuwait organized a seminar from Jan 13 to 15 as part of the 19th Qurain festival to discuss the repercussions of the Arab Spring. Experts discussed 25 papers during the conference which was attended by politicians, academics and specialists from all Arab countries. During the first session, the lectures focused on the origins of the Arab Spring movement and the way the protests unfolded in 2012 in the form of demands for democracy, freedom and restoration of the human dignity on the lines of the International liberation movements which similarly sought democracy and freedom, be it in Eastern Europe, Latin America or Asia.

The question is in what aspect were the Arab Spring revolutions different from other similar global movements? What were the reasons for the democracy to take roots in other countries but its failure in our countries? Certain participants argued that the evolution of democratic theories in the west led to the birth of a middle class that paved the way for democracy, but that did not happen in the Arab World. Others believed that the reason was the fact that revolutions bring deep rooted changes in the society and have political, economic and social dimensions. However, in the Arab Spring countries, people were freed from the tyrant regimes but the movement did not convert itself into a battle for democracy.

Instead, the new political elite were influenced by the ideas of their tyrant masters who preceded them since the new elite emerged and was fashioned by the old one. Thus, people got rid of an old tyrant military elite, only to have a new tyrant elite replace it by a religious route and not military. How have the Arab Spring Revolutions impacted the Arab Gulf Countries? Those Gulf states which thought they were far removed from the Arab Spring storms found themselves in the middle of the movement. Demands for reforms at the start of the Arab movement were heard in Oman and Bahrain while some groups in Saudi Arabia asked for an improvement in their conditions. In Kuwait, the opposition asked for suspension of the constitutional reforms that were approved by HH the Amir including the change in the number of votes from four to one per voter.

The Gulf countries hurried to make constitutional moves in Oman and Bahrain that gave the impression of reforms but Bahrain was unfortunate in the sense that it became a victim of others' wars in the region as Iran interfered in its internal affairs forcing the GCC countries to reject this interference. The Gulf countries played a notable role in the Arab movement as the UAE and Qatar helped bring a change in Libya and most of the Gulf states backed the Syrian resistance against the regime there which had launched a fierce war against its own people.

This made Iran, which supports the Syrian regime, adopt an adversarial stance towards the Gulf countries, especially after the Gulf nations joined the economic embargo against Iran in keeping with the UN Security Council resolutions. What are the risks that Gulf countries face today after more than a year of the fall of former regimes? The first risk is the growing danger from political Islam groups in the region, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood.

The danger emanates from the fact that some GCC countries backed the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Jordan and, lately, Syria. How can we deal with the Muslim Brotherhood cells in the Gulf where they have recently come to light and their conspiracies against the UAE? Will the Gulf countries take a unified stand towards the spread of the Muslim Brotherhood cells and their influence in the region? So far, there has not been a unified Gulf stand but they have been coordinating on security issues. The reason is that each state deals with the Muslim Brotherhood according to its own vision of security? The political, economic and social situation in the Arab and Middle East regions is witnessing fast paced changes and will definitely affect the Gulf countries negatively or positively. What is required today is to have a clear picture about the new changes and how to deal with them.—Al-Watan

By Dr Shamlan Y. Al-Essa

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