Chapter 2:

2010  to 2018 Youth Revolutions Began in the Middle East

Her hand slogan reads “Victory for the People.”[1]

What bugs me in my daily life are racist people who keep trying to change the way I think about Arabs. I think my purpose on earth is to make Israel make peace with all countries. If I were the Prime Minister of Israel, I would first try to make changes in schools and kindergartens to educate kids to like the different people and not hate them. And then I would try to make peace with the Palestinians and the Arab countries. Shai, 15, m, Israel

People are on the edge, you can’t fool us anymore.

Avi Cohen, a 25-year-old participant in the Israeli Rothschild Avenue protests.

Things that bother me in my life, first the city where I live is a mess, the Israeli blockade on Gaza, the dictatorship practiced by Hamas in Gaza, the continued power cuts and lack of adequate fuel, which makes our lives seem worse, lack of attention to university students, the lack of treatment for medical patients, etc. Fatma, 18, f, Palestine

A Yemeni woman cannot be part of terrorism because she herself is suffering from terrorism. Tawakkol Karman, “mother of the revolution” in Yemen

No, no to emergency law. We are a people infatuated with freedom. The people want the fall of the regime.

Syrian teen graffiti that resulted in their arrest and torture and the start of the destructive civil war.

The young people started it and everybody fought. Before we were slaves to Gaddafi. Omar, a Libyan revolutionary.t[2]Interviewed by CNN’s Anthony Bourdain

Contents: Middle East, 2011 Dominos, Iran, Tunisia, Yemen, Israel, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Democratic Outcomes?

Note: Bahrain, Palestine, Libya, Syria, Algeria and Saudi Arabia are discussed on the book website along with more background on Tunisia and Yemen.[3] Sub-Saharan Africa is also on the website.[4]

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Middle East

 Vladimir Lenin said, “There are decades when nothing happens, and there are weeks when decades happen,” as in the beginning of 2011. A UNICEF study of Arab youth released in November 2011 claimed that they led one of the most dramatic public street protests in history.[5] People disagree about the impact of the Arab Spring uprisings, but agree that youth were leaders and that they were “simultaneously idealized and pathologized, championed and ignored,” scholar Zina Sawaf stated.[6] The Arab Spring has failed completely. It is a catastrophe that only the Islamists will be able to take advantage of” to create mini-Irans, warned  Algerian author Boulaem Sansal.[7] Algerian Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia said it was a plague of western intervention that resulted in “the colonization of Iraq, the destruction of Libya [and Syria and Yemen], the partition of Sudan and the weakening of Egypt.”[8] The momentous events of the Arab uprisings are, in my view, of similar historical significance to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the USSR in 1991, an international youth-led rebellion against neoliberal capitalist inequality that spread around the world.[9]

Miriam Jamshidi, an attorney and Middle East expert, commented that the Arab Spring was unique in combining wanting both democracy and economic and social justice.[10] Background is that the MENA region has the highest youth unemployment rate in the world; 27% in 2010 before the uprisings (which increased to 30% in 2016. By 2018, five million new entrants into the workforce challenged MENA where 60% of the population is between the ages of 15 and 30. The region’s population doubled from 1980 to 2010. The 22 Arab countries include around 370 million people with a median age of 22 compared to a global average of 28. Women were three times as likely to be unemployed. This problem led Stratfor research group to predict in 2018 that “revolution might become the youth’s biggest employer in the not-too-distant future.”[11] College educated young adults have a higher rate of unemployment than less educated peers in countries like Egypt. In Tunisia and Egypt youth leaders started their uprisings with a call to end to unemployment and rising food prices. Women’s leadership in the uprisings is also revolutionary. The greatest impact of the Arab Spring is the global knowledge that youth-led uprisings can overthrow entrenched old autocrats, the rulers of “republics of fear,” as Iraqi academic Kanan Makiya termed them in his 1989 book with that title. The feeling of hope that rebels gained coupled with righteous anger is a powerful motivator for action by young unemployed people. Youth were considered the conscience of their countries as they opposed government corruption and economic inequality, and served as capable mediators between generations in their communities.

 Recent upheavals in the Middle East began with protests against the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and surged again in 2011 with the Arab Spring that led some countries like Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Libya to fall in chaos that is exploited by ISIS, as described in the stories of six people from different regions.[12] The six countries most impacted by the Arab Spring were republics rather than monarchies, carved out by western powers after World War 1. (For a brief history of the region, see the book website.[13])

Youth-led uprisings succeed in fomenting a massive regional uprisings for democracy, sparked by the Tunisian success in ousting their dictator in January of 2011. The Arab Spring uprisings had four possible outcomes: success (Tunisia), despot removed but not replaced with democracy (Egypt, Yemen, Libya), civil war (Syria, Libya, Yemen), or the government stayed in power and repressed protests (Bahrain, Morocco and two-thirds of the region’s autocrats).[14] The Arab Spring involved only one-third of the Arab world.[15]

Youth activism challenged Orientalism, the term for Western scholars’ assumption of superiority over the Middle East, defined by Edward Said in 1978. He said that large groups of people were viewed as “the other,” less than human, similar what Simone de Beauvoir pointed out about women in The Second Sex (1953). A Turkish graduate student, Balca Arda commented on this chapter, “The definition of Middle East varies most of the time according to the neo-Orientalist understanding that equates the Orient with chaos, violence, authoritarian government and police state. The borders of Middle East are arbitrary, [established by European powers along with puppet rulers in 1916]. That is why there is a slippage between the terms of Muslim, Middle East and Arab.” Freedom House found that  MENA was in fact the most authoritarian in the world in 2010 and in 2015.[16] The Bush Administration launched a democracy promotion campaign in 2002, but authors of Beyond the Arab Spring observed, “No other part of the world had proven quite so resistant to the so-called third wave of democratization,” which transformed Latin America and Eastern Europe in the 1980s and 1990s.[17]

Arab revolutionaries speaking at the progressive World Social Forum in 2013 rejected the Western media’s term “Arab Spring,” in favor of “Arab Revolutions,” “Arab Awakening,” or “Arab Citizens’ Revolt,.” But I’ll use the former as it’s most widely used by English speakers. Arab youth formed a new identity as a generation different from their fearful and quiet parents, willing to take risks and criticize the government. Both women and men bravely stood in front of tanks and police lines. Numerous books examine the recent Arab Uprisings as listed in the endnote, but most without a focus on youth–not even a chapter title with youth in it.[18] The exceptions are listed in the endnote, making MENA the region with by far the most books about recent youth-led uprisings.[19]

Arab Dawn: Arab Youth and the Demographic Dividend They Will Bring (2015) by Bessma Momani features youth with a positive viewpoint, to counter the prevailing negative view of the Middle East in the West. She predicts that the Arab Spring was the beginning of a helpful social and cultural revolution. The youth bulge will lead to a “social and cultural revolution” because young people support democracy, entrepreneurialism—especially young women, and globalism. These attitudes are facilitated by ICT (women write half the blogs) and the growth in university attendance, creating a “hybrid identity.”  Momani observes that youth reject the choice of secular versus Islamist as they develop a hybrid of Western and Islamic thought. She thinks that change will be most evident in Saudi Arabia where many young people attend universities abroad, but so far this hasn’t happened. Although Prince Salman, called MSB, initiated some reforms such as allowing women to drive and permitting movie theaters, his consolidation of power included threatening leaders of the women’s right to drive campaign to stay silent or risk jail. He placed wealthy members of the monarchy in a gilded cage in a hotel until they turned over some of their fortunes to the state. Even before he became heir to his father’s throne, Shite minority bloggers and other who spoke up about the discrimination they face in Sunni Saudi Arabia were jailed, lashed, or killed. For example, Shite activist Israa Al-Ghomgham faced the death penalty in 2018 for her role in the Saudi Arab Spring in 2011 speaking out about discrimination including exclusion from government jobs in a country where it’s a major employer. Her crimes were “inciting rallies and young people against the state and security forces on social networking sites” and post videos of their protests. A Twitter campaign for her release is called #FreeIsrael and #SayHerName.[20] The monarchy under MBS’s rule aims to diversify the economy to create more private sector jobs in a country were two-thirds are employed by the state, but a third of women are unemployed, so that unemployment falls from 13% in 2017 to seven percent by 2030.[21]

                        Causes of the Arab Revolutions

The “Lost Generation” surprised everyone with its savvy leadership of the Arab Spring, transforming them into the “Miracle Generation.” Princeton Professor Richard Falk worked for the UN as “Special Rapporteur” from 2008 to 2014, conducting many fact-finding missions. Observing the Arab Spring, he said it was a surprise because academics are trained to look a “politics from above,” so that revolutions from below startle pundits.[22] Examples of other surprises to scholars are Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in apartheid South Africa, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Velvet and Jasmine Revolutions in Czechoslovakia and Tunisia, and Occupy Wall Street.

Since the Arab uprisings surprised most scholars, the Economist Magazine created a “Shoe-Thrower’s Index” to identity factors that inhibit and enable rebellion in Arab states.[23] Not surprising, very repressive secret police make rebellion more difficult, as in Libya and Syria. Conflicts didn’t escalate in some countries where rulers made concessions, as in Morocco where the monarch quickly granted reforms to reduce some of his formal power. Algeria had minor uprisings, but the president granted economic reforms and reduced prices. Discontent makes protests more likely, caused by a youth bulge with high youth unemployment and an undemocratic and corrupt government in power for decades. An educated population support democratic governments with these resources: a modernized large middle class, an active civil society including feminist groups central to building a democratic culture, a homogeneous population, and support from outside the country.[24] Tunisia was the most advanced in these areas so it’s no surprise that it is the most successful fledgling democracy in the region.

Post- or Modern Islam

Islam is the second largest world religion including about a quarter of the global population, and it’s the fastest growing, predicted to become the most popular religion, growing by 73% from 2010 to 2050.[25] Sunni Muslims look to Abu Bakr as the successor to Prophet Muhammad, while the Shia follow living Imams. Extremist Sunnis believe Shia are apostates; the two sects fight each other, as in Iraq or the enmity between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran that led to civil war and famine in Yemen as Saudi planes bombed Houthis who they linked to Iranian influence. The Saudi and Emerati planes were refueled in the air by the United States military, which also supplied intelligence and military equipment, leading some Democratic members of Congress to call for a halt to US enabling the warfare that led over 75% of Yemenis to be dependent on humanitarian aid while hundreds of thousands died from starvation or bombing civilians. Some young Muslims are part of post-Islamism that emphasizes civil rights combined with traditional faith and modern values of freedom. For example, Ahmed left the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt because of what he refers to as his “post-modern Islamic identity” that accepts interaction with the opposite sex, other religions, and people with different political beliefs.[26]

 Youth are more comfortable than their elders with diversity, as when Christians and Muslims protected each other during prayers in Cairo’s Tahrir Square during the January 2011 revolution, and accepted women in leadership and combat positions in street battles with police. The “Islamic Winter” of Muslim parties in ascendency was short-lived when the Egyptian military expelled and jailed the Muslim Brotherhood’s President Mohamed Morsi and secular parties took over leadership in Tunisia from moderate Islamist Ennahda party. The anti-Islamist Nidaa Tounes party won in Tunisia’s October 2014 elections, which attracted candidates from over 100 parties including some formed after the revolution like the Current of Love party (Courant de L’Amour). Gender parity on electoral lists was required. Nida Tounes broke up in 2016, partly over a struggle for leadership, leaving Ennahda with control of parliament.

According to the authors of “Youth and the Arab Spring,” a unique difference in the Arab world is that youth are more supportive of political Islam than older people, more likely to support Islamic law and more likely to identify themselves by their religion than their nationality. They’re traditional in that three-quarters of MENA youth identifying themselves as followers of family, religious and cultural traditions, according to the World Values Survey of 2005 to 2008. As a consequence, rates of premarital intercourse, pregnancy, and HIV/AIDS are low. However, as in other areas of the world, youth are less like to identify themselves as religiously observant and go to worship services (40% compared for 60% of the older people). A post-modern cohort, they didn’t revolt in the name of Islam or any political party or class.

Arab Spring protest movements included leadership of youth and women and countered the pervasive passivity evidenced in the most frequent expression in the Muslim world, Insha’Allah—God willing. A Palestinian man who lives in Saudi Arabia told me in Cairo that this belief is the root of problems in the Middle East, waiting for Allah to act. Amal, an Egyptian teacher who critiqued this chapter, has a different point of view: “I totally disagree with him as the reason for the problems of the Muslim world is that they don’t follow the teachings of Islam which calls for hard work, honesty, respecting the other, coexistence, cooperation, freedom, justice and all the noble morals and moreover to have interest in science and research.”

Revolutionary change can occur in daily life as well as generated by dramatic street protests. Iranian Asef Bayat refers to Middle East activists working on their own without recognized leaders or organizations as “social nonmovements,” composed of millions of disconnected people, mainly the subaltern urban poor, women and youth.[27] Bayat observed that globalized youth rebelled against puritanical Islamic regimes that stifled fun and joy, the core of youthfulness. He said the Prophet was reported by his wife Aishah (“Mother of the Believers”) not to laugh, only to smile, preferring to focus on devotion to Allah.[28] (She was a female icon who led troop while riding on a camel and wrote thousands of hadith. Youth in nonmovements spontaneously form a collective identity by wearing similar fashions at schools, urban public spaces, cafes, and meeting virtually on social media. Bayat predicts that globalized youth and the growth of democratic movements will result in post-Islamism combining a non-violent Islam with individual choice and freedom as in Turkey and Tunisia, so that the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 will be the last one fought in the name of Islam.

However, Islamists are a strong political force with their decades of organization. With the exception of Libya, Islamists won the first free elections in Tunisia, Egypt, and Morocco starting in 2011. Reporter Joel Brinkley calls the spread of Islamic extremists the Islamic Autumn: Jihadists are the majority of the opposition fighters in Syria, and have troops in Mali, Nigeria, Southern Thailand, the Philippines, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Even Austria is worried about Salafist extremist teenagers in their country. In Egypt, Islamists attack security forces in the Sinai on an almost daily basis and the Muslim Brotherhood continued protests in cities. I traveled by bus across the Sinai in 2011 but wouldn’t feel safe doing that now in 2018. Civil war rages in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen while Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran fight for the most influence in the region, currently devastating Yemen in the process. A chart of global protests found that some of the most intense events of a timeline from 1979 to 2014 were Islamic: The most intense global protests were triggered by the Danish cartoon showing an image of Prophet Mohammad in February 2006, then in February 2011 during the Arab Spring, followed by a surge caused by the release of “Innocence of Muslims” video in September that made fun of the Prophet and triggered protests in 60 countries.[29]

Unemployed Educated Youth are Angry at Government

Before the youth revolutions of 2011, Amr Khaled, a Muslim preacher who rejected extremism, warned, “Arab and Muslim youth need to be listened to. No one listens to them. They have dreams. We need to bring out those dreams.”[30] Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned on January 13, 2011, that the region’s foundations were sinking into the sand because of youth’s economic problems. One-third of the Arab world is aged 15 to 29, a job-hungry time of life. However, on the eve of January 25 revolution she misjudged the situation in Cairo, telling reporters, “Our assessment is that the Egyptian government is stable,” even though it ignored youth unrest over high unemployment, scarce housing, rising food prices, government corruption and police violence.

Anger with autocratic governments was expressed in the widely used Arabic term hogra, referring to rulers’ contempt for their people. WikiLeaks revelations of corrupt and dishonest governments spread across the Islamic world, heightening discontent. For example, a leaked document quoted Yemen’s President Ali Abdullah Saleh saying to US General David Petraeus, “We’ll continue to say the bombs [drones] are ours, not yours.” A chart indexes the corruption, poverty, unrest, average age and literacy rates in Middle Eastern countries.[31] Transparency International ranks five Arab countries as among the 10 most corrupt nations in the world: Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Sudan.[32] More than 80% of Middle East nations scored less than 50% out of 100 possible for transparent governments (Denmark and New Zealand were the least corrupt). Another cause of youthful discontent is Western intervention in new colonialism of military intervention in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, and Syria that caused chaos and the death of around 1.3 million people by 2015.[33]

The Middle East suffers economically because it averages a greater proportion of its gross domestic product on military purchases than any other region and depends heavily on one volatile income source–oil exports.[34] This became a bigger economic problem in 2015 when the price of a barrel of oil dropped to $40, down from $105 the previous year, leading countries like wealthy Saudi Arabia to borrow money.[35] One of the reasons for the fall in oil revenue was the slowdown of the economy that consumes the most energy—China. Yet half of the occupants of the Middle East live in countries without oil.

With the exception of Libya, the oil producing nations didn’t spawn revolutions. They don’t tax citizens and wealth concentrated in the public sector prevents the growth of an entrepreneurial middle class. During the Arab Spring Saudi King Abdullah quickly announced benefits worth $37 billion dollars, Kuwait’s sheikhs gave each citizen about $4,000, and the Sultan of Oman raised the minimum wage to $520 a month. Food subsidies were implemented in Morocco, Algeria, and Jordan.

The kingdoms of Morocco and Jordan had only minor protests because they offered more democracy than Tunisia and Egypt. The monarchs in both countries promised political reform. King Abdullah of Jordan appointed a new cabinet, redrew electoral districts, increased public sector wages, and created new jobs. King Muhammad VI facilitated a new and more democratic Moroccan constitution.

As in other global uprisings, a root cause of discontent is the austerity programs that followed loans from the IMF–for example in Libya, Tunisia and Egypt in the 1990s. Moving public resources into the private sector led to corruption on a large scale. It follows that poverty and unemployment feed conflict, as explained in the World Bank’s “2011 World Development Report on Conflict, Fragility and Development.” Some fear a “revolution of the hungry” will erupt.[36] However, a large Gallup World Poll representing most of the world’s Muslims didn’t find any difference in the unemployment rates or job status of radicals and moderates, so other factors influence youth uprisings such as desire for dignity and the end of corruption.[37]

Youth unemployment in the Arab region remains high, the cost of living is rising and foreign investment is decreasing. High youth unemployment in countries with a youth bulge creates fervent desire for change. The “waiting generation” often can’t find a job after university graduation. (Also a problem in the US, fewer than half the college graduates of 2011 found a full-time job by a year later.[38]) The Arabic slang word hittistes refers to those who lean against the wall. Many hittistes in their humiliated generation lack wasta (connections to someone with power) or the bribe money needed to get a job.

Getting married requires a good job to pay for a wedding, feasts, dowry, and a place to live, a frustrating situation for unemployed young people. The fact that about 10.7 million young people will enter the labor force in the next decade in the MENA region requires the creation of 40 million new jobs for youth.[39] They want better job security than the 67% of the workforce in informal employment that lacks benefits, so over half of youth would like to work in the public sector. Three out of four working-age women aren’t employed, another challenge.

In addition to imposing austerity measures, ironically Western powers trained some of the youthful leaders of rebellion against neoliberalism. According to Oxford professor Tarriq Ramadan, starting in 2004 significant numbers of young bloggers and activists (including leaders of Egypt’s April 6 Movement) were trained by US government-funded NGOs such as Gene Sharp’s Albert Einstein Institution.[40] Trainers emphasized how to use nonviolent tactics to shape mass psychology via the Internet with symbols and slogans spelled out by Sharp. For example, the black clenched fist symbol used by Otpor in Serbia was adopted in Tunisia, Morocco, Egypt and Syria because it had no religious divisiveness between secular or Islamist viewpoints. Simple slogans like “Get out!” And “Enough! were repeated over and over to influence mass psychology. Ramadan observed that instead of instead of waging war that failed in Iraq, the US used mass movements to “undermine regional stability and bring about a Western-dependent transition under military and economic control.”[41]

Ramadan pointed out the main motive of the Western powers isn’t democracy, as shown in their support for repressive dictators and monarchs like the Saudi king, rather they care about economic and military interests that require stability and access to oil and other resources. Western countries set up bases in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Morocco, Algeria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar. Emerging economic power China is more popular than the US in the region, so real democracy would be fearful for the West.[42] Since its formation in 2008, Africom (United States Africa Command) bases in Africa expanded.[43] However, a conspiracy of foreign powers didn’t start the uprisings nor did Islamist organizations. Young women and men led them in nonviolent opposition with new models of democracy that Western powers tried to instigate and manipulate for economic gain.[44] Ramadan noted the “very instrumental presence of powerful multinational corporations [i.e., Google] at every stage of the process that climaxed in the mass uprisings.”[45]

2011 Dominos

The Iranian Green Revolution took place in 2009 and was sparked again in 2011. The Tunisian rebellion (December 18, 2010) spread to Jordan (January 14), Egypt (January 25), and Yemen (January 27). Oman and Jordan also had January protests, then the wave rolled on to Bahrain (February 14), Libya (February 15 when the National Transitional Council was formed), Mauritania (February 25[46]) and Syria (March 15) followed. Demonstrations even took place in Saudi Arabia in March. Long lasting rulers were toppled in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya. The use of ICT is discussed on the book website along with earlier protests.[47]

Iran

In Iran, youth under age 30 make up 70% of the population and played a large part in the “Green Revolution” demonstrations to protest government fraud in the 2009 elections. Upper middle-class urban youth led the opposition without much support in rural areas, as is typical.[48] Iran’s Twitter or Green Revolution was a reaction to election fraud that kept President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power. Videos of the street conflicts played on YouTube and Twitter, making it the most documented revolution in history, as BBC reporter Paul Mason pointed out. He explained that the revolution failed because the poor and the workers weren’t willing to switch to reformer presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi (still under house arrest in 2018), but they were the predecessors of the 2011 uprisings.[49] During the Green Movement Iranians downloaded the Serbian Otpor manual “Nonviolent Struggle, 50 Crucial Points” 17,0000 times.[50] Iranian youth are tech-savvy and well-educated, writing around 100,000 blogs. Four million Iranians had Facebook pages in 2014 and many people in cities have satellite dishes enabling them to watch illegal foreign TV and movies.[51]

The key ingredients for an uprising were present: radicalized youth angered by rising unemployment, a repressed workers’ movement, access to social media, and dissatisfied urban poor.[52] One in every 20 Iranians is a student. Women, who are required to wear black chadors and headscarves to cover their alluring hair, are almost two-thirds of university students. Young techies around the world kept Iranian protesters communicating with proxy servers through sites like Twitter (with around 500 million users worldwide) when the government tried to shut them down. Twitter delayed a scheduled maintenance that would have shut it down during the protests after State Department employee Jared Cohen (born in 1981) asked them to stay open. A 24-year-old California man developed a new “Haystack” code to override the government shut down of proxy servers.[53] Cell phones enabled citizen journalism to keep the protests in the global news after western journalists were expelled.

 Iranian student protests continued into 2010, using the Internet to organize demonstrations, and they chanted slogans like “Khomeini knows his time is up!” and “Death to the dictator.” Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini is considered God’s voice to Iran, like the Pope to Roman Catholics, so it’s revolutionary to criticize him. This is the only violent chant I’ve heard in the Arab uprisings; much more common is Egypt’s “peaceful, peaceful” (Selmeyya, Selmeyya). Young protesters waved flags without the Allah national emblem that was added after the 1979 Islamic revolution. These kinds of symbols and colors are important as young demonstrators brand their movements to make them recognizable to the public. The uprising was documented on YouTube and in a 2010 webcomic and graphic novel called Zahra’s Paradise about a 19-year-old boy who disappeared during the protests.[54] His mother, Zahra, his blogger brother and friends searched for him after he was abducted by the secret police. The book includes the names of 16,901 people they claim were killed by the Islamic Republic.

The Green Movement activists were activated again in 2011 by the overthrow of Egyptian President Mubarak, which the government initially praised, and tens of thousands took to the streets again. Demonstrators chanted the familiar “death to the dictator” while marching on the streets and calling Allah Akbar (God is great) in protest from their apartment rooftops in the dark. They also chanted that it was time for Khamenei to follow Ben Ali and Mubarak in resigning. A young Iranian woman interviewed by CNN on her phone explained she was fighting for her rights and for a university friend who was killed by security forces.

 In response to youth uprisings, the Iranian government arrested thousands, used tear gas, beat demonstrators, and began an execution binge.[55] In parliament, members pumped their fists chanting for execution of opposition leaders Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the defeated presidential candidates in 2009, held under house arrest for years. Like Presidents Mubarak in Egypt and Assad in Syria, the Iranian dictators blamed foreign instigators and “thugs.” A difference between the military in Egypt, which initially was trusted by the demonstrators, and the security forces hated and feared in Iran, is that the former are conscripts of all young Egyptian men and the latter are volunteers who are sworn to loyalty to the rulers. The Basiji paramilitary on their motorcycles are hated for their violence.

Ali, a young Iranian living in California, told me the Basiji started out as brave volunteer fighters, heroes who defended Iran in the eight-year war with Iraq. Ali thinks it will take a miracle to oust the religious dictators, but history leads him to believe it will happen because no dictator lasts forever. He says the Guardian Council of 12 has the real power, along with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. They’re all over 70 and old-fashioned; they don’t know the new world, he says. He views them as dark people who are afraid of the light. They like depression and crying, just thinking of the afterlife and paradise or hell. They don’t want people to be happy, to dance and play music or drink beer. They try to teach that the US is an evil monster, but the people don’t believe it. He says many listen to and watch Voice of America on radio and TV.

In 2013, Iranians elected a more moderate cleric, President Hassan Rouhani who campaigned for better relations with the West. Like reformer Mohammad Khatami, he relied on women’s votes to get elected. He said during his campaign that “discrimination against women will not be tolerated” because their skills are needed to develop the country. In May 2014 six young people in Tehran, including three unveiled women, made a viral video joyfully dancing and lip-synching to a song about happiness, which you will enjoy.[56] They were arrested for producing an “obscene” video that offended public morals and chastity. They were made to recant on TV, but President Rouhani tweeted that “We shouldn’t be too hard on behaviors caused by joy.” A month later three Iranians were jailed for making a “vulgar” music video to support Iran’s team at the World Cup match in Brazil. It also shows men and women singing and dancing.[57] Rouhani also called for more academic freedom in universities to retain talented people, but change is difficult since the real power rests with Ayatollah Khamenei and the Council of Guardians, enforced by the Revolutionary Guard and their Basij paramilitary force. However, youth meet in coffee shops and shopping centers and they access satellite TV and otherwise get around government censorship of alternative media.[58]

Since Rouhani became president in 2013, a “lifestyle movement” is underway with women without headscarves, university students wearing bright colors, street musicians and concerts (conservative clerics say music is haram), comedians (before joking in public was suspect), and billboards not just for political leaders but celebrities.[59] This opening is similar to what happened in the “Iranian Spring” under moderate president Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005. Political expression is the red line that still can’t be crossed, although campaigns mushroom for initiatives such as to save stray cats and dogs or improve the quality of Iranian cars. As the old leaders die, it’s likely they will be replaced by more moderate people in a country with so many educated young people. In the March 2016 elections more moderates were elected, backing up Rouhani’s centrist government. He was reelected in the 2017 presidential elections handily defeating conservative rivals.

A recent uprising occurred in Iran where over half the population is under 30, about 40% of the youth are unemployed, and the cost of staple products like eggs have gone up 40%. These factors led to demonstrations in December 2017 (shown on video with women and men participating[60]). They began in rural Mashhad to protest price increases and spread to around 80 Iranian cities, leading to over 1,000 arrests and 22 deaths. The economic grievances expanded to calls against corruption and to oust Ayatollah Ali Khomeini (who constitutionally has three-quarters of the power and a permanent appointment).            Protesters chanted cries of “Death or Freedom,”  “Death to Rouhani” and Khomeini who put the blame on foreign enemies like the US. Crowds chanted “Forget Palestine” to make the point that Iranian economic problems should be solved first. They also chanted “Down with the Islamic Republic,” “It is over for all of you,” and “They make a man [Khomeini] into a god and a nation into beggars!” They protested large budget expenditures for Islamic organizations while the budget proposed increased fuel prices and aimed to privatize schools. President Hassan Rouhani (elected in 2013) responded that Iranians have the right to protest but not to do violence, saying, “People want to talk about economic problems, corruption and lack of transparency in the function of some of the organs and want the atmosphere to be more open.”  (He promised to appoint three women government ministers but hasn’t done so.) He noted, “One cannot force one’s lifestyle on the future generations.”

During the 2017 demonstrations the Iranian government shut down Instagram and the messaging app Telegraph, but as usual hackers easily found ways around the block. A difference between the biggest demonstrations since the 2009 protests over corruption in the presidential election was that the recent protests didn’t have known leaders like the presidential candidates who were spokesmen in 2009 (and are still under house arrest). Also, poor people in rural areas led the recent protests rather than middle-class young people in Tehran. However, hundreds of students and others did demonstrate at Tehran University, leading riot police to shut down surrounding roads to contain them. In response to the protests, the government canceled increases in prices of bread and fuel.

Millennials are the generation that most values relationships rather than deferring to established religious and government authorities. In a delightful example of male feminism in Iran, young men wore head coverings and posted their photos on social media using the hashtag #MeninHijab to protest compulsory hijab for women.[61] Some critics think my book series is too optimistic about youth altruism, but these Iranian young men give me great hope.

Why Was Tunisia First?

The Tunisians were the first country to give other dissatisfied youth hope that they could tackle dictators. As news spread around the world, Cambodian dictator Hun Sen threatened his people in a speech, “I would like to tell you that if you want to strike as in Tunisia, I will close the door and beat the dog this time.”[62] Revolts spread to Egypt, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Oman and Bahrain. See the photo of the bandaged young man in his hospital bed that sparked the rebellions.[63] Former Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa said in hindsight  that the Tunisian Revolution was “driven largely by the desire of the country’s youth for more freedom and economic opportunities and owed its success at least in part to social media” because the government controlled the conventional media.[64] Over one-quarter of Tunisians are ages 15 to 29 and most Tunisians are from Sunni Islamic backgrounds.

Observers judge Tunisia as the most successful of the Arab uprisings; some say the only success, although no one predicted that the uprising against corrupt dictators would begin in the police state of Tunisia. Its strengths were having the most developed civil society, with a strong labor union federation, student unions and professional associations such as lawyers’ groups that could balance Islamist forces. It claims one of the Arab world’s best educational system, the largest middle class and strongest organized labor movements.[65] A Tunisian youth activist stated, “For you, politics is power. For me, civil society is power.”[66] The military was small and not supportive of Ben Ali’s rule, in contrast to Egypt’s powerful military strengthened by US aid—second only to Israel. The US stayed out of Tunisian politics after the revolution for the most part, but tripled military aid in 2016 to help oppose ISIS terrorists. The US pledged more than $1.4 billion to support the transition to democracy and sustainable economic growth, according to the US State Department in July 2018.

Another factor in Tunisia’s success was it caught the government off-guard as the first uprising in the Arab Spring. Autocrats in other Arab countries responded with defensive action, such as giving cash grants to citizens in Saudi Arabia. A major influence, the army didn’t try to assume power and political parties were willing to compromise and work together as when the Islamist party Ennahda gave up its plan to refer to Sharia law in the new progressive constitution. In Libya, Muammar Gaddafi asked the Tunisians, “What did he ever do to you? You should wish for him [Ben Ali] to come back.” Gaddafi said in March 2011, “I play, personally, a stabilizing role in the African region. If the situation in Libya is destabilized then Al Qaida will take command here. Libya will turn into a second Afghanistan and the terrorists will roam across Europe.” Libya had the highest African Human Development Index in 2010 when less than 10% lived below the poverty line but turned into a failed state after Gadaffi was killed.

Applying Political Process (PP) theory to the Tunisian movement, Mozambican scholar Alcinda Honwana analyzed the Tunisian youth movement that displaced dictator Ben Ali.[67] Resource Mobilization (RM) and Political Process (PP) social movement theories analyze what enables social movements succeed, with RM emphasizing access to resources like effective propaganda. RM developed in the 1970s to analyze costs and benefits of participation in protests, criticized for not explaining the loose networks used in recent movements and not giving enough attention to the emotions and beliefs of activists. Framing Theory corrects this deficit; it studies how social psychology and ideology influence political decisions.

Honwana pointed to causes of the uprising as economic crisis, unemployment–especially of young college graduates, and splintering of the elites, plus widespread anger over police violence and censorship. At the funeral of the Tunisian vendor who set himself on fire to protest corruption, 5,000 angry marchers chanted, “Farewell, Mohamed, we will avenge you. We weep for you today, but we will make those who caused your death weep.” In terms of framing the uprising to get mass support, the demand “Ben Ali leave” had broad appeal. However, Honwana finds PP limited because youth aren’t involved in the old political process; they’re making a new politics outside of political parties.

Looking at other resources that favored the rebels, Tunisia is more prosperous than its neighbors, has close trade ties with Europe and many European tourists—until terrorist bombings of tourist sites in 2015. Government could function after Ben Ali stepped down in contrast to the chaos in Libya. The government guaranteed a university education to anyone who passed the exit exams at the end of high school. But, like other developing countries, teachers often offer paid tutoring to their students after school to make up for insufficient instruction in the classroom. More women are enrolled in universities than men in Tunisia, similar to Libya, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

This education policy tripled the number of Tunisian graduates over a decade, so that 57% of young adults who entered the job market in 2011 were college-educated, compared to less than a third in the US. Ranking Arab educational systems, only Qatar was above Tunisia and the former has oil money to invest in its schools, according to a Global Competiveness Report (but by 2013 the top ranked Arab educational systems were in Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Oman).[68] A Brookings Institution report found that 56% of Arab primary students and 48% of lower secondary students are “not learning foundational skills” leading to high dropout rates compared to other developing countries. A factor is poor teacher training. Jordan is a leader in reform efforts, along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Kuwait.[69] However, the unemployment rate for college-educated young Tunisians increased to three times the national average of 15%. Youth were also angry about the indignity of having to live in fear of saying something that might alienate the security forces. One of Bouazizi’s neighbors, an unemployed lawyer named Jaber Hajlawi, said in 2011, “My brother has a Ph.D.; he works in a supermarket. The problem is that qualifications mean nothing. It’s all about who you know. Now, we expect things to change. I want my freedom and my rights. I want to work. I want a job.”[70]

Skype conversations with a Gen Y Tunisian teacher provided many insights as to why Tunisia was the leader of the Arab Spring. Khouloud lives in the most northern city while her family roots in the rural south. A college English teacher in her 20s, Khouloud was raised to think she had the right to dress as she pleased, to be educated and have a job. Teachers instill critical thinking skills, as when they asked students in her high school class how Ben Ali could get 99.9% of the vote. They don’t condescend to their students. Educated people like her speak French, Arabic, and English so they have access to a variety of information such as the pride French people feel in their revolution of 1789. She said Tunisia is a very westernized country with men and women mixing socially, in classrooms, and in transportation–the opposite of Saudi Arabia she said. Arab friends say Tunisian women have character, they’re not mediocre. Although most people are Muslim, Khouloud reported many are not observant about daily prayers or fasting during Ramadan, similar to what I observed in Turkey.

The Tunisian military had never fought a war and did not support Ben Ali against the rebels. Generally, the self-interests of the officers determines military support; they did not want to go down with a sinking ship in Tunisia and Egypt, in contrast to Syria where they are so closely linked economically and politically with the Assad regime that they fight to the death.[71] Pro-regime Syrians shouted, “God, Syria, Bashar, and that’s it.” Soldiers in Tunisia and Egypt refused to fire on the masses because the army relies on conscripts who could be your brother or son, while Ben Ali kept the military subordinate to his large security forces. When Ben Ali ordered the military to fire on the protesters, General Rachid Ammar disobeyed. The armed forces retreated early in the uprising, handing power to the new Higher Committee to Protect the Goals of the Revolution. After Ben Ali left the country, the army proclaimed itself “the guarantor of the revolution.” If the army had backed Ben Ali, Mubarak, Saleh and Yanukovych, they might still be in power.

Khouloud said the direct inspiration for the Tunisian revolution was mining protests in 2008 in the rural south. Historically December and January is always the season for uprisings in Tunisia, repeated in the 2008 protests about changes in hiring practices in a mining town in the interior, where jobs went to Ben Ali’s friends rather than local people. Ben Ali sent 12,000 troops to put down the protests that occurred every Sunday for six months in a town with no parks, terrible roads, and health problems caused by the mining. Police kicked open doors in the middle of night looking for protesters but the media didn’t cover the protests. People started thinking they had nothing to lose by protesting, as Khouloud heard when she talked with some of the mining protesters who persisted for six months. After the strike, a group of young Internet organizers organized the Progressive Youth of Tunisia. They corresponded with Kefaya youth activists in Egypt using Facebook to discuss strikes and blogging as changemaking tools. Their police state was even more dominant than in Egypt, with less press freedom, but stronger trade unions.

Labor struggles prepared the way for the uprising, including rural workers in the interior and the middle-class in Tunis and other cities. By the beginning of 2010 there were other uprisings in the southern border. Sidi Bouzidi, the city where the revolution started, was near the mining demonstrations. It’s a wild area with a lot of mountains, where military action against French colonial rule began in the 1950s. In 2010, WikiLeaks about the ruling family’s corruption discussed in private cables from US Foreign Service officials were reported by Nawaat.org and Al Jazeera TV. Young cyber activists were assisted by Egyptian friends and by the international group Anonymous whose hackers broke into government sites in Operation Tunisia to help reveal The Family’s corruption. That’s how Tunisians referred to Ben Ali, his despised wife, and their relatives. Khouloud reported that the underlying problem was the degree of corruption was “more than anyone could handle.” In a small country, people knew about it but WikiLeaks revealed that the US government also understood the extent of The Family’s corruption.

Discontent was brewing but the government didn’t pay attention to it. People had to stay silent to keep jobs or get their free education. They were expected to pay bribes to government officials or they’d slow down paperwork processes. Khouloud heard stories about Big Brother watching you that she thought were urban legends until she heard more reports after the revolution as people told their stories on various media. Thousands who didn’t “play the game,” were put in jail and tortured. She also thinks that at age 75, Ben Ali was tired of power, and luck played a part in his downfall.

The foundation for rebellion was laid by a widely viewed video of President Ben Ali’ second wife, Leila Ben Ali, using a government jet for expensive shopping trips to Europe in 2007. Tunisia was the first Arab country to get Internet access in 1991, with nearly a fifth of the people connected by January 2011, accompanied by much government censorship and threat of jail for viewing unauthorized websites.[72] Access to the Internet spread knowledge of government corruption as about 2 million out of 11 million Tunisians were on Facebook and about 30% had Internet access.  

Almost everyone had access to a mobile phone, an impactful resource for organizers because it is inexpensive–perhaps just the price of coffee at an Internet café, instantaneous, and can evade police surveillance. Rebels didn’t have to meet face-to-face and they learned from peers in other countries, as have all the leaders of uprisings since 2011. Unemployed educated activists have the resource of time to spend organizing, writing blogs, keeping track of social media comments, creating videos, and tweeting. Graffiti was influential as well as blogs, Tweets and music, as in other uprisings.[73] An anthem of the young protesters was a song by a 21-year-old Tunisian rapper, Hamada Ben Amor who is called El General, that went viral throughout the Arab world. It translates as: “Mr. President, your people are dying/ People are eating rubbish/ Look at what is happening/ Miseries everywhere, Mr. President/ I talk with no fear/ Although I know I will get only trouble/ I see injustice everywhere.”[74] He was interrogated by police for three days but released due to public protest. Surprisingly, his 2013 song “I Wish” called for Tunisia to become an Islamic state.[75]

            The vendor who set himself on fire and started the revolution, Mohamed Bouazizi’s hometown of Sidi Bouzid is the capital of a poor rural area. Why did the uprisings start in the rural areas when most other global revolts started in urban areas? Uprisings always start in the interior neglected by the government in Tunis. Poet Wala Kasmi wrote that the revolution was made by the “forgotten children of the hinterland.” Tunisia is divided into the “pampered” coastal area and the deprived inland area where some people don’t have electricity. Khouloud’s mother comes from a poor inland area with no running water to drink outside of the village center, and the children have to walk six miles to school without shoes or books. Schools are freezing cold in the winter with open windows. Some kids have to walk through a river valley where children have drowned. They only have dry bread to eat at school. The Ben Ali government gave them sheep and money to vote for his RCD party but rural people felt the party didn’t deliver on their promises. Khouloud said the situation still is not getting better for the poor because government focuses on politics and what parties are in power.

As to why youth were in the forefront of making the revolution, Khouloud said her parents’ generation was taught to be respectful of authority; they weren’t rebels, with memories of being colonized by France. Their parents were illiterate, like her grandmother whose energy went to feeding her children. Her father is a nurse who did participate in labor strikes to protect his job. In contrast, her generation is educated, taught to believe they have rights. She estimated that up to 80% of the demonstrators protesting on the streets were young people ages 15 to 35, not just students but representing a variety of backgrounds and professionals like lawyers and doctors. As someone who teaches college students, she observed that youth ages 15 to 25 are wilder because they expect immediate results.

The Bouazizi Trigger, Supported by Unions and Professionals

The Arab Revolution began with a self-immolation protest in front of a municipal building in December 2010, by fruit and vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi, age 26. His age group, 15 to 29, is over a quarter of the population. Khouloud reported, “The first version that went into the media has it that he was a university graduate. I watched his sister interviewed on TV confirming he was a high school dropout, but for sure he was the one supporting his family.”

A policewoman stopped his vegetable and fruit cart, helping herself to some apples. As the sole support of his family (his father died when he was three), he protested when two policemen pushed him to ground and took his scale. He asked, “Why are you doing this to me?” In protest, Bouazizi set himself on fire in front of City Hall in the town of Sidi Bouzid and died in the hospital 18 days later. The sole support of his widowed mother and five younger siblings,[76] he paid for his sister’s college education, but he couldn’t afford to finish high school. His sister explained that being slapped by a policewoman was too much: “In Tunisia dignity is more important than bread.” A lawyer named Leila Den Debba said a revolution was underway “where the young people did not rally for food but for a dignified life.”[77]

Before his immolation, three other young Tunisians had killed themselves to protest the regime. Graffiti in his town square says, “No to youth unemployment. No to poverty.” Bouazizi voiced the hopelessness of his generation. The national media didn’t report his self-immolation but the news spread on Facebook. His distant cousin, activist Ai Bouazizi, filmed the immolation on his mobile phone and posted it on Facebook, where Al Jazeera TV discovered it. He added a fabrication that Mohamed was a college graduate and that a policewoman slapped him in order to make the hero representative, not only of the poor, but all young Tunisians. When the government censored Facebook and deleted opposition pages, the international hacker group Anonymous attacked government websites in Operation Tunisia, using dial-up connections. Unemployed college graduates were the first to organize after Bouazizi‘s action to protest lack of job opportunities and corruption. Mohamed’s mother called on men to join her in protest, a common theme in the Arab Uprisings of women asking men to prove their courage—as Asmaa Mahfouz did in Egypt. The Association of Tunisian Lawyers soon supported the protests.

The police repression was so violent that, as usual, they attracted more protesters. The turning point for the uprising was the massacre of 22 youths and wounding of around 200 other protesters in the poverty-stricken towns of Kassarine and Thala in the interior in January 8 to 12, 2011. Police shot demonstrators with live bullets, sparking mass protests in Tunis supported by middle-classes, and backed by the large national General Tunisian Labour Union (UGTT). It’s the main non-governmental national organization in Tunisia, open to all professionals as well as workers. Ben Ali promised in his last speech that no more “real bullets” would be used. Videos of the oppression were posted on the Internet until the police cut off access and USB thumb drives were then used to spread the news on Facebook, Nawaat.org blog and Posterous.com, etc. Nawaat.org was one of the most used sites and therefore especially targeted by Ben Ali.

News was spread throughout Tunisia and internationally by Arab bloggers, especially the Egyptian “We are all Khaled Said” Facebook page, American Jillian York’s Global Voices, and the UK newspaper The Guardian. The youth-led uprisings garnered support through savvy use of their ICT resources, posting videos of police brutality that went viral on the Internet and then were shown on international news TV stations like CNN and Al Jazeera. A large upsurge in demonstrators usually occurred after well-publicized displays of violence. Tunisians replaced their profile pictures with the V for Vendetta mask to show support for Anonymous hackers. The hactivists replaced government pages with the Operation Payback avatar of the Guy Fawkes mask. Widespread graffiti was a tool of the Arab Spring, as shown on an interactive graffiti map that includes photos and videos.[78]

In small towns near Sidi Bouzid police stations were burned and the rebellion spread from Menzel Bouzayene and Meknassi on to other towns, assisted by UGTT. The most powerful civil society organization, it represents about a tenth of the population. Bloggers spread the news of Bouzzizi’s death and demonstrations got larger as they moved from rural areas to the capital and gathered support from the repressed labor movement. Widespread protest, after decades of scattered protests, took everyone by surprise.

Mouheb Ben Garousi, co-founder of the I-Watch news organization led by people in their early 20s, said that even in their homes any discussion of politics was met with, “Shh! The walls are listening!” His parents taught him not to think about politics, afraid the police would send him “behind the sun,” the term for critics of Ben Ali who disappeared. He calls it the Dignity Revolution rather than the Jasmine Revolution, because “dignity became the main thing we cared about,” more than economics. The president’s party even had spies in the university student dormitories where he lived in Tunis. Ben Garousi learned about the demonstrations in Sidi Bouzid from Facebook since the mainstream media was silent or reported on rioting caused by supposed terrorists and gangs. Although the government blocked access to WikiLeaks, arrested bloggers, and harvested Facebook user names and passwords, protesters were able to use social media as by tweeting the location of government snipers.

Ben Garousi posted protester’s videos on his Facebook page using a proxy to get around government censorship, returning home to Kairouan. When a friend called and told him that the UGTT union was organizing a protest, he joined it. (Political parties didn’t help organize protests.) He and his friends ignored their parents’ pleas not to go out on the streets, and were joined by 20,000 others in a city of 300,000. He said overall about 300 protesters were killed by security forces in the Tunisian uprising. After Ben Ali fled, Ben Garousi returned to Tunis where activists demanded that the regime’s Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouch step down. Almost all the protesters were young and came from all over the country. He and a friend started I-Watch to monitor corruption; their group evolved into the first youth think-tank. All of its leaders are between 20 and 25 and other young people started similar projects to rebuild the country.

The UGTT opened their local union offices in Sidi Bouzid to protesters, conducted outreach to international media, and helped organize demonstrations and strikes around the country. Protests spread to other cities of the central region assisted by the local committees of the UGTT and then on to the coast organized by “Unemployed and young people’s defense committees.” Student unions and lawyers were the first to organize on the streets. Photos of the first month of protests are online.[79] In the “March of Freedom,” thousands marched from Sidi Bouzid to the capital on January 23 in the first occupation of the central Kasbah. Police cleared the square two days later, but protesters re-occupied the Kasbah in a sit-in again from February 20 to March 9. I didn’t see tents in photographs of the sit-in, just masses of people sitting in the square.

The protesters’ goals were employment, freedom, and dignity (karama). Slogans were “Game Over,” “Yes, we can,” “Freedom,” “Get out/piss off!,” “Karama watanya” (national dignity), “Ben Ali, thief!” and “Work, freedom and social justice.” Similar slogans about dignity and justice repeated throughout the Arab Spring. Graffiti artists painted on streets, including portraits of Bouazizi.[80] They frequently quoted verses from the national anthem that encourages people to believe in themselves and Egyptians chanted it too:

When the people will to live,

Destiny must surely respond.

Oppression shall then vanish.

Fetters are certain to break.

Before Ben Ali left, looters broke into big stores owned by his in-laws and government snipers shot at the demonstrators, although the post-revolution government of Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi denied any snipers existed. By January 8, 2011, Amnesty International reported that 73 protesters were killed. The army refused to follow Ben Ali’s order to fire on the protesters and large demonstrations filled the streets of Tunis. When the riots reached the ghettos of Tunis, Haythem El Mekki, 29, realized nothing could stop the people’s anger. A journalist and blogger, he reported “Nothing was planned; no movement was organized.”[81] El Mekki said the army did nothing to stop the revolt. Shortly after he called for a demonstration against Ben Ali’s RCD party: “There was no stopping us now.” When asked how he felt, he said, “Simultaneous orgasms of freedom.” Photos reveal the “best moments” of the revolution.[82]

UGTT called for a national strike on January 14, 2011 surrounding the presidential palace that resulted in President Ben Ali’s departure to Saudi Arabia. The next day, with signs In January and February, youth and other disgruntled people occupied government buildings surrounding the Ministry of the Interior, the Courthouse, and so on. Four weeks after Bouazizi poured gasoline on himself, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in the capital from all over the country. They also organized strikes and factory take-overs. The army forced Ben Ali to leave the country in January after 23 years in power and after approximately 100 protesters were killed.[83] Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia and on January 17 former Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi headed the new government. Celebratory signs said “Game Over” in English.

A member of the UGTT Executive Board reported, “This Intifada lacked a central brain but there were local leaders everywhere, and most of them were union members.”[84] It continued organizing in committees for the protection of the revolution. Large demonstrations at the Kasbah in January and February 2011 ousted political leaders with ties to the old regime and advocated elections for the national assembly.

Explaining the active role of lawyers early in the protests, Khouloud said that unlike the US where status and respect comes from being self-made, Tunisians value higher education. She was shocked when she learned as a teenager that Ben Ali’s second wife was a hairdresser (a rumor was Leila was plotting to take over the government if her sick husband died.) She was said to have told her husband when he hesitated to get on the airplane to exile, “Get on imbecile. All my life I’ve had to put up with your screw-ups.”[85] A lawyer was the first politician assassinated after the revolution. Lawyers often spoke to crowds at protests, trained to be convincing speakers in courtrooms. While in front of the crowd they encouraged people to speak, such as a mother who complained that government officials were disrespectful of her when she sought a job for her educated son, telling her he should sell chickpeas.

Women demonstrators were present in large numbers. Women helped organize the revolution, including the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women. A feminist teacher who demonstrated in the streets, Wical Jaidi said Ben Ali’s security police recognized her and her friend and started to herd them to the Ministry of the Interior building, where “we knew we would be raped and killed.”[86] She added that women were praised for being activists, but not permitted to voice their thoughts after the revolution: “Many women of my generation are being pushed back home.” Some women started wearing the niqab face covering which was outlawed before the revolution.

Women pushed for their rights after Ben Ali was ousted, but they had to struggle just to maintain existing rights after the revolution, as was true in Egypt. Conservative Salafists organized demonstrations on some university campuses demanding segregated classes and the right of women to wear the niqab. Hundreds of Salafists led protest marches against the screening of Persepolis (2008), an animated Iranian movie about a young girl’s rebellion against conservative Islam, including a character representing God, which is harem–forbidden. The TV station owner was fined by a court for violating moral values. Women TV announcers were under pressure to wear headscarves, which had previously been banned in Tunisia. Adel Elmi, the head of an Islamic NGO stated, “We want at least minimum respect for Islam … no miniskirts, no half-naked women in ads, no pictures of Marilyn Monroe,” and no gay rights.[87] Two bloggers were put in prison for blasphemy on their Facebook pages.

The Tunisian assembly decided that the constitution would not be based on sharia Islamic law whereby women are entitled to only half as much inheritance as men. The constitutional committee was composed of 12 parties with a woman vice-president. The first democratically elected president, Moncef Marzouki said Tunisia’s main problem was not religious belief but the high youth unemployment rate. Blogger Slim Amamou was appointed Secretary of State for youth and sport. Youth activist webpages encouraged youth to help with the democratic transition and the development of citizenship, such as the Facebook pages Culture for Citizenship and Association Jeunes Liberte, plus blog sites Cahierdeliberte.org and Fhimt.com.

Ennahda Takes Then Gives Up Power

 The Ennhada Party, outlawed by Ben Ali, took over in a fair election after his departure in 2011. A 2011 law required that every electoral list include half women placed alternately on the list, to prevent them from being placed on the bottom as in other countries. The winning party was the supposedly moderate Islamic party called Ennahda, but its female spokeswoman and parliament member said single mothers “do not have the right to exist,” illustrating its traditional attitudes. [88] Like the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, it was the most organized group, the first to have offices in every constituency around the country.[89] Youth criticized the opposition for being anti-Ehnahda without a positive program to replace it.

Democracy activist and feminist Yasmin Hloui reported about the Islamist versus secular struggle, “We young people had failed to dominate the debate and change it [in the 70s and 80s]. Instead the ideological and normative differences that were to my generation irrelevant became, in the post-revolution period, sites of contention and conflict.”[90] She added that they inherited the “language of hate” and were in a “crisis of framing,” so she tried to organize a conference about hate speech but failed because of disagreements among her group. She also reported fraud occurred in the October 2011 elections that elected Ennahda and that people feared criticizing the party after the election. When she and other young people protested, they were attacked on Facebook as immoral young people who were unbelievers. She heard stories of female professors ordered by their students to wear the veil and demanding that male and female students should be separated by a curtain. Youth organizations allied with UGTT pressured the Islamic government to step down before elections and to include women’s rights in the new constitution.[91] UGTT led large anti-Ennahda protests in February and May 2012, charging it with continuing the same neoliberal economic system led by Ben Ali.

Some of the Ennahda officials were associated with corruption like the Minister of Foreign Affairs who was involved in “Sheraton-gate,” when he charged the government for the cost of staying in the hotel with a woman when his home was ten minutes away from his office. The woman in charge of the Ministry of Women and Family Issues didn’t take a stand against rape; when a little girl was raped in her kindergarten, the Minister tried to cover it up. Ennahda didn’t confront very conservative Wahabi religious leaders from Gulf counties who insisted that girls as young as five wear the abaya robe and that girls be circumcised. Khouloud is afraid that the cunning Islamists will find a way to come back to power. She prays at home and not at the mosque because of hate speech given by imams and their instructions that women’s belong in the home. She says, “They make you scared of God, while I love him.” Former presidents Bourguiba and Ben Ali had restricted issues that could be discussed in mosques such as they prohibited telling men to grow beards or advocating an Islamic government.

 Khouloud misses the safety that Ben Ali’s regime provided when she and her mother could walk home from a wedding at 2:00 AM without fear. If a woman reported harassment, a policeman would beat the guy up, and then arrest him. That’s not true now when terrorism is a national issue and people don’t feel safe hanging out in public streets. She never thought she’d see a government leader shot in broad daylight as when two popular opposition leaders were killed in front of their homes. Chokri Belaid was assassinated in February 2013, allegedly due to a religious fatwa declaring him a nonbeliever who should be killed. Ennahda was blamed in street protests for not controlling Islamist extremists who acted like Saudi moral policemen in some neighborhoods and attacked some police and army units. People blamed Ennahda for the lack of security that led to the second assassination of a leftist opposition leader, Mohamed Brahmi, in July, followed by five months of political deadlock. UGTT, which played a large role in the revolution, called for a general strike to protest the assassination. The assassins were arrested but released, leading to accusations that Ennahda leader Rashid Ghannouchi was a serial killer.

Youth groups organized, including a Tunisian version of Egypt’s Tamarod (“Rebellion”) that led the ouster of President Mohamed Morsi. Nur Laiq interviewed 70 youth activists in Egypt and Tunisia in 2012, ages 18 to 38.[92]  She reported that the majority of youth are Muslims, but they divide between secularists and those who support political Islam. This fragmentation inhibits their political influence but Tunisian youth are more represented in political party youth wings and councils than in Egyptian parties. Like their Egyptian peers, they wish for unity; one activist said, “Religion shouldn’t be the debate. It’s crazy that the debate is here.”[93] Another young activist told her, “There’s no Tunisian or Egyptian. We are all one entity; Islam unifies us.”

As in Egypt, some youth were skeptical of political parties and formed their own groups or got involved in other civil society organizations. University students organized the I-Watch NGO two months after the revolution as a watchdog to fight corruption, the main cause of the revolution. They believe it’s the first youth think-tank in Tunisia. The group educates youth about citizenship and organizes volunteers to monitor elections: Their website includes photos and their recent projects.[94] Their national youth assembly’s main demand was to form a national youth council to advise legislators on youth issues like unemployment. Their leaders are not permitted to join a political party.

They evaluate the records of elected officials, as when their January 2015 report on Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa revealed only nine of his 32 promises were achieved, according to I-Watch president Achref Aouadi .The group has much work to do since a Carnegie report in 2017 found that corruption was endemic in comparison to the control exerted by Ben Ali when he was president and limited corruption to his family and friends, infecting every aspect of the reform process. The report cites a poll where 76% think corruption has gotten worse, mainly blaming the government.[95] Lina Ben Mhenni, famous for her blogging during the revolution, reported in 2015 that, “We enjoyed a few months of revolutionary euphoria but just after we went back to old practices, torture is still practiced, individual freedoms are not respected.”

Youth broke away from Ennahda political party to form Ikbis, which means to apply pressure or turn the screw. Laiq found that most youth, including those in Ikbis, were critical of the government for not achieving the goals of the revolution. They didn’t like the continuing employment of former members’ of Ben Ali’s government whom they considered corrupt. A sit-in in Tunis in August 2012 drew 20,000 young people to protest government inaction. A young man who shared a harem cartoon about Prophet Mohammed was jailed until he was released under the new caretaker government, but then they arrested him again.

Although Tunisians have safety concerns, Khouloud said the bright side of the revolution is that Ennahda Islamists are not in power and prime ministers and other officials act professionally, tackling problems of tax avoidance and corruption. (The Nidaa Tounes party Prime Minister Youssef Chahed has been in power since 2016.) Khouloud has faith in teachers and citizens who love their country. The new government listens to suggestions from the people, not wanting to appear unresponsive. However, a World Bank report three years after the revolution found that youth feel they’re not included in decision-making or consulted about their issues.[96] Few are active in civil society groups and political parties. The 2014 constitution commits to youth participation but implementation lags although political parties are required to nominate at least one candidate under age 35 among the top four names on their list. Youth place much more trust in religious leaders and family than the political system or the press. The majority of Tunisian youth drop out of school before completing secondary education, so that 83% of rural youth are NEETs as are 57% of urban youth. Despite official gender equality policies, few young women are employed—only 40% of urban women and 18.5% of rural women.

Tunisia declared a national curfew for a few days in January 2016 in response to a second week of protests against unemployment and corruption. Protests started in Kasserine after the funeral of a young man who died protesting his unemployment when he was electrocuted as he climbed an electric pole, then the protests spread around the country. The youth unemployment rate was over 30%.

Anti-austerity demonstrations rolled over to Tunisia in January of 2018 to protest the new Finance Act that raised sales (VAT) taxes on consumer goods and sought to cut public sector wages, as requested by the IMF in order to reduce the deficit. Young Tunisian educated adults have the same problems as Iranians with high unemployment (about 35%), government austerity cuts, increased taxes, rising prices, government corruption, and an economic divide between more prosperous cities and poorer rural areas. Although January was the seventh anniversary of the Tunisian protests that started off the Arab Spring in 2011, the progress was slow. The new youth movement calls itself “What are we waiting for? (Fech Nestannew), beginningwith graffiti on city walls and then on social media. Imen Mhamdi, a female university graduate who works in a factory, joined the protests because, “This government, like every government after [President] Ben Ali, only gives promises and has done nothing. People are angry and poverty is rising.”[97]

Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebi said he understood protesters’ grievances but he didn’t revise the austerity measures. He did submit proposals to parliament to increase aid to the poor, address youth unemployment, provide free medical care for unemployed youth, and set up a housing fund for low-income Tunisians. He reminded demonstrators, “Be modest, your country does not have a lot of means.” He also advocated a bill to change the inheritance law from women getting half of what men inherit to equal rights unless the giver states otherwise. In opposition, Islamists demonstrated on the streets in August of 2018 as countering the Quran. Although the Ennahda party (member of the coalition government) supported the equal rights clause of the 2014 constitution, and a 2017 law to end violence against women, it opposed the change because is “invokes fear related to the stability of the Tunisian family and the customs of society”. Thousands of supporters marched in favor of the bill, including the Tunisian Association for Democratic Women. “Tunisia: Ennahda Rejects Inheritance Equality,” Human Rights Watch, September 6, 2018.

After the revolution, young people continued to organize sit-ins, occupations, and stopped the mining protests to demand jobs, the end of corruption, and halt mining and fracking.  Legal reforms in 2017 included criminalizing domestic violence, lifted the ban on Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men, and no longer allow a rapist to avoid punishment by marrying his victim. In March 2018 more than 1,000 Tunisians, mostly women, went to the streets of Tunis to call for equal inheritance rights, as proposed by President Beji Caid Essebsi. Their slogans were “Equality: A Right, not a Privilege.” We don’t want complementarity. “Equality is my right, this is why I fight.” The national protest was organized by the Tunisian Coalition for Equality in Inheritance and included 73 feminist groups, human rights associations, NGOs, unions, etc. the commission for Individual Freedoms and Gender equality was established in August f 2017. It also advocates women’s rights to pass on their family name to their children. This in a time when women are twice as likely to be unemployed and half the women over 60 have no personal income. However, Safwan Masri argues in his 2018 book Tunisia: An Arab Anomaly that women will not allow their country to regress due to Tunisia’s success in educating their people. Unlike other MENA countries, Tunisia is considering decimalizing homosexuality and in 2017 permitted the first Queer Film Festival in the region.

Algerian Hamza Hamouchene reported, “The state’s failure to listen to these demands, meanwhile continuing to erode public services, is the result of a reckless insistence on applying the same neoliberal recipe for disaster, in all its relentless violence, that the Tunisian people have been fighting for so long.”[98] Writing in 2018, Hamouchene observed “Its revolutionary fervor, though weakened, is still alive. It lives in the ongoing struggles and resistance of social movements, the emergent revolutionary organizations, youth collectives, women’s rights associations, trade unions, the unemployed gradates, small peasants and marginalized communities in the regions of the interior and working-class neighbors, away from bustling tourist sites.”

The government announcement of the 2018 budget with tax increases led to protests that lasted for two weeks in January 2018, resulting in around 800 arrests and dozens of injuries. Taxes and cost of living angered Tunisians around the country. Demonstrations spread to 16 out of 24 governorates and drew from a variety of classes as people feared the goals of their 2011 revolution were compromised by the neoliberal government. The youth movement Fech Nestennavo (What are we waiting for?) connected with the leftist Popular Front coalition to initiate the protests, along with rising inflation and unemployment (youth unemployment reached 36%.) Rising food prices added to the discontent as austerity measures followed from interest rates on loans from the IMF. Some activists faulted the NGOization of civil society for undermining an independent civil society. Hamouchene advocates decolonialization. Prime Minister Chahed of the secular Nidaa Tounes party optimistically said 2018 would be the last difficult year for Tunisians and his government promised thousands of new public sector jobsMeanwhile, Ennahda rebranded itself as “Muslim democrats” rather than aiming for Islamization of the country but the two parties feel out of coalition. . (Rory McCarthy discussed the party in Inside Tunisia’s al-Nahda: Between Politics and Preaching, 2018). Overall these politicians participated in free elections, wrote a progressive constitution, and aimed to correct the errors of the Ben Ali regime. Yet they didn’t establish a constitutional court, a state of emergency remained in effect, and a 2017 law gave amnesty to corrupt officials from the Ben Ali regime.

Yemen

Yemen is of interest to Western powers and the site of US “war on terror” drone attacks because of its strategic location close to the Red Sea, Gulf of Eden and the Arabian Sea and border with Saudi Arabia, plus its oil resources. Yemen became a republic in 1990 when the traditionalist  Islamist North and communist South unified in one country under President Ali Abdullah Saleh, after a history of conflicts that continue to the present. Deposed southern army officers began demonstrations in 2007 and were joined by unemployed youth and others to form the Southern Movement to protest northern control. Another divisive force, tribalism is rampant and al-Qaeda moved in during the 2011 uprisings after their bases in Afghanistan and Pakistan were closed down.

In the poorest Arab country, 75% of the population is under age 30. After the revolution, one-third of the population suffers from chronic hunger, over half live below the poverty line, 60% of youth are unemployed, and 40% of the adults are illiterate, without a large middle class. Nearly half the children suffer from stunted growth because of malnutrition. The capital Sanaa lacks a steady supply of electricity and water.

Three young friends formed Resonate! Yemen in 2010 to mobilize youth involvement in politics and they became more radical after the January 2011demonstrations. They demonstrated in Freedom Square in the city of Taiz as an independent youth movement and in Change Square near the university in the capital of Sanaa. They helped organize medical, media, and discussion areas for protesters to meet. The night Mubarak was ousted in Egypt, youth went to the streets in the city of Taiz to announce the beginning of the Yemeni revolution.

On January 16, 2011, about 30 protesters led by Tawakul Karman gathered to call for President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s resignation. The demonstrations started at Sanaa University with ten people the day after President Ben Ali left Tunisia. Karman was arrested a few days later, leading to further protests. Young urban youth filled the central square in the capital city of Sanaa. Media-savvy protesters released balloons over the presidential palace painted with the message “Leave, Ali.” Men were surprised when Karman took the microphone to speak but they followed her and her Facebook and cell phone messages. After a week, she was acknowledged as the movement’s leader. Youth groups such as Yemen’s Youth Movement, the Youth Revolutionary Council and various NGOs joined the protests to get rid of Saleh.

Karman was inspired by the youth uprising in Tunisia and referred to the Arab Spring as the Jasmine Revolution. Known as the “mother of the revolution,” she was 32, a college-educated journalist, the mother of three children, and active in the opposition party Islah. (See her photo online and she has a Facebook page.[99]) She had previously led sit-ins at the Ministry of Social Affairs to gain the release of jailed journalists in her role as head of Women Journalists Without Chains. Karman had protested every Tuesday since 2007 in front of Sanaa University, originally to protest displacement of 30 families from their village when their land was given to a tribal leader with close ties to Saleh. She also organized protests to campaign for women’s rights and press freedoms.

A demonstrator named Barra’a Shaiban reported, “The revolution had some magical element that attracted everyone to it. Perhaps it was hope. Whoever arrived at the square couldn’t leave, and whoever had been quiet finally broke their silence.” He added that in the first few months of the revolution, “youth felt they had the power, they were shaping the situation, and that their voices were the most important—without the need to go to the political parties. But two years later, another youth activists, age 27, said, “sometimes I regret we had the revolution—like we fooled ourselves.” When youth were marginalized in the National Dialogue conference, Karman boycotted it. Rebecca Murray, “Yemen’s Youth Denied the Revolutionary Change,” Inter Press Service, February 16, 2013. Youth formed a council and publicized their “Demands of the Youth” document written by the Media Revolutionary Council. Protesters said, “After Mubarak, it’s Ali’s turn,” referring to President Ali Abdullah Saleh. He was born to a peasant family and rose to power through the military. He prepared his son Ahmed to take over as president and posted huge billboard photos of himself, the Brother President, similar to Libya’s Gaddafi who called himself Brother Leader.

The revolution got into gear when Egypt’s President Mubarak stepped down on February 11 and several hundred people went to the streets to celebrate. Some chanted, “The people want to bring down the regime,” but most people didn’t have hope that Saleh could be ousted. They set up tents near the Sanaa University and side streets in what they called Change Square. A banner read “Welcome to the first kilometer of dignity.” Demonstrators watched the TV news on a giant screen, vendors sold freedom tea, and billboards advocated the familiar “Get Out!” and “Ali, Leave.” Youth chanted, “no political parties, no partisan politics, our revolution is a youth revolution.” A BBC documentary titled Reluctant Revolutionary follows a rebel during the revolution in 2011.[100] Various groups taught young people how to use the Internet to blog but they were hampered by the government cutting off electricity for all but an hour a day. They bought batteries for laptops or went to cafes with generators.

One of the largest youth coalitions, The Coordinating Council of Revolutionary Youth represented independents, political party youth wings, the northern Houthi religious sect and southern movements, and supported women’s rights.[101] They advocated creating a modern democratic state. They drafted a “youth plan” in March 2011 called “Youth Vision for the Future of Yemen” and opened it up to comments on social media. They continued to mediate between various groups but were only given 40 seats in the 565-seat conference to draft the constitution. Youth groups flourished after the 2011 protests, with conferences, graffiti and campaigns such as the Youth Lobby Group’s push for a 20% quota for youth in government. University students created the Future Map to advise high school students in their career choices. In 2012, Resonate! Yemen launched a campaign “Institutionalizing the Youth Movement.” It includes young women in hijab and a few in niqab face covering.[102] Out of 250 youth groups, they picked 10 to train and support. Resonate! Yemen monitored the February 2012 elections through a text message system.

British-born Yemeni graduate student Abubakr Al-Shamahi reported on the demonstrators in Yemen, seeing all ages, the poor and the well off, with tribal men supporting the youth who they referred to as the ticking time bomb.[103] One of his favorite photos was a man in traditional Arab attire carrying a photo of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. When Al-Shamahi asked a teenage boy why he was demonstrating, he replied, “Corruption has reached terrible levels, and there is one man to blame.” Marches to the presidential palace took place after Friday prayers, a common time to demonstrate Muslim countries. On April 27, snipers picked off demonstrators from rooftops shooting to kill, including a 14-year-old, but the crowd kept marching and chanting, “Peaceful, peaceful, we will remain peaceful.” Demonstrators also organized cultural events, poetry readings, and workshops on politics and economics, similar to other global occupations of public squares. Al-Shamahi returned to the UK convinced that Yemen could never go back to the way it was under Saleh, and reported that although the media focused on Karman, many other women led chants on the main stage. Women bloggers in the US and Canada tweeted information throughout the protests, as on the blog “Yemen Rights Monitor.”

At some demonstrations, veiled women were cordoned off in their own section to protect them from harassment. Yemeni women are often burka-clad with only their eyes showing, the majority is illiterate, their legal testimony worth half of men’s, and many girls are married off as children—this problem increased due to the hardships caused by Saudi bombing in Yemen. Some women held a veil burning to protest restrictions on women. A Yemeni female student reported in 2011, “We had a thirst for freedom and love in our hearts, despite the fact that thousands were wounded and over 400 killed. We want a civil government with real democracy and the end of corruption.”[104] A Yemeni woman who recited poems critical of Saleh was sentenced in June to a year in prison and another poet and student named Ayat al-Qurmezi was also convicted of anti-state charges for inciting hatred with her writing.

Saleh declared that women and men who mingled in the demonstrations violated Islam, a divide and conquer strategy. In response women organized a march the next day. When asked to comment on this section, Karman sent  message to me on Facebook, “wonderful subject, but many women–especially from the new generation of young people–are wearing only the veil [hajib] because the generation of young people in Yemen has more freedom than its predecessors.”‎  She stopped wearing the niqabin 2004 so she could be “face-to-face with my activist colleagues.” She was jailed on January 22 and kept in chains but released after three days and thugs beat her and other protestor, while Saleh told her brother, “Control your sister. Anyone who disobeys me will be killed.” A text message spread, “Saleh has brought shame upon his country’s women; meet tomorrow at 3.30 p.m. at Sanaa University for a women’s march of honor,” resulting in 10,000 women in black abayas marching through the capital on April 16.  Women were almost a third of the demonstrators and some of them burned their black robes in October to protest government violence against protesters. Their prominent role in the uprising is documented in the film The Scream (2012) by Khadija al-Salami. Karman went on to win a Nobel Peace Prize, start a human rights organization (Women Journalists Without Chains in 2005) and continue her journalism from Alexandria, Egypt. She is called “Mother of the Revolution” and “Iron Woman.” She publicly removed her niqab in 2004 on television and replaced it with a head scarf.  She advocated for education for girls in a country where two-thirds of women are illiterate. She started organizing weekly protests in the capital Sana’a to advocate for investigation of government corruption and for democratic reform. As a consequence, she was frequently arrested. She became a leader in the opposition Islah Party.

A youth activist named Ibrahim Mothana described the revolution on video.[105] He said their issues for the future are to develop the economy, end violence and dismantle the security problems created by the 40% unemployment rate with an average income of less than $1,000 a year. When asked about leadership, he said everyone on the streets was a leader and that social media wasn’t that influential in such a diverse protest occurring in so many cities. Mothana said, “We were desperate for that kind of communal leadership.” He predicted that a new Yemen will be born because the youth spent more than 150 days making their voices heard on the street. Part of the new freedom, employee-led protests occurred in workplaces, similar to labor strikes. (Mothana died in 2013 from what his family said were natural causes at the age of 24.)

The demonstrations steadily grew to over a million protestors. On March 18 the regime’s snipers killed 52 protesters, called the Friday of Dignity massacre. Within a month, the protests spread to other cities and the security forces continued to live bullets as snipers fired from rooftops. Yemen was one of the few countries where some demonstrators called for an Islamic state (along with Syrian and Iraqi Sunni extremists), rather than democracy. The militant Islamic terrorist group Al Qaeda in Iraq warned Arabs in flowery language to “beware of the tricks of un-Islamic ideologies, such as filthy and evil secularism, infidel democracy, and putrid idolic patriotism and nationalism.”[106] Saleh was injured in an attack on his palace in June. He promised not to run for reelection in 2013 and promised a few reforms, but that didn’t satisfy his people. He followed Tunisia’s Ben Ali to Saudi Arabia after over 33 years in power on February 27, 2012. After changing his mind many times, he finally resigned in November. Blogger Atiaf Zaid Alwazir reported that although youth were inspired by the Tunisians to lead the revolution in Yemen, they were sidelined in the negotiations that led the Gulf Council transition plan signed by President Saleh on November 2011.[107] Sakeh manipulated behind the scenes to support the Houthis; both factions fought al-Qaeda and its rival ISIS that emerged in late 2014.

 Elections in February 2012 selected Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi to be president, until rebel Shite Houthis ousted him (their movement began in 2004). In 2015, Saudi Arabia started bombing Houthis with weapons supplied by the US and UK, causing “collateral damage” with the death of over 10,000 Yemeni civilians, plus that many need assistance, and over 40,000 injuries during the first two years of the conflict. [108] The UN says the conflict in Yemen led to one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. It continued into 2018 when the world’s attention turned to Saudi Arabia’s machinations because of accusations that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was behind the gruesome murder and dismemberment of critical journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in October.

The young rebels’ goal was to end corruption and instill dignity, according to Ali Saeed.[109] When he realized the revolution didn’t succeed in ending corruption but just made it more brazen, an engineering student named Akram Al-Shawafi started an NGO called Youth of Transparency and Building (YTB) in 2012. Youth working in government offices copied proof of corruption for YTB.  Al-Shawafi explained, “We went to the streets in 2011 because of corruption that fatigued the youth and the Yemeni people. However it became worse than ever.  Before officials used to practice corruption secretly, but now they do it publically.”[110] A survey showed that over half of respondents agreed that corruption had gotten worse in 2013. A year after the uprisings, a photojournalist, age 26, announced he was going to run for president to become “The First Youth President in the World,” but the ballot only listed elder Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

After Saleh’s vice-president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi took over as president, Yemen’s elections were postponed until 2014 after the National Dialogue Conference (NDC) met for ten months, recommending a federation of six regions when it finished its report in January 2014. The grassroots–including youth, were mostly left out of the transition process. The youth delegates to the NDC reported some political elites tried to control them but they did their homework on issues so were well informed.[111] Yemen’s 2014 National Dialogue Conference Outcomes included the Supreme Council for Youth to include youth in public policy formation. A youth quota of 20% applied to all three branches of government and boards of political parties. The state promised to support a “Skills Development Fund” to provide job training for youth and provide microfinance no-interest loans to youth and women. It also committed to supporting girls’ education. The youth were rightly skeptical about the chances of implementing these goals. The Houthis took over the same year.[112] Some observers praise them for eradicating extremists in the areas they control, fewer cases of violence against women and fewer child brides. “Many independent youth felt that the traditional opposition figures who worked side by side with the old regime do not believe in real change and have co-opted the revolution for personal and political gains,” reported blogger Atiaf Alwazir.[113]

Beginning in March 2015 with US consent, Saudi-led airstrikes devastated cities, killing thousands of civilians and displacing millions from their homes by September 2015. “They are targeting the whole population,” reported a survivor of the strikes, age 20, burned over two-thirds of his body.[114] American weapons and drones were used in the civil war, including missiles for Saudi fighter jets and cluster bombs. In August 2016 the Pentagon announced it planned to sell weapons valued at $1.15 billion to Saudi Arabia, which aims to counter Shia Iran’s influence on the Houthis and in the region. Mercenaries fought on the ground, some from Latin America hired by the UAE, and ISIS and Al Qaeda took advantage of the chaos. To make the situation even worse, Yemen is predicted to run out of water as aquifers are depleted (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan and Mexico are also in danger).[115]

Women and children were caught in the crossfire, some young women had to marry to protect themselves (this problem increased as the civil war continued), others struggled to provide for their families while their husbands were fighting or killed, and others were displaced without social services. A BBC documentary on Yemen: The Hidden War interviewed a mother who said she was feeding her four children pulverized weed leaves.[116] She didn’t know if she or the children would die first, saying hunger is worse than the bombs. The UN reported that 537,000 children faced famine and 1.3 million more were malnourished by Fall 2015. At least 500 children were killed and more wounded in Saudi airstrikes that began in March 2015 to oppose the Houthis; overall 8,000 were injured or killed from the start of the fighting through the first half of 2016.[117] By the end of 2018, over 85,000 children starved to death during the previous three years because of Saudi blockades that prevented food and aid from reaching the people. Even when food was available in markets, many didn’t have the money to buy it. About half the population faced famine leading to calls for UN action to end the war.[118]

Over 80% of the population needed humanitarian aid by 2015, according to UNICEF, and almost two million children couldn’t attend school.[119] The north is devastated, and al-Qaeda power grows. Thousands became refugees and left the county. Sunni suicide bombers attacked Shia mosques during services and car bombs were frequent. The Saudis buy half the weaponry used against Yemen, and the UK supplies a quarter. The bombing campaign aims to disrupt food distribution. The cholera epidemic is the largest outbreak in modern history—more than half of the victims are children. Yet women were left out of peace negotiations in Yemen and the Middle East. A blogger reported, “It’s the “male-controlled mentality of Saudi-inspired Salafism that has detached women from participation in building the peaceful Yemeni society.”[120]

Hundreds of thousands demonstrated in support of the Houthis and a new governing council that was rejected by the UN and the international community in August 2016. In an opinion piece in the Washington Post on November 21, 2018, Karman spelled out the path to ending the war:  the UN Security Council should pass a resolution demanding the end of the war, stop arms exports to Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the Houthis should not be allowed to receive arms from Iran, calling them an extremist group with a theocratic ideology. “Enough is enough,” she concluded. Updates and articles are provided in Atiaf Alwazir’s blog “Woman from Yemen,” which she began in 2011.[121]

Israel

Also influenced by the Egyptian uprising, on July 14, 2011, young Israeli protesters set up tents in Tel Aviv. Soon there were 100 camps around Israel, the history. The movement single largest protest movement in Israeli became known as J14, inspired by “contagion” from Egypt’s January 2011 uprising and Spain’s M15, and lasted until September. About 10% of the Israelis went to the streets, probably a higher percentage of support than in any of the Arab Spring uprisings except for Egypt, with polls showing widespread support by about 85% of the people.[122] They chanted “Mubarak! Assad! Bibi Netanyahu!” blaming their prime minister for their economic problems. Small protests had occurred earlier in the summer against increased cost of the popular food item cottage cheese and government threats to increase fuel prices. Before that, student organized strikes against increases in income inequality and reduction of public services. Youth bore the brunt of these neoliberal economic problems, especially with the reduction in public spending on education and public housing.[123]

A young woman started the 2011 uprising, similar to the Cedar Revolution in Lebanon. A 25-year old videomaker, Daphne (or Daphni) Leef got a notice she had to give up the apartment in trendy Tel Aviv where she had lived for three years. Searching for a new place to live, she found that rental prices had doubled in the previous five years. She created a Facebook page to ask for help in organizing a protest. Ten people came to an organizing meeting in June and pitched tents on pricey Rothschild Boulevard five days after the meeting. A sign read “Rothschild at the corner of Tahrir” Square and they used the Egyptian chant “The people demand social justice.” (In high school she signed a letter with other students refusing to serve in the “army of occupation,” and carried out her promise)

 With the help of intensive media coverage, within a few days hundreds more tents appeared on the Boulevard, and within a week almost 50,000 people demonstrated. Her first speech to the demonstrators is available on YouTube in Hebrew. Daphni Leef First speech: Revolution in Israel 2011. They took the government by surprise because many thought youth were a “generation unable to make a revolution.” By September 3, half a million people were on the streets in Tel Aviv, 50,000 in Jerusalem, and 40,000 in Haifa in the One Million March. The initial focus on cost of living and housing expanded to larger issues, expressed in slogans like, “The People Demand Social Justice,” “The Response to Privatization is Revolution,” and “Ties between Capital with Government are Criminal.” They took over the middle of the boulevard with thousands of tents. “People are on edge, you can’t fool us any more,” said student participant Avi Cohen. Various interest groups joined in to express concerns about women’s and minority’s rights and other inequality issues.

Other tent cities mushroomed around Israel—including some organized by Arab Israelis, but dwindled with the end of summer as police removed tents. On August 7 about 200,000 people protested in Tel Aviv and a September protest attracted more than 350,000 demonstrators. They wanted a return to the welfare state as prices just kept going up. Similar to other youth-led protests, they didn’t affiliate with political parties or unions that they felt ignored youth. Activists aimed to be inclusive, in this case of Jews and Arabs, religious and secular–typical of the global uprisings. The last tents were cleared October 3 and the original organizers split into factions although they considered themselves leaderless and horizontal. In a video interview held in September she said the government “has to change the way it relates to people. We’ve had enough. We don’t want charity, we want justice. At some point we’ll stop waiting and take control.”[124]

The protesters adopted the Spanish indignados’ general assemblies and hand signs used to express approval or dissent during meetings. An Israeli writer discussed the ambiguity of the middle-class European descendants’ leadership issue: “During the summer of 2011 the original initiators–Daphni Leef, Stav Shaffir, Regev Contes and Yigal Rambam, and others–were considered to be leaders of the movement. But they didn’t control it in reality; the movement was uncontrollable. Their role was mainly as spokespeople. Most have receded back to anonymity; others, including Leef and Shaffir, continued to lead the way, in a way.”[125]

An Israeli journalist wrote that the demonstrations were “a revolt by the middle class against the last three decades of extreme economic neoliberalism” because 69% of the wealth is owned by the richest 10 chanting, “The people demand social justice!” and “Walk like an Egyptian.” The %.[126]  On July 28, thousands of parents demonstated against the high cost of raising children in the “Strollers’ March.” Wanting lower rent costs and progressive taxes, they marched latter was a reference to Tahrir perhaps well to a 1986 hit song by the American female band The Bangles with the same title. Israelis also adopted Spanish 15M methods of organizing. In August protesters briefly occupied several abandoned buildings in Tel Aviv.

Interviews with six young activists were recorded in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.[127] Government ministers ridiculed them as “sushi-eaters” and “nargila [hookah] smokers with guitars” or radical leftists, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu set up a task force in August. The Trachtenberg Commission brainstormed ways to improve life for the middle class. It made recommendations in September 2012, including an increase in income tax on the wealthy, cuts in military spending, tax breaks for families with young children and new anti-poverty programs. They weren’t implemented.

An Israeli professor, Joseph Zeira said the economic problems that triggered the protests haven’t improved, so “deep anger” persists. In 2012 he predicted a new outbreak of protests.[128] An editor of Haaretz newspaper writing at the same time evaluated the impact of the protests as the new empowerment of the middle class, a “revolutionary political change.”[129] Progressives campaigned to end exemption of Orthodox women (all) and men in full-time religious studies from the draft or national service.(Arabs are also exempt from the draft but can volunteer.)  Youth and other workers organized employee committees as part of the union Histadrut. Others pointed to the government backing down on lowering corporate taxes and raising taxes on the very rich.

The J14 social justice movement revived protests on their July anniversary in 2012 with thousands of demonstrators marching through Tel Aviv, angry over the government not acting on its promises and to demonstrate again against the continued high cost of living. Leef and hundreds of other activists tried to put up tents again, but the police tore them down and Leef and 11 other protesters were beaten and arrested. The social movement divided into two camps, resulting in two different demonstrations. Leaders of political parties on the right and left tried to coopt the movement, which lost its previous unity as “the people.”[130]

Of course pictures and videos of the clashes went viral, generating thousands of demonstrators, but not as many as the previous year. A new slogan was “Democracy! Democracy!” shown on a video.[131] Leef was charged with forcefully resisting arrest by pushing a policeman in the 2012 protests and put on trial in January 2014 (similar to Occupy Wall Street demonstrator Cecily McMillan who was jailed for “assault” elbowing a policeman in March 2012 who she said bruised her breast when he grabbed her in Zuccotti Park.) Leef in turn accused the police of thuggery. Her case was dropped in April, along with 10 other social activists.

The more radical faction of activists formed a political party in 2012 that aimed to “to change the system of government, social organization and the economy in Israel,”[132] but in 2013 more activists ran on the Labour Party list led by Shelly Rachimovich. She promised social and economic reforms, but her party won only 15 seats and Netanyahu had an easy election victory despite economic inequality. The centrist party Yest Atid founded by Yair in 2012 ran on a platform based on the 2011 protests supported by large numbers of young people. It supported military service for all Israelis. The party came in second in January 2013 elections campaigning for social justice and peace, but joined in coalition with Netanyahu’s Likud party. The government wasn’t able to deliver on promises such as lowering middle-class taxes, although Israel has the highest child poverty rate of any industrialized nation, according to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development). Netanyahu stayed in power (first elected in 1996, he was Israel’s youngest prime minister and became the only leader to be elected three times in a row.

In 2014, around 300 Israeli young leaders and students met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to discuss peace talks. He told them that God forbid, if peace isn’t in place when they assume leadership, he counts on them to be peacemakers. He mentioned that his grandchildren had attended Seeds of Peace camps in the US with young Israelis.

In 2015, Israel’s Education Ministry overrode its literature director and rejected using a novel written in Hebrew called Borderline about the love affair of a Jewish woman and Palestinian man, fearing it would lead high school students to “miscegenation.” Jews are not allowed to marry someone outside their religion and ethnicity although foreign marriages are recognized as legal. Critics accused the J14 movement of sticking to middle-class cost of living problems for fear of being labeled left wing, avoiding discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and multi-culturalism, and failing to “articulate a moral message.”[133]

Security and concern about the high cost of living and lack of affordable housing are major issues for youth, as well as other Israelis, but only 41% of young people voted in the 2013 general elections. Those that do vote are increasingly moving to the right. In 1998, 35% of people aged 15 to 25 voted for right-wing parties, increasing to 40% in 2010, and 67% in 2016. This move to the right contributed to the re-elections of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, called “Mr. Security.” Coming of Age: ‘Generation Z to Impact Israeli Political Arena,” The Jerusalem Post, 2018. The youth swing to the right is accompanied by increasing pessimism about the future of the country and its institutions (including the military) and traditional religious attitudes: In 2004 54% of youth described themselves as secular and non-observant, which fell to 40% in 2017. Whereas only 29% called themselves traditional in 1998, 35% did so in 2017. Youth who labeled themselves Orthodox Jews increased from 9% to 15%, partly because orthodox parents tend to have more children.[134]

On the Palestinian side of the occupied territories, another young woman became an icon of her cause. Posters, murals, and T-shirts feature the face of Ahed Tamimi with curly blond hair wearing her keffiyeh, the black and white scarf signifying Palestinian nationalism. When she was 17, she joined her brother Wa‘ed in jail for eight months in 2017 to 2018 for slapping two Israeli soldiers on her family’s property in the West Bank after her cousin, age 15, was severely wounded by an Israeli rubber bullet to his face during a demonstration against moving the US embassy to Jerusalem. Her mother’s video of the incident went viral. Some Israeli politicians called her a terrorist who should spend her life in jail or “Shirley Temper,” while she gained international supporters after joining hundreds of other Palestinian children in prison. Speaking with the media after her release, she said, “’The resistance continues until the occupation ends.” She aims for peace without borders and occupation until, “all of us equal.”(alexia Underwood, “How Ahed Tamimi, a 17-Year-Old Palestinian activist became an International Icon,” August 3, 2018 Her time in jail led her to want to become a lawyer in order to defend the Palestinian cause. An Israeli human rights group called BTselem gave the Tamimi family cameras in 2011 to record violent encounters with Israeli soldiers. The next year images of her trying to prevent a soldier from detaining her brother went viral when Ahed was 12 and another in 2015 when a masked soldier had her 12-year-old brother in a choke-hold.

The Nationality Bill passed by the Knesset in July of 2018 was called apartheid by the Palestinians, who compose about 20% of Israeli citizens, generated large protests In Tel Aviv. The law granted full citizenship to Jews,   downgraded Arabic from an official language and encouraged Jewish settlements in occupied territories. Israel was defined as “the national home of the Jewish people.” Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “Today we made it law. This is our nation, language and flag.” Arab legislator Jamal Zahalka called it the death of democracy. Protesters included members of the left-wing political party Meretz as well as a coalition of Arab parties and Druze Arabs. Women were also active in other Palestinian demonstrations, such as the Great Return March in the Spring of 2018 to the barrier between the G when 13,000 were wounded. “Women activists have played a visibly crucial role in the protests on a scale not seen for decades, possibly indicating what the future may look like when it comes to activism in the Gaza Strip.”[135] An example is Siwar Alza’anen, 20, an activist in the Palestinian Students Labor Front who said her aim to let the international community to know they are living under “siege, pain, poverty.”

Morocco

Morocco became independent from France in 1956.. With half the population under age 30, had waves of protest in the last decade. In 2011’s Moroccan Spring, democracy activists protested the constitutional reforms presented by popular King Mohammed VI that maintained his absolute powers as “sacred” head of religion, the military and the government. His family has ruled Morocco since 1664, but when he became king, he presented himself as a modern thinker by instituting free elections albeit attempting to manipulate politics behind the scenes using “soft power.” In response to the protests, he promised to share more decision-making and revised the family code to be more egalitarian.[136] Protestors’ key complaints, in addition to the king’s power over the parliament and cabinet, were the informal economic and political power of the king’s inner circle of family, friends, and advisors. Economic issues were similar to other MENA countries, included growing economic inequality, high youth unemployment (40% of university graduates), coupled with the high cost of living.

Inspired by Tunisian and Egyptian youth, the February 20^th movement in Morocco was initiated by Amina Boughalbi, a 20-year-old journalism student, in a role similar to Asmaa Mahfouz’ call for protest in Tahrir Square the previous month. Boughalbi said, “I am Moroccan and I will march on February 20^th because I want freedom and equality for all Moroccans.”[137] Boughalbi spoke at the first press conference organized by the movement and at a conference in Paris. Young women and men alternated telling their reasons for marching on YouTube and they shared leadership positions. Several thousand people responded to their call to protest in more than 60 cities.

A 19-year-old science student, Tahani Madad, presented the movement’s plan at a conference in February. She defined the February 20^th movement as a “youth dynamic” that is peaceful, not affiliated with political parties or religion in a post-Islamist era. They regard belief as an individual matter, “secular, modernist, democratic,” aiming for equality and social justice. The movement uses consensus decision-making and makes sure both women and men lead demonstrations and moderate the general assemblies. Local groups are autonomous because grassroots activists feared national organizations taking over their February 20^th movement.[138] They followed up with weekly protests around the country, demanding a new constitution without the king as ruler, free education, and more housing and jobs. Generally, slogans to “get out” were meant not for the king but for his closest advisors. Morocco aims to be the first MENA country to rely on renewable energy sources by 2020.

Omar Radi, a Moroccan journalist and co-founder of the #Feb20 Movement, referred to it as the leading street opposition movement.[139] He’s also a member of www.Mamfakinch.com (“We’ll never give up”) that provides news on their social movements. He reported that young people went to the streets in most villages and cities on February 20, 2011, the first time such a large protest occurred. Thirteen young activists made a video stating why they planned to protest on February 20, joining the action started by a group called Democracy and Freedom Now. They called for constitutional reforms, an independent judiciary and release of political prisoners. Local activist groups studied World Social Forum publications to help define their principles and goals.

The king tried to undercut the February protests by doubling subsidies on flour, sugar and cooking oil, and given sham power to the opposition party the Islamist Party of Justice, but thousands of peaceful protestors demonstrated on the streets of various cities. Police reacted with violence, as shown on YouTube, arresting activists. The government photoshopped images of youth activists spread on the Internet showed them as unbelievers drinking alcohol or as Christian converts and unpatriotic. Many protesters were young women, a new activism for them. They chanted, “Majidi, Get lost!” in opposition to the king’s secretary who they believed suppressed independent press such as Al Jazeera. The government youth minister blamed foreign influences, as usual for such autocratic governments. The king’s speech on March 4 promising to reform the constitution split the protest movement

The number of protests doubled on April 24, the largest demonstration in Moroccan history, along with increased violence by security forces, causing numbers of protesters to dwindle. During the fall elections, Islamists won using the slogans of #Feb20, “down with despotism” and “end corruption.” The youth movement was supported by the National Council for Human rights comprised of around 100 civil society groups that includes labor unions, human rights organizations, and leftist parties. Organizations select three members to represent them on the Council; at least one must be a woman, but feminist organizations weren’t on the Council. Feminists pressed for a 10% quota for women in Parliament and supported the 2004 Family Code that increased gender equality, but were reluctant to oppose the King in 2011. However, women in rural and poor urban areas were inspired to lead local protest movements—for example, against privatization of water.

In response to the youth movement, King Mohamed VI proposed constitutional reforms that were approved in a referendum in July. It required the King to appoint a prime minister from the largest party in Parliament. The February 20^th movement called for a boycott of the referendum and overthrow of the monarchy while reformist feminist groups backed it. Activists surprised the king by calling for constitutional reforms of his powers. Seventeen days later he agreed to increase democracy with constitutional reforms but maintained his control as the most powerful policy maker.

Electoral law reserved 60 seats for women and 30 for candidates under the age of 40, but both the youth movement and radical Islamists called for a boycott of the November 2011 elections. A moderate Islamist party called the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) got the most votes. Only 60 women representatives were elected along with 345 men. A young leader in the movement, journalist Hamza Mahfoud said problems in other Arab Spring countries, like the army’s takeover of Egypt, discouraged many Moroccans from advocating change. Only one woman was selected to be on the 31-member cabinet, a PJD member who predictably headed the Ministry of Family and Social Development.

The king retained power, but precedent was established to criticize him. The new activism decentralized protests to regions outside major cities. and the government as when young activists organized a “kiss-in” outside Parliament in 2013. Youth protested the arrest of two boys, age 15, and a girl, 14, who posed a photo of them kissing on Facebook. Rapper Lhaqed supported the movement and was jailed for a year in 2012 for defaming the police in his songs, but he continued to be outspoken. He reported, “The only change after February 20 is that the citizens today talk openly about other things, they protest in the slums, whole neighborhoods take to the streets. But as for those who rule the country, there’s been no change at all in my view. We have no independent judiciary, no free press, corruption remains rife and the country’s money is stolen.”[140] However, an ongoing resistance campaign is taking place in Western Sahara by the Polisario Front against the Moroccan occupation and unemployed university graduates regularly organize sit-ins on city streets.

Thousands of demonstrators marched in Casablanca in April 2014, organized by the three largest labor unions and student unions to protest government corruption. Youth use the image of comic character Bart Simpson as their logo, another example of the global influence of western popular media. Eleven student members of the February 20 movement were beaten and arrested by police, including a woman named Amine Lekbabi.[141] To protest the detention of the 11 students, activists organized sit-ins and flash mobs, seen on video included in the previous endnote, along with a banner showing the world’s most popular rebel hero–Che Guevara.also in 2014, a law was passed to ban allowing a rapist to marry his victim, following the death of a 16 year old girl who drank rat poison rather than marry her rapist. In January 2016 teacher trainees who demonstrated in multiple cities against cuts to teacher pay were beaten by police so severely that some protesters were hospitalized.

 The largest protests since the Arab Spring occurred in the mining town of Jerada early in 2018 (as well as protests in other towns about water shortages) and later in July protests in the capital Rabat against the conviction and jailing of protest leader Nasser Zefzaf (age 39) and 38 other leaders in June for demonstrations they led in late 2016 into 2017 against the lack of economic progress in the Berber region in the north. Zefzafi participated in the 2011 to 2012 protests in his home city of Al Hoceima and then responded to the death of the fisherman by speaking out at a Friday prayer sermon in a mosque in al-Hoceima against “hogra,” extreme injustice by the elite in a time of growing inequality. He was accused of disrespecting the king, separatism, and receiving foreign funds to destabilize the country punishable by 20 years in prison, which he appealed. When the regime is unable to manipulate politics behind the scenes, it resorts to overt repression.[142]

 Their movement is called Hirak Rif or popular movement. Tactics include social media campaigns with no known leaders to boycott large companies (i.e., dairy and mineral water) with close ties to the monarchy. The catalyst was the death of a fish seller (age 31) crushed to death in a garbage truck as he tried to retrieve fish confiscated by police in October of 2016, similar to the catalyst for the Tunisian uprising. Zefzaf warned that if they kept quiet the problem it would continue. The Riffian movement  demanded reforms and the end of corruption. His initial abduction and arrest were accompanied by other arrests of over 100 activists, which led to daily protests in neighboring cities.  In response to the June sentencing, the July demonstration drew over 30,000 people calling for “freedom, dignity and social justice,” and “long live the Rif” (the Berber area). They included leftist parties, Berber groups, and the banned Islamist movement Al-Adl wal-Ihsan. An Al Jazeera video shows demonstrations. “Morocco: Rif Protest Leader Nasser Zefzafi,” June 28, 2018. Similar to other recent uprisings, they are mainly leaderless and non-ideological, triggered by economic struggles is inequality increases.

Saudi Arabia

In Saudi Arabia the most vocal rebels are Shiites protesting their lack of rights and women who worked for the right to drive, finally granted in 2018 by the Crown Prince without requiring male permission. Activist and author of Daring to Drive (2017) Manal al-Sharif joyfully commented that the car key is “the key to change,” but it doesn’t address the bigger problem of guardianship. Women must have the permission of a male relative to work or attend college (where they are over half the students but prohibited from engineering classes), leave the country, get out of jail, and so on. Turning to anonymous social media, a Twitter campaign called #IAmMyOwnGuardian began in 2014, which collected 14. signatures on its petition, and #TogetherToEndMaleGuardianship began in 2016, supported by Human Rights  Watch, produced a report about the problem called “Boxed In.” In 2015 their petition called “Baladi” (my country) lobbied for women to be able to run for municipal office, which was granted, although organizers like Loujain al-Houthloul were banned from running. The government organized “Twitter trolls” at a “troll farm” in Riyadh to attack critics like journalist Jamal Khashoggi, later murdered in Istanbul. This was the biggest event in the region since the Arab Spring, according to researcher Michael Stephens. (David Kirkpatrick, “Turkey’s President vows to Detail Khashoggi Death ‘in Full Nakedness,’” New York Times, October 21, 2018. A counter force of volunteers called “Electronic Bees” were organized by a Saudi dissent living in Canada, named Omar Abdulaziz.

 Young Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS (born in 1985) assumed power in June3 of 2017 and led economic reform to employ more women and young people  titled “Vision 2030.” He permitted women to open their own business without a man’s permission starting in February of 2018. He told a reporter in 2018, “I’m young. Seventy percent of our citizens are young. We don’t want to waste our lives in this whirlpool that we were in the past 30 years. We want to end this epoch now.” (Manaa al-Sharif. “Once Women Take the wheel, Saudi Araba Will never Be the Same,” The Washington Post, October 5, 2018.) hence he allowed movie theaters and mixing of the sexes in public places such as coffee shops and sports stadiums. Journalist like Thomas Friedman made the mistake of viewing MbS as “ushering in “Saudi Arabia’s Arab Spring, at last.” He also restricted the power of the Wahhabi Muslim religious police and permitted the first public concert with a female singer, but mandated a crackdown on activists and critical clerics starting in 2017.  He permitted women to drive starting in June 2018 but his officials informed women activists like Loujain al-Hathloul (28) who spent 73 days in jail for driving in 2015 and their male supporters of a gag order to remain silent or go to jail. The prince wanted the credit to go only to him in a country with no constitution.

 The repression increased in May 2018 resulting in more than a dozen arrests of “The Drivers,” who began their rebellion in 1990, women like Samar Badawi and Nassima al-Sadah who were among the first women to petition the authorities for the right to drive and vote and run in municipal elections. Badawi also campaigns for the release of bloggers like her brother Raif Badawi jailed for their controversial posts. Canada was one of the few governments to protest these arrests leading to Saudi  reprisals. The media labeled the activists as traitors who colluded with foreign governments(especially Qatar) and may serve long jail terms. Their photos were featured on front pages of newspapers. Some of those who could, left the country, and others stayed mute. Human Rights Watch researcher Hiba Zayadin reported, “Even people outside the kingdom are scared to speak their mind. All the momentum for a grassroots reform movement that was built over recent years has been halted,” such as “salon” discussion groups held in homes and collectives like the “Jeddah Reformers” or the Union for Human Rights.(Sarah Aziza, Saudi Arabia women Driving Activists, The Intercept, October 6, 2018,  MbS was most infamous for his association with the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which President Trump refused to acknowledge, and his  devastating war in Yemen. More about Saudi feminists is discussed in Brave: Young Women’s Global Revolution.

                                    Democratic Outcomes?

Although youth ousted dictators, they weren’t able to develop a vision for a viable democratic replacement with the exception of Tunisia. This vacuum opened the door for well-organized military generals in Egypt, Islamists (Ennahda in Tunisia and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Libya and Syria), or tribal leaders (Libya and Yemen). Richard Falk, UN “Special Rapporteur” from 2008 to 2014, observed the rise of nonstate actors such as ISIS (that US policy helped create) and Hezbollah after the Arab Spring, the lack of democracy except in Tunisia and Turkey and the survival of the old bureaucracies after dictators were overthrown.[143] Falk faulted the US for adding to the turmoil in the region with its reliance on air strikes rather than diplomacy, stating: “’Democracy’ and Washington’s policy agenda in the region are irreconcilable.”[144] NATO was involved as well; “nothing can be much worse that what Western intervention produces…the wheels of violence turn with accelerating velocity.”[145] Lacking oil reserves, Tunisia has been spared much Western intervention.

Arundhati Roy, Indian writer and opponent of neoliberalism, commented on the outcome of the Arab Spring, “I worry that the anger and energy of people who have been repressed for years by puppet dictators is being siphoned off, carefully defused, while the West jockeys to retain the status quo one way or another and replace the old despots with a more streamlined, less obvious form of despotism.”[146] Roy said it’s important to realize help won’t come from outside and “we have to fight our own battles.” Writer Noura Farra observed in 2016 that not much has been said about the lives of the young peoples who led the Arab Spring. She finds Arab young people fee disempowered in the face of struggling economies, limited jobs, the rise of extremist groups, and resistance to progress—including being able to socialize with the other gender. (2014) Noura Farra, “On the Limitations and promise of Arab millennials,” Reformer Magazine, October 3, 2016. Also, they’re held back from power by their dislike of political parties. Hillary Clinton described in her book Hard Choices (2014)  meetings with revolutionary leaders who didn’t want to form a unified party to run in elections.

Islamic law often trumps democracy. As Islamists took office in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt they wanted Sharia law to be the basis of government. A global survey found four countries where a majority of Muslim respondents preferred a strong leader rather than democracy: Bosnia, Afghanistan, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. In other Muslim countries a majority preferred democracy.[147] Egyptians want Islam to have influence on laws: A majority in Egypt (66%) believes laws should strictly follow the teachings of the Quran, similar to Lebanon (61%), Turkey (64%), and Tunisia (84%). Turkish Prime Minister Erdoğan was reported to have said when he was mayor of Istanbul, “Democracy is like taking a tram—you ride it to your destination and then you get off.” His government was often pointed to as a secular model for Middle Eastern governments but he became increasingly autocratic and conservative, especially after a July 2016 coup attempt. He used it as an excuse to detain or fire tens of thousands of soldiers, journalists, teachers, judges, and other civil servants.

 The Arab Spring hasn’t produced viable democracies, with the exception of Tunisia. Youth unemployment remained the highest in the world (29.5% in 2015 and 40% of people aged 15 to 29 are NEETs), and learning by rote produces graduates without current skills.[148] Wasta (connections) still influences who gets jobs. Despite these chronic problems, young people learned much from leading the uprisings. Professor Juan Cole, author of The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generating is Changing the Middle East, reminds us they have decades to transform the region.[149] He credits youth with ending dynasties where fathers who ruled for life passed their rule to sons as was the plan in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, etc. Syria’s Bashar al-Assad was probably the last ruler to be handed the presidency by his father. The new Egyptian constitution allows the president only two four-year terms, although el-Sisi supporters discussed amending the constitution similar to China’s move to keep Xi Jinping in power for life. Cole believes analysts missed the “more important, longer-term story of generational shift in values, attitudes, and mobilizing tactics.” As youth work in non-governmental organizations, Cole predicts their new skills will be applied as they enter politics in the future. He said in The Arab millennials Will Be Back, the Millennial activists are putting their energies into non-governmental organizations, thousands of which have flowered, barely noticed in countries that once suffered from one-party rule. This process is enhanced by the increase in female literacy, in fact more women in universities than men.

In the vacuum created by the fall of the dictators, fundamentalist Islamic Salafist-type groups used their organization, money, and armed groups to increase their influence. Counter-offensives, including feminist groups, are  described in Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism by Karima Bennoune (2014). Some scholars, such as Canadian professor John McMurtry, blame the rise of Islamic fundamentalism on US financial support in the name of fighting communism and financial control of countries undergoing civil war.[150] In May 2013, leaders of large democracies pledged $40 billion in aid to help develop democracy in Northern Africa, similar to aid after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR. A widely circulated Twitter post hopefully states, “Yesterday we are all Tunisians; today we are all Egyptians; tomorrow we will all be free.”

However, need for financial security may trump desire for democracy, as evidenced in 2012 interviews with 2,500 Arab youth, ages 18 to 24 (60% male).[151] The emphasis on democracy dropped from 68% to 58% of respondents in 2012; however in Egypt 75% of youth view it as very important. According to the interviews with 2,500 Arab youth, the other country where Arab youth would most like to live besides their own is modern UAE with its high standard of living but governed by a ruling family–not a democracy. A case in point, young men were jailed in 2013 for posting a mock documentary on YouTube pretending to portray “gansta culture” using shoes, the cord that holds on Arab men’s traditional headcovering, and a cell phone as their weapons. The phone is used to call in friends to help. Although it was a joke, the filmmakers were charged with “damaging the state’s reputation.”[152]

The 2012 interviews found youth were much more likely to keep up with the news and to blog on the Internet than before the revolutions. A year after the Arab Spring, top priority changed from wanting to live in a democracy to desire for fair pay (82% said income is very important) and wanting to own a home (65%). Their goal of homeownership is similar to a large international survey of 25,000 young people in 2010, indicating a global desire for security in recession. The Arab youth surveyed said the two biggest obstacles facing them and the region are lack of democracy and civil unrest, so they’re still very focused on liberty. (Their second biggest concern is the danger of drugs.) Despite economic troubles, like young people elsewhere, Arab youth are optimistic about their futures.

Optimism remained a key finding in 2016 interviews with 3,500 young people (ages 18 to 24) in 16 MENA countries, despite the ongoing problem of unemployment.[153] Less than half of the interviewees believe they have good job prospects; up to 75 million out of the 200 million Arab youth are unemployed, a main cause of the Arab Spring. The UAE. remained their model country and has a minister for happiness, although, it prosecutes activists and their family members who call for reform on social media with arrests disappearances, and torture.[154]  In this survey, youth favor stability over democracy, although at the same time they want more personal freedom. They want their leaders to do more to improve human rights, especially women’s rights. Most of them rejected ISIS, believed that the Sunni and Shia division increased over the previous five years, and they think religion plays too important a role in the Middle East Like other educated young people, respondents often get their news online.

Liberation from old dictators who tried to appear modern by supporting state feminism may roll back women’s rights, as in Tunisia where male demonstrators shouted, “your place is in the kitchen” and “when women have rights they abuse them.” They blamed former President Ben Al’s wife for being corrupt like a modern Marie Antoinette. Ultraconservative Salafis denounced unveiled women. The government estimated that Salafi preachers took over about 1,000 mosques out of 5,000 in Tunisia.[155] Some Tunisian Islamic parties called for banning women from the workplace to correct the high unemployment rate for men.[156] They lobbied unsuccessfully to institute Sharia law to permit plural wives for men, reduction of legal age of marriage for girls, stoning lawbreakers, and unequal divorce laws. Traditionalists associate women’s rights with Western influences or associate them with the ousted dictator’s regime, as in Egypt.

Some Arab governments responded to protests in positive ways by changing government leaders, ending decades of emergency rule, making democratic changes to the constitution, and giving cash grants of thousands of dollars (in Kuwait and Bahrain), or lowering food costs. Their authoritarian control is maintained by payoffs, military force, ideology and elite unity, according to William Quandt in Between Ballots and Bullets (1998). Autocrats continue to use force, arrest demonstrators, blame “terrorists” and assault foreign media as troublemakers. Some dictators use military force with water cannons and tear gas, and both rubber and real bullets have killed thousands of young demonstrators in Egypt, Bahrain, Libya and Syria. Some hired thugs, like Egypt’s President Mubarak’s baltagiya to intimidate protesters, especially women.

Some governments cut off access to Internet and mobile phones. They pitted tribes against one another and bribed tribal leaders, as in Yemen and Libya. The dictators used divide and conquer, fomenting divisions among tribes, Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and other ethnic and social groups to maintain control. Shiites and minority Sunni still fight each other in Iraq killing people daily, while conservative Muslims and secular urban liberals oppose each other in Egypt, Tunisia and Mali. 

How did Arab youth evaluate the revolutions a year after? When asked in a 2011 Gallup poll if their lives were better or worse after the Arab Spring, both genders rated it worse along with a decline in the national economy, but they believe their lives will be better in five years.[157] Egypt was the only country in which respondents said their lives were better and the economy was improving. Both Egyptian men and women said economic problems were the main problem for their families, but they opposed receiving US aid. Arab women were more likely than men to rate their lives better in 2011, except for Bahrain and Syria where men and women were the same. Yemeni men had the lowest rating for their lives in 2011. A large majority of women and men surveyed by Gallup wanted some influence for Sharia law in their government, but Yemen was the only country that wanted Sharia to be the sole basis for legislation. The main influence on men’s support for women’s rights was not their support for Sharia law but their economic situation. This suggests that economic difficulty is more of a threat to women’s rights than Islamic beliefs.

 In 2012 interviews with 2,500 Arab youth from throughout the Middle East, ages 18 to 24 (60% male), 72% feel strongly that the region is better off because of the Arab Spring and 68% feel they are personally better off.[158] Eighteen months after the beginning of the Arab Spring, they reported that their government had become more transparent, although they were more concerned about corruption than in interviews the year before the uprisings. Egyptian youth were especially concerned about corruption as the biggest problem (66%). An amazing jump from 18% in 2011 to 62% the following year said they followed the news daily and the percent who blog increased from 29% to 61%. In Egypt, optimism about their futures jumped from 38% in 2011 to 74% in 2012. Despite their positive views about the democracy movements, only 24% believed that protest movements would spread to other countries. Two young Arabs interviewed by BBC at the end of 2013 thought the Arab Spring was not successful because of the reactionary move to sectarian divisions, as between Sunni and Shia and the Muslim Brotherhood and Coptic Christians.[159]

Three years after the revolutions, 28% of youth were unemployed plus 40% of youth ages 15 to 29 were NEETs not counted in unemployment statistics, according to the World Bank. Some youth charged that the Arab Spring was fomented by Western powers to get regime change and old people remained in charge of governments. The economy didn’t improve and neoliberal policies continued, although the IMF acknowledged in 2016 that the market-driven approach has limitations. Morocco made the most reforms, according to Professor Heath Prince, such as providing vocational training, labor offices and apprenticeships.[160]

 Islamic parties were organized and elected into power not only in Egypt, but also in Tunisia, Palestine (Hamas), Lebanon (Hezbollah), and a variety of Islamist parties in Iraq. In Libya the chairman of the governing Transitional Council suggested they reinstate polygamy (only two of the 24 members were female, including the Minister for Women). Sunni and Shi for power, led by Saudi Arabia and Iran as in their proxy war that devastated Yemen. If we adopt Hannah Arendt’s definition that a revolution brings about democratic changes, free elections occurred in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, as well as earlier in Iraq and Lebanon. However, free elections produced troubled and unstable governments and the continuation of military rule in Egypt. Some youth accuse Western powers of being behind the uprisings to foment regime change.[161] However, generally discouragement prevailed as revealed in the increase of dystopian and apocalyptic novels about “lost utopia,” when “now it’s almost worse than it was before” the uprisings, according to Layla al-Zubaidi.[162] She’s the co-editor of an anthology titled Diaries of an Unfinished Revolution: Voices from Tunis to Damascus (2013). The positive legacy is the hope that grassroots movements can unseat dictators without relying on foreign intervention or the military. Neighborhood committees formed during the chaos of the uprisings and some continued, along with entrepreneurship and revolutionary art.[163] The main cause of the Arab Spring was not growing inequality, but  the broken social contract to provide the middle class with jobs and subsidized services, according to Elena Lanchovichina in Eruptions of Popular Anger (2017). She concludes that a new social contract is needed where the government promotes private sector job creation and honesty in government. Hundreds of new political parties, civil society groups, and media developed after the Arab Spring.

Other impactful recent protests fueled by young people occurred in the Velvet Revolution in the Spring of 2018 in Armenia where over 50,000 demonstrators succeeded in getting right-wing President Serzh Sargsyan to resign after he tried to copy his friend Putin’s tactics to extend his term limits by becoming Prime Minister in April 2018. Sargsyan explained, “The movement on the streets is against my rule. I’m complying with their demands.”[164] Millennials led peaceful protests, believing that “Soviet minds are a thing of the past.” Millennial Arevik Ashakharoyan, a literary agent, said, “The new generation, born after the fall of the Soviet Union, is playing a big role in the new democracy. We are tech-savvy and no ties to the corrupt Soviet past.” Peter Balakian, Armenia, August 20, 2018. Armenia became independent in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union after being a Soviet Republic since 1920.

 A very interesting Middle Eastern study in direct democracy is Kurdish Rojava in Northern Syria, discussed in Resist: Goals and Tactics for Changemakers (2018). Next we’ll zero in on Egypt to learn how youth were able to unseat a dictator who ruled for almost 30 years in 18 days.

Discussion Questions and Activities

1. The Arab Spring “has failed completely.” True or false? Why?
2. Why did the revolutions start and best succeed In Tunisia?
3. What’s the impact of about two-thirds of MENA’s population being under 30? Would the Arab Spring have occurred if the youth population was smaller?
4. Yemen is the least developed and most tribal country that ousted its dictators. Why was a woman, Tawakkol Karman, able to lead it? Compare her leadership with Daphni Leef in Israel, a much more developed country.
5. What’s the role of political Islam in the Arab Spring? Why does religion seem to have more influence in Islamic countries?

Activities

1. Visit a mosque in your area.

2. Search Facebook pages for themes and attitudes about Middle East freedom, liberation, etc. Here’s a start.[165]

3. Identify concerns and interests as young people write about the Arab region on CommentMidEast.com, edited by a British graduate student of Yemeni origin.

4. Look at themes in graffiti during the Arab Spring.[166]

5. Search YouTube for Middle East uprisings, Arab Spring, etc. What video was most instructive and interesting?

Films

Unsettled. It tells the story of the eviction of young Israelis and their families from the Gaza Strip at the end of almost 40-year Israeli occupation and return to the Palestinians. 2007

Five Broken Cameras. Filmed by a West Bank farmer about the encroachment of Israeli settlements and the impact on his family. 2012

Paradise Now is about two Palestinian men who are best friends preparing for a suicide attack in Israel. 2005

                                                            End Notes

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[1] http://english.ahram.org.eg/Media/News/2012/5/23/2012-634733745097492023-749.jpg

[2] 2013, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2849400/

[3] http://wp.me/p47Q76-vA

Tunisia and Yemen Recent Politics

[4] http://wp.me/p47Q76-w5

[5] Rami Khouri and Vivian Lopez, eds., “A Generation on the Move,” American University of Beirut, November 2011.

Click to access Summary_Report_A_GENERATION_ON_THE_MOVE_AUB_IFI_UNICEF_MENARO_.pdf

[6] Zina Sawaf, “Youth and the Revolution in Egypt,” Contemporary Arab Affairs, January 9, 2013.

DOI: 10.1080.17550912.2013.746198

[7] Noga Tarnopolsky,” “Is the Arab Spring Creating a Bunch of Mini Iran’s?” Global Post, May 29, 2012.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/middle-east/israel-and-palestine/120523/boualem-sansal-algeria-israel-arab-spring

[8] Jeremy Keenan, “Algeria’s Election Was a Fraud,” Al Jazeera, May 15, 2012.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/05/201251482813133513.html

[9] Firoze Manji and Sokari Ekine, African Awakening: The Emerging Revolutions. Pambazuka Press, 2012, chapter on “Neoliberal Threats to North Africa,” pp. 252 to 270.

[10] Maryam Jamshidi. The Future of the Arab Spring. Elsevier, 2014, p. 41.

[11] “Look Forward in Anger,” The Economist, August 6, 2016.

http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21703362-treating-young-threat-arab-rulers-are-stoking-next-revolt-look-forward-anger

“Youth Unemployment,” Strafor, February 28, 2018.

http://www.worldview.stratfor.com

[12] Scott Anderson, “Fractured Lands,” New York Times, August 11, 2016.

[13] https://globalyouthbook.wordpress.com/2015/02/28/brief-history-of-western-influence-in-the-middle-east/

[14] George Lawson, “Revolution, Non-Violence, and the Arab Spring,” IDEAS Reports, 2012, pp. 21-22.

http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/43455

[15] Adeed Dawisha. The Second Arab Awakening. W.W. Norton, 2013.

[16] “Freedom in the World 2010,” Freedom House.

https://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2010

https://www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/freedom-world-2016

[17] Rex Brynen, et al.. Beyond the Arab Spring: Authoritarianism and Democratization in the Arab World. Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2013, p. 3.

[18] Ashraf Khalil. Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation. St. Martin’s Press, 2011.

Marwan Bishara. The Invisible Arab: The Promise and Peril of the Arab Revolutions. Nation Books, 2012.

Bassam Haddad, R. Bsheer and Z Abu-Rish, eds. The Dawn of the Arab Uprisings. Pluto Press, 2012.

Marc Lynch. The Arab Uprising. Public Affairs, 2012.

Nasser Weddady and Sohrab Ahmari, eds. Arab Spring Dreams. Palgrave, 2012.

Nouehied, Lin & Alex Warren. The Battle for the Arab Spring: Revolution, Counter-revolution and the Making of a New Era. Yale University Press, 2013.

Gilbert Achcar. The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Spring. University of California Press, 2013.

Layla al-Zubaidi and Matthew Cassel, eds. Diaries of an Unfinished Revolution: Voices from Tunis to Damascus. Penguin Books, 2013.

Paul Danahar. The New Middle East: The World After the Arab Spring. Bloomsbury Press, 2013.

Alcinda Honwana. Youth and the Revolution in Tunisia. Zed, 2013.

Also see syllabus for course on “The Arab Spring” such as https://pol297thearabspring.wordpress.com/syllabus/

[19] 2012 anthologies featured revolutionary voices of activists in their 20s and 30s:Anya Schifrin and Eamon Kircher-Allen, From Cairo to Wall Street: Voices From the Global Spring and Maytha Alhassena and Ahmed Shigab-Eldin’s Demanding Dignity: Young Voices From the Front Lines of the Arab Revolutions (2012). These books were followed in 2013 by Youth and the Revolution in Tunisia by Alcinda Honwana; Mahmood Monshipouri’s Democratic Uprisings in the New Middle East: Youth, Technology, Human Rights, and US Foreign Policy andNur Laiq’s Talking to Arab Youth: Revolution and Counterrevolution in Egypt and Tunisia. In 2014 The New Arabs by Juan Cole was published along with Wired Citizenship: Youth Learning and Activism in the Middle East by Linda Herrera.  Ahmed Tohamy Abdelhay’s Youth Activism in Egypt was published in 2015 ($104), along with Bessma Momani’s Arab Dawn: Arab Youth and the Demographic Dividend They Will Bring. University of Toronto Press, 2015.

[20] Afef Abrougui, “Israa Al-Ghomgham, a Saudi Woman Facing the Death Penalty for Peaceful Protest,” Global Voices, October 31, 2018. https://globalvoices.org

[21] Ahmed Al Omran, “Saudi Arabia Raises the Alarm Over Unemployment,” Financial Times, April 24, 2018.

https://www.ft.com/content/df579534-47c3-11e8-8ae9-4b5ddcca99b3

[22] Richard Falk. Chaos and Counterrevolution: After the Arab Spring. Just World Books, 2015, pp. 180-181.

[23] “The Shoe-Thrower’s Index,” Economist.com, February 9, 2011.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/02/daily_chart_arab_unrest_index

[24] Valentine Moghadam, “What is Democracy? Promises and Perils of the Arab Spring,” Current Sociology, Vol. 61, No. 4, 2013, p. 394,

http://csi.sagepub.com/content/61/4/491.short

[25] “Growth of Islam and World Religions,” 3-Day Prayer Network.

http://www.30-days.net/muslims/statistics/islam-growth/

“Fact Tank Data in 2015,” Pew Research Center, December 31, 2015.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/31/your-favorite-fact-tank-data-in-2015/

[26] Linda Herrera. Revolution in the Age of Social Media. Verso, 2014, p. 16.

[27] Asef Bayat. Life as Politics: How Ordinary People Change the Middle East. Stanford University Press, 2013, p. 15.

[28] Asef Bayat, p. 140.

[29] Kalev Leetaru, “Did the Arab Spring Really Spark a Wave of Global Protests?” Foreign Policy, May 30, 2014.

Did the Arab Spring Really Spark a Wave of Global Protests?

[30] Eboo Patel, “Egypt, Tunisia and the Youth Revolt in the Middle East,” Huffington Post, January 28, 2011.

[31] www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12482309?print=true

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-12482293

Yemen, Libya and Iran were the most corrupt, the median age is under 30 in all countries except Bahrain where it’s 30, and the highest literacy rates are in Jordan, Bahrain, and Iran.

[32] http://www.transparency.org/cpi2013/results/

[33] http://www.psr.org/assets/pdfs/body-count.pdf

[34] Clement Henry, “A Clash of Globalizations: Obstacles to Development in the Middle East,” Harvard International Review, May 6, 2006.

http://hir.harvard.edu/print/development-and-modernization/a-c

[35] “Crude Oil and Commodity Prices,” September 5, 2015.

http://www.oil-price.net/

[36] Nabil Abdel-Fattah, “Youth Activism and the Arab Future,” Al-Ahram Weekly, January 10, 2013.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/News/958/-/-.aspx

[37] John Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, “What Makes a Muslim Radical?” Foreign Policy, November 17, 2008.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2006/11/15/what_makes_a_muslim_radical

[38] Robert Reich, “The Commencement Address That won’t Be Given,” Robert Reich blog, May 18, 2012.

 http://robertreich.org/post/23301640941

[39] Peter McConaghy, Nabila Assaf and Simon Bell, “What’s Going to Get MENA’s Young People to Work?” The World Bank Voices and Views, November 5, 2012.

http://menablog.worldbank.org/what%E2%80%99s-going-get-mena%E2%80%99s-young-people-work

[40] Tariq Ramadan. Islam and the Arab Awakening. Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 11.

[41] Ramadan, p. 23.

[42] Ramadan, p. 56.

[43] Ramadan, p. 53.

[44] Ramadan, p. 15, p. 21.

[45] Ramadan, p. 58.

[46]

http://stream.aljazeera.com/story/201201280113-0022010

[47] http://wp.me/p47Q76-wD

[48] Tariq Ramadan. Islam and the Arab Awakening. Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 33.

[49] Paul Mason. Why It’s Still Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions. Verso, 2013, p. 13.

[50] Linda Herrera. Revolution in the Age of Social Media. Verso, 2014, p. 35.

[51] Setareh Derakhshesh, “Breaking the Law to Go Online in Iran,” New York Times, June 24, 2014.

[52] Paul Mason

[53] http://www.haystacknetwork.com/faq/

[54] www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Arr3ievQqc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFJIDp18-P4

[55] Omid Memarian, “Iran’s Execution Binge,” The Daily Beast, February 5, 2011.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2011-02-05/irans-execution-binge/

[56] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tg5qdIxVcz8

[57] Farid, “Singing and Dancing in a YouTube Video to Cheer On the National Football Team Can Get You Arrested in Iran,” Global Voices, June 27, 2014.

http://globalvoicesonline.org/2014/06/27/youtube-video-iran-world-cup-arrests/

[58] Shahram Khosravi. Young and Defiant in Tehran. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.

[59] Thomas Erdbrink, “Cautiously, Iranians Reclaim Public Spaces and Liberties Long Suppressed,” New York Times, October 5, 2015.

[60] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzDI-Ga1QrY

[61] http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/meninhijab

http://www.refinery29.com/2016/08/119262/iran-hijab-men

[62] Joel Brinkley, “As Revolts Rock the Mideast, Cambodia, Thailand at War,” San Francisco Chronicle, February 27, 2011, p. F3.

[63] http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/01/201111684242518839.html

[64] Luca Schroeder, “Former Tunisian PM Describes Country’s ‘Start-Up Democracy,’” The Crimson, February 27, 2015.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2015/2/27/tunisia-minister-startup-democracy/

[65] Lisa Anderson, “Demystifying the Arab Spring,” Foreign Affairs, May, 2011.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67693/lisa-anderson/demystifying-the-arab-spring

[66] Nur Laiq. Talking to Arab Youth: Revolution and Counterrevolution in Egypt and Tunisia. International Peace Institute, 2013, p. 75.

[67] Alcinda Honwana. Youth and Revolution in Tunisia. Zed Books, 2013, Chapter 3.

[68] Rabin Gupta, “Qatar Ranked Highest Among Arab States in WEF Competitiveness Report,” bghoha.com, September 4, 2013.

http://www.bqdoha.com/2013/09/qatar-ranked-highest-among-arab-states-wef-competitveness-report

[69] Ilham Nasser, The State of Education in the Arab World,” Arab Center Washington DC, August 6, 2018. Arabcenterdc.org

[70] Rania Abouzeid, “Bouazizi: The Man Who Set Himself and Tunisia on Fire,” TIME Magazine, January 21, 2011.

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2044723,00.html

[71] Akifumi Ikeda, ”The Armies in the ‘Arab Spring,’” 2013.

Click to access 201307_mide_04.pdf

Daniel Steiman, “Military Decision-Making During the Arab Spring,” Democracy & Society, May 29, 2012.

Click to access DS.pdf

[72] Herrera, p. 105.

[73] http://observers.france24.com/content/20110606-graffiti-artists-show-support-tunisian-revolution

[74] Bobby Ghosh, “Rage, Rap and Revolution: Inside the Arab Youth Quake,” TIME Magazine, February 17, 2011.

Includes a video rapping in Arabic. http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2011/01/el-general-president-of-the-country.html

[75] Alcinda Honwana, “Youth, Waithood, and Protest Movements in Africa,” African Arguments, August 12, 2013.

africanarguments.org/…/youth-waithood-and-protest-movements-in-afric.

[76] http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/01/201111684242518839.html

[77] John Postill, “Freedom Technologists and the New Protest Movements,” Convergence Journal, Vol. 20, No. 3, August 2014.

https://www.academia.edu/6937137/Freedom_technologists_and_the_new_protest_movements_a_theory_of_protest_formulas

[78] https://stlaw.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/?appid=f7cdf93edd0b4079a379f9f6

[79] http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,2042614,00.html

[80] http://observers.france24.com/content/20110606-graffiti-artists-show-support-tunisian-revolution

[81] Haythem El Mekki, “Internet Activism, Tunisian Style,” in Schiffrin and Kiarcher-Allen, eds.

[82] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puBjCIuvQkc&list=PLn-Wfm5HUR2uquuAg0X5OYct-SEeDPCCJ&index=42

[83] News Desk, “A Region in Upheaval,” Global Post, February 15, 2011.

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/africa/110126/protests-riots-tunisia-egypt-lebanon-middle-east-north-africa

[84] Hela Yousfi, “UGTT at the Heart of a Troubled Political Transition,” in Werner Puschra and Sara Burke, eds. The Future We the People Need: Voices from New Social Movements. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, February 2013.

Click to access 09610-20130215.pdf

[85] Charles Kurzman, “The Arab Spring Uncoiled,” Mobilization: An International Journal, Vol. 17, No. 4, 2012.

http://www.metapress.com/content/10326742n0556v15/

[86] Amanda Sebestyen, “Voices From the Tunisian Revolution,” Red Pepper, May 2011.

http://www.redpepper.org.uk/voices-from-the-tunisian-revolution/

[87] Steve Inskeep, “Tunisian Women Turn Revolution Into Opportunity,” NPR.org, June 5, 2012.

http://www.npr.org/2012/06/05/154282351/tunisian-women-turn-revolution-into-opportunity

[88] “What the Women Say: The Arab Spring & Implications for Women,” ICAN: International Civil Society Action Network, December 2011.

http://www.icanpeacework.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/ICAN17.pdf

[89] Nur Laiq. Talking to Arab Youth: Revolution and Counterrevolution in Egypt and Tunisia. International Peace Institute, 2013, p. 30.

[90] Maytha Alhassen and Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, eds. Demanding Dignity: Young Voices from the Front Lines of the Arab Revolutions. White Cloud Press, 2012, p. 83.

[91] Juan Cole, Informed Consent, p. 13.

[92] Nur Laiq. Talking to Arab Youth: Revolution and Counterrevolution in Egypt and Tunisia. International Peace Institute, 2013.

[93] Laiq., p. 22.

[94] http://www.iwatch-organisation.org/

[95] Sarah Yerkes and Maarwan Muasher, “Tunisia’s Corruption Contagion: a Transition at Risk,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 25, 2017.

https://carnegieendowment.org/2017/10/25/tunisia-s-corruption-contagion-transition-at-risk-pub-73522

[96] “Tunisia: Breaking the Barriers to Youth Inclusion,” World Bank Report 89233, 2014.

Click to access breaking_the_barriers_to_youth_inclusion_eng.pdf

[97] “Tunisian Opposition Leader Calls for Continued Protests,” Aljazeera News, January 9,2018

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/01/anti-austerity-protests-tunisia-turn-deadly-180109070431217.html

[98] Hamza Hamouchene, “Tunisia: Protesting Austerity, Demanding Sovereignty,” ROAR Magazine, February 12, 2018.

Tunisia: protesting austerity, demanding sovereignty

[99]  Sudarsan Raghavan, “In Yemen, Female Activist Strives for Egyptian-like Revolution,” Washington Post, February 15, 2011

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/14/AR2011021402988_2.html?wprss=rss_world&sid=ST2011021403394

[100] http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n3cszjvh

[101] Atiaf Zaid Alwazir, “’Youth’s Inclusion in Yemen: A Necessary Element for Success of Political Transition,” Arab Reform Brief, December 2012.

http://www.arab-reform.net/%E2%80%9Cyouth%E2%80%9D-inclusion-yemen-necessary-element-success-political-transition

[102] http://resonateyemen.org/en/about-us.html

[103] Maytha Alhassen and Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, eds. Demanding Dignity: Young Voices from the Front Lines of the Arab Revolutions. White Cloud Press, 2012, pp. 31-44.

[104] Khadija Alami, speaking at a Fairleigh Dickinson panel on “Winds of Change: The Role of Arab Youth in the Future of the MENA Region,” November 7, 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRKLQ2hvMZQ

[105] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lfowChL4GU

[106] Joel Brinkley, “Uprisings Make Fools of Al Qaeda,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 13, 2011, p. F9.

[107] Atiaf Zaid Alwazir, “’Youth’s Inclusion in Yemen: A Necessary Element for Success of Political Transition,” Arab Reform Brief, December 2012.

http://www.arab-reform.net/%E2%80%9Cyouth%E2%80%9D-inclusion-yemen-necessary-element-success-political-transition

[108] “Death Toll in Yemen Conflict Passes 10,000,” Al Jazeera, January 16, 2017.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/01/death-toll-yemen-conflict-passes-10000-170117040849576.html

[109] Ali Saeed, “Yemen’s Youth and the Fight Against Corruption,” La Vox du Yemen, July 22, 2013.

http://www.lavoixduyemen.com/en/2013/07/22/yemens-youth-and-the-fight.

[110] Saeed

[111] Mareike Transfeld, “The Youth’s Spirit,” Muftah, May 31, 2014.

http://muftah.org/looking-silver-lining-yemens-transition/#.VHEdzFXF-Ak

[112] Rune Agerhus, The Houthis Revolutionaries Pegged as Religious Extremists,” TeleSUR, November 30, 2017.

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/opinion/The-Houthis-Revolutionaries-Pegged-as-Religious-Extremists-20171130-0011.html

[113] Atiaf Alwazir,” Is Yemen’s Revolution Defeated?” Al Jazeera, February 22, 2014.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2014/02/yemen-revolution-defeated-201422210517552883.html

[114] Kareem Fahim, “Airstrikes Take Toll on Civilians in Yemen War,” New York Times, September 12, 2015.

https://platosguns.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/airstrikes-take-toll-on-civilians-in-yemen-war-kareem-fahimthe-new-york-times/

[115] Damian Carrington, “Four Billion People Face Severe Water Scarcity, New Research Finds,” The Guardian, February 14, 2016.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/12/four-billion-people-face-severe-water-scarcity-new-research-finds

[116] Yemen: The Hidden War, BBC News, 2015.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06dst11

[117] “Humanitarian Catastrophe,” RT: Question More, October 18, 2015.

https://www.rt.com/news/318999-yemen-famine-unicef-saudi/

[118] Bethan McKernan, “Yemen: Up to 85,000 Young Children Dead from Starvation,” The Guardian, November 21, 2018.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/21/yemen-young-children-dead-starvation-disease-save-the-children

[119] “2015 Was the Worst and Best Year for Kids,” UNICEF, December 29, 2015.

https://www.unicefusa.org/stories/2015-was-worst-and-best-year-kids-here-are-reasons-why/29696

[120] Sana Afouaiz, “The Forgotten Frontline: Women at War Zone: Yemen’s Case,” sanaafouaiz blog, July 9, 2015.

https://sanaafouaizblog.wordpress.com/2015/07/04/the-forgotten-frontline-wome

[121] https://atiafalwazir.wordpress.com/

She moved from Sana’a to Tunisia and then to France.

[122] Lev Luis Grinberg, “The J14 Resistance Mo(ve)ment,” Current Sociology, Vol. 61, No. 4,2013, pp. 491-509.

http://csi.sagepub.com/content/61/4/491.short

[123] Joseph Zeira, “The Israeli Social Protests and the Economy,” in Werner Puschra and Sara Burke, eds. The Future We the People Need: Voices from New Social Movements. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, February 2013.

Click to access 09610-20130215.pdf

[124] An Interview with Daphni Leef. September 7, 2011.

[125] Asher Schechter, “A Short Guide to Israel’s Social Protest,” Haaretz, July 11, 2012.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/a-short-guide-to-israel-s-social-protest-1.450369

[126] Eric Zuesse, “United States is Now the Most Unequal of All Advanced Economies,” Huffington Post, December 13, 2013.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-zuesse/us-is-now-the-most-unequa_b_4408647.html

[127] Shay Fogelman, “The Awakening,” Haaretz, September 23, 2011. http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/the-awakening-1.386305

[128] Zeira, op. cit., p. 42.

[129] Nehemia Shtrasler, “Where is Che Guevara When You Need Him? The Social Protest Movement in Israel,” in Puschra and Burke, eds.

[130] Grinberg, p. 503.

[131] http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/a-short-guide-to-israel-s-social-protest-1.450369

[132] Haggai Matar, “J14 Activists Launch Political Party, Radical by Israeli Standards”, +972, August 18, 2012.

http://972mag.com/j14-activists-launch-new-political-party-radical-by-israeli-standards/53241/

[133] David Sheen, “Why the Arab Spring Never Really Sprung in Israel,” Muftah, April 22, 2014.

http://muftah.org/arab-spring-never-really-sprung-israel/

[134] Naamah Green, “Israel’s Youth Are More Religious in This Generation,” Hidabroot, December 5, 2017.

https://www.hidabroot.com/article/193320/Israels-Youth-Are-More-Religious-in-This-Generation

[135] Jen Marlowe and Fadi Abu Shammalah, “Tomgram: Shammalah and Marlowe, the Return of the Women of Gaza,” TomDispatch, June 12, 2018.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/176435/tomgram%3A_shammalah_and_marlowe%2C_the_return_of_the_women_of_gaza/

[136] Hakima Fassi-Fihri and Zakia Tahiri, “Perspectives: Morocco’s Family Code, 5 Years Later,” Common Ground News Service, April 28, 2009

http://www.commongroundnews.org/index.php?lan=en

http://www.commongroundnews.org/article.php?id=25395&lan=en&sp=0

[137] Zakia Salime, “A New Feminism? Gender Dynamics in Morocco’s February 20^th Movement,” Journal of International Women’s Studies, Vol. 13, No. 5, October 2011.

[138] Thierry Desrues, “Mobilizations in a Hybrid Regime: The 20^th February Movement and the Moroccan regime,” Current Sociology, Vol. 61, No. 4, p. 413.

http://csi.sagepub.com/content/61/4/491.short

[139] Alhassen and Shihab-Eldin, pp. 208-216.

[140] Simon Martelli and Hicham Rafih, “Arab Spring Turmoil Mutes Morocco Protest Movement,” Agence France-Presse, February 20, 2014.

http://www.aquila-style.com/focus-points/arab-spring-mutes-morocco-protest-movement/58821/

[141] Nabil Belkabir, “#FreeSimpson: Campaign to Free Jailed Activists in Morocco,” Free Arabs, May 12, 2014.

http://www.freearabs.com/index.php/politics/69-stories/1361-jb-span-morocco-jb-span-free-simpson-free-everybody

[142] Mohamed Daadoui, “Dissent in Morocco,” al Jazeera, November 18, 2018.

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/dissent-morocco-abraham-serfaty-nasser-zefzafi-181116121236678.html

[143] Richard Falk. Chaos and Counterrevolution: After the Arab Spring. Just World Books, 2015, pp 21-26.

[144] Falk, p. 229.

[145] Falk, p. 106, p. 118.

[146] “Interview with Arundhati Roy,” New Internationalist Magazine, September 1, 2011.

http://newint.org/columns/2011/09/01/interview-with-arundhati-roy/

[147] “The World’s Muslims,” Pew Research Center, April 30, 2013.

http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-religion-and-politics/

[148] Karin Laub, “Mideast Youth Unemployment Rises Amid Post-Arab Spring Chaos,” Times Union, May 22, 2015.

http://www.timesunion.com/news/world/article/Mideast-youth-unemployment-rises-amid-post-Arab-6278108.php#page-2

[149] Juan Cole, “What the Arab Youth Movements have Wrought: Don’t Count Them Out Yet,” Informed Comment, June 30, 2014.

http://www.juancole.com/2014/06/youth-movements-wrought.html

[150] John McMurtry, “Planning Chaos in the Middle East: Destruction of Societies for Foreign Money Control,” Global Research, April 28, 2015.

Planning Chaos in the Middle East: Destruction of Societies for Foreign Money Control

[151] “A White Paper on the Findings of the ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey 2012,”  p. 7. Interviews with 2,500 Arab youth ages 18 to 24 (60% male) in 12 countries.

http://www.arabyouthsurvey.com/english/pdf/white_paper_ays2012_English.pdf

[152] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/dubai/10533526/US-man-detained-in-Dubai-over-spoof-youth-culture-video-to-learn-his-fate.html

[153] ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, Arab Youth Survey 2016, 2016.

http://www.arabyouthsurvey.com/en/findings

[154] Afef Abrougui, “The UAE Has Avoided an ‘Arab Spring’ by Systematically Repressing Critical Speech,” Global Voices, September 20, 2016.

https://globalvoices.org/2016/09/20/the-uae-has-avoided-an-arab-spring-by-systematically-repressing-critical-speech/

[155] Nur Laiq. Talking to Arab Youth: Revolution and Counterrevolution in Egypt and Tunisia. International Peace Institute, 2013, p. 27.

[156] Sheera Frenkel, “After the Revolution, Arab Women Seek More Rights,” NPR.org, August 6, 2011.

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/06/137482442/after-the-revolution-arab-women-seek-more-rights

[157] “After the Arab Uprisings: Women of Rights, Religion, and Rebuilding,” Gallup, 2012.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/155306/Arab-Uprisings-Women-Rights-Religion-Rebuilding.aspx

[158] “A White Paper on the Findings of the ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey 2012,” pp. 12-13. Interviews with 2,500 youth ages 18 to 24 in 12 countries.

http://www.arabyouthsurvey.com/english/pdf/white_paper_ays2012_English.pdf

[159] “Arab Uprisings: Opinions from Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.” BBC News, December 20, 2013.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-25452447

[160] Heath Prince, “Fading Hope: Why the Youth of the Arab Spring are Still Employed,” The Conversation, July 1, 2016.

http://www.bing.com/search?form=MOZPSB&pc=MOZO&q=Heath+Prince%2C+%E2%80%9CFading+Hope%3A+Why+the+Youth+of+the+Arab+Spring+are+Still+Employed%2C%E2%80%9D+The+Conversation%2C+July+1%2C+2016.

[161] “What have Young People Gained from the Arab Spring?” The World Bank, April 10, 2014.

http://live.worldbank.org/youth-arab-spring

[162] Alexandra Alater, “Finding Reguge in Dystopian Novels,” Straits Times, May 31, 2016.

http://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/arts/finding-refuge-in-dystopian-novels

[163] Maryam Jamshidi. The Future of the Arab Spring. Elsevier, 2014.

[164] Suyin Haynes, “Armenia’s Prime Minister Has Resigned After Days of Protests,” TIME Magazine, April 24, 2018.

http://time.com/5251995/armenia-protests-prime-minister-serzh-sargsyan-yerevan/

[165] https://www.facebook.com/groups/193336234022254/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Palestine-Liberation-of-the-Middle-East/119857458091073

[166] https://stlaw.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapTour/?appid=f7cdf93edd0b4079a379f9f6aba6c547