Democratic Uprisings in the New Middle East

Youth, Technology, Human Rights, and US Foreign Policy

Mahmood Monshipouri

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317261384
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

As Egypt retreats from its newly elected government and Syria moves from one crisis to another, this book's reflection on the Arab Spring could not be more timely. Monshipouri's account of the role of emotion, solidarity, and online activism is informed by several trips to the region that continue to this day. The uprisings were fueled by a demographic surge of young people unable to find employment and frustrated by the lack of freedom, and now the elected regime has been ousted for failing to address these continuing circumstances. While modern technologies and social media may have brought new politics to the streets, organization on the ground trumps the enthusiasm of young protesters when it comes to shaping a country's political future. How to turn elections into democracy in these post-conflict societies continues to be a daunting task, especially in countries with a longstanding history of military involvement in politics now experiencing a resurgence. This book addresses all of these subjects in an engaging and accessible narrative.
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Chapter 1

MODERN TECHNOLOGIES

Possibilities and Constraints

The protests in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in 2011 have exposed—among other things—the failure of unilateral attempts by regimes to renegotiate ruling bargains.¹ The old ruling bargains between the ruler and the ruled, whereby submission and acquiescence on the part of the people were rewarded by a regime’s attempt to provide socioeconomic security and political stability—have irreparably collapsed. A combination of nonviolent protests, online communication and activism, and the organizational skill of the youth movement since 2011 has resulted in an unprecedented cascade of falling regimes across the region. It is not clear, however, whether these revolts—spearheaded by youth- driven demonstrations, aided by online social networks, and facilitated by the emancipatory potential of a digital world—will prevail over well- entrenched institutions, such as the army, vested interests of privileged classes, and traditional Islamist groups.

What is evident, however, is that these uprisings have been organized, instigated, and sustained by nonviolent and nonideological movements that seek concrete responses to their demands for freedom, dignity, employment, and social justice. The increasing demands for agency, representation, democracy, and other elements of the international human rights regime can be termed “secular” in orientation without denying the role that religious constructs may have played in some such protests. In fact, as one expert poignantly notes, the 2011 Arab Spring emphatically rebuked the notion that rights were irrelevant to non-Western societies.² If nothing else, these uprisings illustrated how human rights—influenced movements could open the door to both violent backlash and revolutionary possibilities and change.³

Although every nation in the MENA region is wrestling with existential identity issues, the contagion effect created by the regime changes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya indicates the rise of a heightened sense of pan-Arabism as evidenced by a significant degree of imagined community among Arabs everywhere.⁴ Aside from the common elements that link these upheavals, such as demands for dignity, freedom, and social justice, they have diverged fundamentally from each other insofar as the nature of their government and society, as well as civilian-military relations, is concerned. These similarities and differences will most likely yield variable implications for what the future holds in each country Some scholars have warned against the idea that the Tunisian, Egyptian, and Libyan uprisings all constituted a cohesive Arab revolt, reminding us that Tunisians will need to cope with the class divisions that have fueled the protests. Egyptians must reshape their institutions of government, and Libyans will need to recover from a bloody civil war.⁵ While Egypt struggles with its lingering military rule, Tunisia and Libya ought to redefine the relationship between their rich capital cities and their underprivileged heartlands.⁶

Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh became the fourth Arab leader to be removed from the political scene since the 2011 protests. Saleh stepped down after thirty-three years in power and eleven-month protests that brought the country to the brink of civil war. In exchange for immunity from prosecution, as part of the Gulf Cooperation Council—brokered agreement, Saleh ceded power to the new president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, who faces many challenges, not the least of which are tackling widespread poverty and malnutrition, a secessionist movement in the south, rebellions across the country, and a fight against al-Qaeda elements present in Yemen. He will serve a two-year term and oversee the drafting of a new constitution in an attempt to pave the way for the new parliamentary and presidential elections in 2014.⁷

The sectarian discrimination and old ruling dynasty continue to cast a shadow of uncertainty over Bahrain, a tiny island state where Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates provide security forces and where stability seems a distant possibility for many years to come. Likewise, Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, a member of the minority Alawite who rules over the Sunni- majority country, faces a daunting task of restoring stability to a chaotic country whose leader has prompted even the Arab League, which has a history of neglecting, perhaps even excusing the follies of its members, to suspend its membership.⁸

There can be no doubt that economic conditions and grievances factored heavily into the eruption of protests and the ensuing developments.⁹ Aside from economic stagnation, experts agree that perhaps one of the most obvious flaws of the Arab governments was the failure of their educational method to prepare their students for the modern, information-age global economy. For a very long time, much of the state’s investment has been in the region’s plentiful oil and gas resources, leaving the vast majority of the people—especially the youth—outside of such entrepreneurship that has largely benefited the autocratic regimes and their cronies. With low levels of direct foreign investment in human capital, Arab schools and universities have failed to prepare their youth for the modern economy. Additionally, endemic corruption and woefully inadequate legal systems have frightened away legitimate investors. As a result, foreign investment and development have been supplanted by those seeking to exploit the region alongside its crooked elite.¹⁰

The young Arabs who sparked these revolts often bore the consequences of the failed educational and political order. They struggled, as Rami G. Khouri notes, against “humiliation” and a lack of “legitimacy” caused by several decades of socioeconomic and political deprivation.¹¹ Experiencing a marked “youth bulge,” the entire region faces antigovernment protests and dissent by a generation frustrated with their inability to find employment and freely express their opinions. These youth populations, who spearheaded the post-2009 election “Green Movement” in Iran amid alleged voting fraud, have been at the forefront of the “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia and the “Nile Revolution” in Egypt. The Western world, experts aptly note, must watch for cases where political regimes are immensely weak and the countries are distressingly fragmented. It is within this context that such youth bulges can produce extended civil conflict, political instability, and ultimately failed states. Yemen and Palestine are prime examples. Calls for change alongside youth unrest in Iran are equally worth watching.¹²

This book is a systematic attempt to understand the extraordinary events of the 2011 Arab revolts and beyond—developments that have shaken the foundation of the region’s autocratic regimes as never before—with an eye toward understanding the role of youth activists and online communities in building shared meanings, bonds, and identities in today’s open societies; dynamic and interactive social contexts; and global environments. Our central arguments are twofold: (1) social media and information and communication technologies (ICTs) have empowered younger generations to participate in and shape the public discourse over politics; but (2) what ultimately leads to political transformation and building trust and coalition can only be achieved through direct and bottom- up participation supported by stronger organizational foundations. While acknowledging the limits of social change via the Internet and social media, this book investigates traditional and new politics in the MENA region as well as Western governments’ reactions to these uprisings.

Youth and Unemployment

Young Egyptians’ most important contribution today seems to be constructing an identity alongside their vision of a twenty-first-century Egypt.¹³ Some observers have dubbed these youth movements “Generation Freedom,” which are well described by four attributes: plentiful, pinched, plugged in, and proactive.¹⁴ Others have upended the developmental rationale and assumptions behind governments’ repressive policies and programs. Marked by the slogan Hiya thawrat karama (“This is a revolution of honor and dignity”), these uprisings, which started in the streets of Sidi Bouzid in the poor highlands of Tunisia, following Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation, have discredited the governments’ tired argument that freedom must give way to stability, and that stability is crucial for the sake of development.¹⁵ Failure to reframe the debate in the post—Osama bin Laden era will severely stymie the progress toward achieving universal human rights standards throughout the world, especially at a time when it seems to have generated new and historic momentum in the MENA region.

The rise of social movements and demands for freedom in the MENA region—as reflected in the emergence of a real sense of hope and possibility among the younger generation—have provided a counter-narrative to terrorism and Islamic extremism. Today’s youth in the Muslim world seem to be more interested in jobs and freedoms than in Islamic militants’ agenda of using violence to topple autocratic regimes and wreak havoc on Western imperialism. One of the most formidable challenges facing the governments throughout the MENA region is undoubtedly youth unemployment. In one study, the Abu Dhabi—based Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), an Arab League affiliate, concluded that regional countries need to create at least 40 million jobs by 2020 to adequately tackle the unemployment problem.¹⁶

These popular uprisings—also known as the Arab Spring—that have thus far toppled autocratic leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have been led mainly by Arab youths who sought jobs and greater political freedoms. The Arab youth have vehemently rejected US military interventions and policies in the MENA region. As Al Jazeera English’s senior political analyst Marwan Bishara puts it, “They collectively rejected the choice between thuggish dictators and their cynical foreign powers, between repressive patriarchies and imported paternalism, between surrender and suicide. The Arab youth had opted for a third choice: freedom.”¹⁷

The ensuing political and national outcries have placed a damper on the tourism industry, undermined economic growth, and mounted enormous pressure on the Arab governments to support their growing populations. The youth unemployment rate in the Middle East of 25 percent, according to an April 2011 International Monetary Fund (IMF) report, “exceeds that of any other region in the world.” Joblessness, as the IMF report demonstrates, “is largely a youth phenomenon, with people between the ages of 15 and 24 accounting for 40 percent of all people without jobs in the region, and this figure rises to as much as 60 percent in Egypt and Syria.”¹⁸

The MENA region has become a hotbed of anger, rebellion, and protests for an entire generation that feels disillusioned and disenfranchised. A cursory look at demographic factors shows that a substantial portion of the population in the region is below the age of thirty. The youth represents a great share of the labor force and places enormous pressure on the labor market. Worse yet, economic growth in the region cannot absorb the flow of youth entering the labor market. Moreover, private investments are flowing primarily to informal economic sectors that create few or poor-quality jobs. An inept educational system has provided graduates with training that fails to serve the needs of potential employers. Poor governance has hampered job creation by discouraging potential investors. Additionally, public institutions and policies are neither efficient enough to deal with labor-market reforms nor able to effectively carry out the macroeconomic strategies necessary to generate long-term growth.¹⁹

Between 2000 and 2010, approximately 7 million new jobs were created in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates—of which fewer than 2 million went to nationals, according to a report issued by the IMF in October 2011. Although job creation tops governments’ agendas in this region, there may be as many as 2 to 3 million additional unemployed GCC citizens by 2015.²⁰ The GCC countries are also experiencing a period of rapid growth in their youth population at the same time overall education levels are increasing. Yet these higher educational achievements have not made pursuing a private-sector career any more desirable.²¹ The key reason for this is that the salaries associated with the public sector continue to be considerably higher than those of the private sector, which naturally lures nationals to such jobs. If the current government policies are not updated to properly reflect contemporary demographic and labor-market realities, increasing numbers of unemployed nationals will be likely to express their dissatisfaction with such policies.²²

These countries also face additional challenges addressing the employment balance between their nationals and non-nationals. The growing level of national unemployment in the GCC countries poses one of the region’s core domestic policy challenges. A third of all public-sector and two-thirds of all private-sector positions are staffed by expatriate workers.²³ In addition to unemployment problems for nationals, rising food prices and food security issues could have serious ramifications for the region. Despite the ongoing threats of violent extremism, terrorism, war, and social upheaval in the Arabian Peninsula, coming to grips with the challenge of food security has never been more essential in the incredibly water-stressed Middle East.

The peninsula’s constituent countries are highly dependent on essential food imports (wheat, rice, maize, soybeans, sugar, and barley are among the major items) and thus seriously exposed to global food inflation and crisis. With declining agriculture, a growing population, and scarce water resources, the vulnerability of GCC member states will surge markedly in the future. Given that the majority of the population in these countries consists of expatriates, food price increases or any future food crisis will seriously undermine the legitimacy of these governments, triggering social unrest and protests by migrant workers.

The GCC countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, have made impressive aid pledges totaling nearly $18 billion to Egypt while avoiding specific commitments to Tunisia.²⁴ Although there are questions about whether such pledges would be eventually fulfilled, their aid might w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1 Modern Technologies: Possibilities and Constraints
• 2 The Digital Age, Demographics, and an Ethos of Protest
• 3 Youthful Momentum, Social Media, Human Rights, and Political Economy
• 4 Emerging Identities: Emotions, Protests, and New Media
• 5 US-Iran Relations: From the Green Movement to the Arab Spring
• 6 The Arab Spring: Regional Implications and Beyond
• Notes
• References
• Index
• About the Author