The Arab Winter : a tragedy /
Suddenly and unpredictably, non-violent mass demonstrations and protests erupted throughout the Arabic-speaking world in the spring of 2011, as large numbers of ordinary Arabs sought to take their political fate into their own hands and shape a better future for themselves. The optimism of their asp...
Saved in:
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic eBook |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Princeton, New Jersey :
Princeton University Press,
[2020]
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | CONNECT CONNECT |
| Summary: | Suddenly and unpredictably, non-violent mass demonstrations and protests erupted throughout the Arabic-speaking world in the spring of 2011, as large numbers of ordinary Arabs sought to take their political fate into their own hands and shape a better future for themselves. The optimism of their aspirations and the bravery of their efforts met with sympathy and excitement around the globe. For the first time, people in countries across North Africa and the Middle East were acting on their own, wresting control away from repressive governments and the great international powers that had long supported them. Yet as we all know, the electrifying events that began in Tunisia and that swept through Egypt, Syria, Iraq and elsewhere ultimately led to something much darker - except perhaps in the place where they began. Many long-time observers of the Middle East have arrived at a consensus about what happened to the Arab spring: it was doomed to fail. The Arab world, we are told, was unready for regime change in the direction of democracy. There is some variance among the purveyors of this consensus: some attribute the predestined failure and resulting horrors to a shared - and flawed - Arab political culture; others are inclined to blame Islam; and still others point the finger at the continued interference in the region of outside imperial powers (in particular, the United States). The purpose of this book is to rescue the Arab spring from the narrative of predestined failure. The author readily admits that in many ways the Arab spring ultimately made most people's lives worse than they were before. The ratio of success in the aftermath of the spring 2011 events has been atrocious - yet it has not been zero. And even where these events took a turn for the horrifically worse, those outcomes were not inevitable. In place of the narrative of inevitability, the author tells a different story of the arc from spring to winter. -- |
|---|---|
| Item Description: | Books at JSTOR Evidence Based Acquisitions Project MUSE Universal EBA Ebooks |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (xxiv, 192 pages) |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9780691201443 0691201447 9780691194929 0691194920 |
