Protest Politics in the Middle East

Essay Instructions:

Guidelines and Topics (A) Guidelines: 1. These papers require that you write both a standard academic paper while, at the same time, write that paper from the perspective of a particular individual within a particular context within the region. As such, the paper will marked on a two-fold basis: 20% for the quality of your role-playing within the paper; and 80% for the quality of your academic analysis. 2. Academically, while the formats for the paper are varied – from summaries of conversations to position papers – you are nonetheless still required first and foremost to include in these formats all of the components that a standard research essay would require. This includes (i) an introduction to the paper that would include both (a) a thesis statement and (b) a clear statement of how the paper will be organized and argued as well as a conclusion. If you are having difficulties with the creative format, I would advise you, first, to write the paper as you would any other essay and, second, then transform it into something more creative. 3. You are also required to have 12 substantive academic sources – be they books or academic articles. Not counted towards these are newspaper articles and/or blog sites - though they will be very helpful in giving you a sense of the actors and the environment within which they are operating and, hence, I encourage you to supplement your regular research with them. 4. You are also required to document all sources that you use – including those from the internet and the press. Please make sure you use correct citations and you must include a bibliography. Topics: 1. Led by the likes of Tawakel Karmen, women have made up to 30% of the protestors in Yemen's version of the Arab Spring. You were one of those female protestors. In a subsequent conversation with your female colleagues (while the men were away at an afternoon qat chew!), you had an in-depth discussion of the challenges that women had faced within Yemen under President Saleh, reflecting at the end of that conversation on the opportunities that the social mobilization of women within the opposition might offer for women in any post-Saleh era. Please provide us with a transcript of that conversation. 2. You are a member of a clandestine Kurdish opposition group in Syria and have been asked to write a position paper on the situation of the Kurds in Syria before the Syrian uprising, concluding with some reflections on why the Kurdish opposition has had to tread very carefully when considering its open support for the Syrian opposition as a whole. Please provide us with a copy of that secret memo. 3. You are part of a small, informal group of Saudi women, eager to expand women's rights in the Kingdom. You have made contact with a feminist association in Egypt who have asked you to provide them with your analysis of, first, the state of women's rights within the Kingdom to date and, second, an analysis of the challenges and opportunities that exist for advocating and mobilizing around the issue of women's rights – including an analysis of the significance of recent reforms announced by the monarch around women's participation in both commerce and municipal politics. Please provide us with a copy of that analysis. 4. You are a founding member of the April 6th Movement in Egypt. In a recent strategic planning session, you entered into an interesting discussion of how the constraints on your efforts to promote social and political mobilization differed in the pre-and post-Mubarak era. Please provide us with a transcript of that conversation, focusing in particular on the strengths and limitations of social media as a mobilizational tool. 5. You are a researcher at a University seeking insights into the politics of the burgeoning informal sectors in the Middle East. You have just completed an interview with a Tunisia street vendor in which you asked him to compare life before and after the Tunisian uprising, with a particular focus on what factors led him to his own participation in the demonstrations and his evaluation as to whether he had made the right decision in doing so. Please provide us with a transcript of that interview.

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Protest Politics in the Middle East
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In 2011, the Arab world experienced unprecedented series of political uprisings. Some of the dictatorial regimes were toppled. Worse still, some of the leaders of these Arab countries met their deaths in cruel manners that shook the core of other Arab countries. These uprisings have changed the political temperature and atmosphere of the Arab world (DALACOURA, 2012). Most people are using such terms as ‘crisis’, ‘revolt’ and ‘uprising’ in the place of ‘revolution’ (as such occurrences were commonly referred to). The main reason for these uprisings was centered on poor and dictatorial leadership that totally oppressed the regular citizen and sometimes annihilation of anyone who dared question the authority of the government leaders. With the hope that a change in government would bear better fruits, revolt, and revolt more did the people do. With the governments changed (others in their transitional stage), have the various Countries experienced the change they revolted for? Is the situation any different than it was a few years back? Has there been an improvement or are the people still suffering the same way they did? These are some of the questions this paper will be looking at with a bid to come with a clear answer and picture of the situation after the uprisings. To achieve this goal, I will investigate the situation in four countries: Syria, Yemen, Egypt and Tunisia. I will also look into Saudi Arabia which recently had a change in legislation and granted women the right to political suffrage for the first time. I will look into the position women protestors played in Yemen’s uprising. Secondly, I will investigate the Kurdish in Syria before the Arab uprising and why according to my opinion the Kurdish opposition has had to tread very carefully when considering its support for the Syrian opposition. Furthermore, I will try bringing to light how a group of Saudi women who want to expand women’s rights into the kingdom. The changes that have been announced by the monarch will also be highlighted and their significance around women’s participation will be highlighted. Additionally, the situation in Egypt and Tunisia, both before and after the uprising will also be looked into. Kurdish Position in Syrian uprising The Kurdish people have been of great significance. They form the largest minority in Syria making up about 10% of the population. For reasons well known, they have always been against the Assad Administration. Asking one of the Syrians, Mr. Azam, he opined that because of their stand, they may get tied with the revolution against Assad’s regime. Indeed the Syrians have had calls from the Syrian nationals asking them to mobilize their numbers and help in supporting the revolution and the Syrian National Council (SNC) to topple Assad’s Regime (White, 2010). The Syrians have so far resisted joining the SNC because it comprises of Sunni Arabs. Historically, the Syrians –Explained Mr. Azam- have always been oppressed by the Sunnis. In fact the previous government which was Sunni led, oppressed the Syrians. This is true, under the Alawite Shia regime of the al-Assads, their language was banned, and moreover, their ethnicity is on the verge of extinction because of the constant fleeing and displacements. Furthermore, the Kurdish has been denied Syrian citizenship which has rendered them a stateless people. This has terribly affected their immigration status and has further denied them of basic rights such as formal education.
President Assad recently, however, gave 300,000 Kurdish people sate nationality, when I asked Mr. Azam what he thought about such a move, he was very negative. He explained that he saw such a move as a ploy to save his government. He did not understand why the Kurdish people have to be assisted in times of crisis especially when the advantage was mostly to their oppressors. That is why most Kurdish don’t trust the recent calls by the SNC, because they fear that once the SNC ascends to power, they might fail to rectify past injustices occasioned to them. The Kurdish relationship with the Sunnis has always been very fragile, it is feared that a Kurdish revolution could result as a by-product of this mistrust and a Kurdish, Sunni and Alawite Shia clash inevitable. This would be very dangerous as it would completely polarize the country and lead Syria to a brink of civil war. Furthermore, it might cause international unrest especially in Turkey. Mr. Azam added they he knew that should an attack against the Kurdish in Syria arise, their brothers and sisters in Turkey, Iran and Iraq would most certainly join them (in north Iraq there exists the Kurdish Regional Government). What should be understood is that Turkey and Iran are rivals mainly because of the future of Iraq. A possibility of Turkey pitting itself against Iran might lead to heightened tensions and possible war between the two countries (of course this is the worst case scenario). The Kurdish position is one of a gymnast hanging on a thin piece of thread or rope and walking way above the ground. One wrong move and he comes down tumbling and in the process hurting anyone beneath who never bothered to look and anticipate what might happen. If the Kurdish were to join the revolution, then they might succeed in making the revolution a success, but at the same time risk continued oppression. Furthermore, political miscalculations might lead to polarization of the Middle East as we know it today. A better probability would be avoiding bloodshed and the Kurdish would then pursue their homeland and work with the new Democratic Syrian Regime as has been done by the Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq. Tunisia: Life after the Revolt Tunisia is considered as the genesis of the Arab uprising. Tired by the dictatorial and complete neglect by their government, they saw the best way was to let the government feel their (citizen’s) wrath. The events in Tunisia were triggered when a young man (Mohamed Bouazizi) set himself ablaze to protest the constant harassment he received from the police and the hard economic life present in Tunisia at that time. Tunisia has always been considered as one of the guiding light in as far as the African continent development is concerned. To foreigners, it may seem a wonderful country but to the locals they term life as unbearable. Mr. Issak offered me an insight of Tunisian’s plight and it was really terrible. He explained to me the life of Mohamed Bouazizi, a young man who had to drop out of school to support his family. He sacrificed his life to making sure that his younger sister was getting a decent education, in fact he had helped the younger sister all the way to university level. Yet, the municipal government was always on his case. Confiscating his groceries because of lack of business licenses and sometime just for the fun of it. The public officials never care about the troubles of the young man. Constant police harassments and massive taxes was the order of the day for most Tunisians. When Bouazizi couldn’t take it anymore he committed a selfless act and torched himself to complain about the constant oppression he received. In fact it took the president of Tunisia two weeks to go visit the young man in hospital. He promised to fly the young man for further treatment but this never materialized. Tunisians could not take this anymore and they decided to revolt against the government. The revolt consequently led to the overthrow of the previous regime. However, have the Tunisians; gotten the much needed change they were thirsty for? Mr. Issak was very negative about the current situation. He explained that the atmosphere in the country was that of full disappointment. It is very true that the Tunisians envisioned better governance and a better economy when they revolted. But to date they have not received the basic economic demands which were the core of the revolt. For instance, they are yet to receive extended electricity. Additionally the country has got a high unemployment rate. Most university graduates cannot afford a decent job at all. Furthermore, the present government is yet to address the soaring unemployment rate. Centralization of resources should be encouraged. This will lead to job creation, will enhance better public service and would help in curbing brain drain that is evident in Tunisia. The life of the average Tunisian has gone from worse to worst after the revolution. Mr. Issak, who was able to operate a good grocery business before, cannot even afford to buy the same grocery he sold for a single family meal. He laments that he is worse off now than before the revolt. Tunisians have learnt a lot (Yedder, 2011); they do not want to disrespect the lives of the people who sacrificed themselves in the hope of a better government for everyone. However they have to be patient and have to see that they build strong foundations for a much more stable country for the future. Mr. Issak was of the opinion that, if they hadn’t revolted, the conditions that were prevalent in the country then would have eventually killed most of them than the revolution did. It is true that the Tunisians have earned political freedom, freedom of expression, and are now free to move around without constant harassment from the police. However they should now work towards reviving the economy, fighting unemployment, and creation of better social services. In general Tunisians are not happy at all with the current direction and pace the present government is taking (Luck, 2010). They just hope they will not return to the old archaic ways they were used to.
Egypt: Social Media as a Mobilization Tool.
Egypt has always been considered as the birth of civilization. They have succeeded in the past in building pyramids which have remained as a wonder of the world and how far humanity can develop. In keeping with the tradition of delivering ‘firsts’, they used social media to mobilize the whole country to revolt against the dictatorial government of Mubarak. They showed the world what social media is capable of achieving. What however remains to be determined is whether they will maintain the tempo they started with and continue forward addressing national issues in the same manner? The power of information in our current generation is unprecedented. Currently, information spreads like wildfire. As fast as the blinking of an eye is how quickly information spreads from one point to the other. The social media in particular has become the greatest weapon human has ever created. In Egypt there has always been a gap betw...

Updated on January 26, 2024

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