Compare and Contrast: Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street

Compare and Contrast: Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street
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Compare and Contrast: Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street
Social movements have been used as a tool for change in society. The history of social movements dates back to before World War II. In this paper, two social movements will be analyzed. The first is the Arab Spring, which was a series of uprisings and protests that started in Tunisia in 2010 and spread to other Arab countries (Farhan & Varghese, 2018). The protests against government repression and anti-democratic leadership began peacefully, although this did not last. The existing regimes opposed these protests with violence (Castells, 2015), and some countries, such as Yemen, became war-torn and have not been able to recover. The second is the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement which was a protest that started in Zuccotti Park in New York, United States (US). It was organized to address the existing economic inequality (Cao, 2017). This paper will also provide a comparison between these two movements, the use of social media, political, and cultural context, as well as the forces that led to each movement. Further, a comparison between the two movements and other historical movements will be provided and the current and future state of resistance will be examined.
Overview of the Similarities/Differences between the Two Movements
One of the key similarities between these two movements is that they both utilized social media to spread their ideas and as a result, their diffusion rate was high. The Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia, was different than previous protests because Tunisia now had “…a community of digitally savvy activists… (Tufekci, 2017 p.15).” They also had higher social media usage and greater access to smartphones. Similarly, OWS also utilized social media to ensure that greater numbers of protestors were mobilized. Tufekci (2017 p.210) indicates that the OWS movement spread even to other countries because the protestors relied on “…the power of social media to balance the ridicule or silence traditional gatekeepers…” Through social media, these two movements diffused quickly to protest against injustices within their respective societies.
Another similarity is the significance of the physical places protestors occupied during the protests. In the Arab Spring movement, protestors from different Arab countries occupied different public spaces that held certain significance to them. For instance, in Egypt, protestors occupied Tahrir Square because it was close to parliament headquarters and hosted around ten ministries of government (Said, 2020). This was not the first time protestors tried to occupy this space. In the past, they had been unsuccessful as police prevented them from getting to the square (Said, 2020). During the Arab Spring, occupying this space was considered the first step towards bringing change and ousting the current regime. The successful occupation of this space inspired them to further advance their agenda. In OWS, protestors occupied Zuccotti Park because it was within the financial district, and being private property, police could not evict them without permission from the owner (Cao, 2017; Tufekci, 2017). This was significant to their cause as they were protesting financial inequality and protesting within a financial district was metaphorical.
However, the difference between these two movements stems from the key driving force that led to each movement. On one hand, the Arab Spring movement was driven by undemocratic leadership that oppressed and censored the rights of citizens in Arab countries. Although the movement traces back to Tunisia, the uprisings started because of corruption, tyranny, and manipulation by those in government (Mujani & Musa, 2015), a symptom of undemocratic leadership. The people were fighting for democracy so that other areas of their lives, such as employment and civil rights, could improve. On the other hand, OWS was driven by a poor economy characterized by financial inequality and distrust of financial institutions by Americans. According to Suh, Vasi, and Chang (2017), Americans trusted the federal government more than they trusted the financial institutions. Thus, their issue was less about the government's leadership and more about financial institutions’ governance.
Use of Social media in the Movements
Both movements relied heavily on social media to advance their agenda. The Arab Spring utilized various social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to share information about their activities as well as locations for demonstrations. Arab countries used “calls on the Internet, networking in cyberspace, and calls to occupy urban space to put pressure on the government to resign…(Castells, 2015 p.96).” They also used social media to convince protestors and to communicate with their government leaders on the need for democracy in their countries. According to Farhan and Varghese (2018), activists in the Arab Spring used Facebook to keep in touch with each other and to obtain news about what was going on in and outside their respective countries. This ensured that they were all up-to-date with what was happening beyond borders.
Similarly, the OWS movement utilized social media to communicate about their activities as well as spaces to occupy (Suh, Vasi, & Chang, 2017). It is through social media that the movement diffused outside New York and to other cities in the US. However, it is worth noting that there are instances in which protestors in the OWS movement avoided using social media. For example, while communicating about occupying Zuccotti Park, organizers used brochures and word-of-mouth because their social media platforms were being observed by the police. Thus, they were able to get to Zuccotti Park before the police could seize the space. This particular incidence reveals that the use of social media to spread a social movement can be a double-edged tool working for and against the protestors.
Political and Cultural Context
Arab countries have been plagued with poor leadership, lack of democracy, despotism, and corruption for years. These factors formed the setting of the Arab Spring. In Tunisia, the people were protesting against the lack of freedom of speech since the government had c...