Why Witnessing New Uprisings in the Region Is Less Likely Artical

Artical Name : Improbable Scenarios Artical Subject : Why Witnessing New Uprisings in the Region is less likely Publish Date: 21/01/2018 Auther Name: Future for Advanced Research and Studies Subject : Over the past few weeks, protests have flared up across several countries in the region, such as Sudan, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Iran, reflecting latent potentials for instability, which have quickly evolved into a new cycle of violence and counter-violence. However, there is no indications that they will turn into a slippery slope as it happened in some Arab countries at the beginning of 2011 to create new states, different regimes and possibly different societies. Although protests moved from one city to another, with scenes or footage reminiscent of the so-called ³revolutionary movement´seven years ago, the current wave of protests does not amount to ³revolutions of the hungryóverthrow the regime or threaten the survival of the state or suggest that what was termed ³Arab Spring´has not ended as some writers suggest. However, they send messages to governments to improve living conditions, address internal deficiencies and ³put the brakesón expansionist tendencies at the expense of the welfare of communities.The moment of explosion cannot be taken out of its context, or the so-called ³all internal contexts´despite the importance of ³political contagion´theories and ³domino effect´models, which indicate that Middle Eastern governments have been already operating under constant regional pressures. In addition, populations do not revolt every year or even every decade, since the governing factor is the ³situational factors´-whether political pressures, security collapses or economic problems- which if available, protests may turn into uprisings or revolutions.Sudden uprisings Countries in the region have been accustomed to sudden mass ³uprisings´ that do not amount to revolutions, as happened in Tunisia, Morocco and Sudan in the 1980s and 1990s, which came to be called ³bread riots´because the actions and decisions taken by the governments of those states to raise the prices, reduce subsidies and free float their national currencies came in response to the demands of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), affecting broad sectors of society, including the lower and middle segments of the middle class.Such unrest have been repeated in different times, most recently at the beginning of 2018, where the Tunisian protests led by a movement calling itself ³Fech Nestannewór ³What Are We Waiting For?´For example, protests erupted in several Tunisian towns such as Gabes, Kairouan, Gafsa, Tebourba, Douz, Kasserine, Siliana, El Kef and Sidi Bouzid against austerity measures, price hikes, increased taxes and suspension of the Fiscal Act of 2018 approved by the Assembly of the Representatives of the People on 9 December 2017, which included reducing the budget deficit to 4.9% compared to more than 6% in 2017.The protesters in the adjacent neighborhoods to the capital Tunis chanted slogans, such as ³poverty increased, hunger increased, citizens are oppressed´³Your regime is decayedánd ³unity government, people are suffering in the countrysideánd ³government shame on you, the prices are flaring like flames´Tunisia still faces economic difficulties, especially in the remote southern regions, which also witnessed on last May protests against foreign petroleum companies¶exploitation of wealth without having positive impacts on the unemployed citizen in those areas.Several states in Sudan, such as Nyala, Geneina, al-Damazin, Sennar and Madani have also recently witnessed protests led by school and university students, along with low-income families against rising prices of bread and other consumer goods, as demonstrators chanted ³No, no to price rises´Many Iranian cities also witnessed large-scale demonstrations beginning on December 28, 2017 protesting soaring prices, rising poverty rates, inflation and bankruptcy of lending institutions and the housing crisis as well as Iranian interventions in the internal affairs of Arab countries through supporting terrorist groups and armed militias, as shown in the slogans, such as ³neither Gaza nor Lebanon, my soul is for IranÍt is important to note that the failure of successive governments in some countries of the region to provide solutions to development crises, the deterioration of purchasing power of large sectors of society, tax evasion, sale of public sector institutions, poor utilities and infrastructure, and the lack of a viable communication policy with remote and impoverished neighborhoods are all contributing factors to these waves of protests. Middle East Governments have in fact dealt with these security challenges as if they reflect ³peripheral crisesánd ³foreign conspiracies´However, there are several factors that explain why the outbreak of a new wave of successive ³uprisingsín the Middle East is unlikely.Weak triggers1- Lack of triggers for a new revolutionary wave. This could be considered as catalysts for movements as the young Tunisian man Mohammed Bouazizi who set himself on fire in December 2010. These are turning points that prompt people to stage anti- government protests due to the lack of understanding from the part of the latter, which in turn are exploited by some political and social movements to advance their own agendas, as the political Islam movements, mainly the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists, in some of the Arab Spring countries.Strikingly, the current flurry of protests in Tunisia and Sudan does not call for the overthrow of the regime (with few exceptions), but rather the correction of government policies with regard to social problems, including restructuring subsidy funds. In previous years, protest movements assumed power, as Ennahda movement in Tunisia, which denounced, in various press statements, the ³repeated calls by some political parties for citizens to protest to suspend the new Finance Act and throw the country into disarray´The ³transitional maze´Failures of internal transitions in post-Arab revolutions due to the complexities of transition from the collapse of old regimes to the construction of new ones in the so-called ³transitional maze´that resulted from the transition from revolution to state in some Arab cases and the lack of developing viable political alternatives. Therefore, 2011 experience demonstrates that some countries were faced with revolutions that know where they came from but do not know where to go, bearing in mind that the common denominators among revolutions may not necessarily lead to common 10/2/2021 12:34:51 PM 1 / 2 paths or directions given the nature of the transition phase, controlling political forces, alliances and the legacy of previous regimes.There was a consensus among national powers and revolutionary movements in some Arab states to overthrow the old regimes, but no agreement was crystallized on the features of the new ones, which could not translate the slogans of ³political freedom, social justice and human dignityínto a tangible reality. In other words, the forces of revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen had clear vision with regard to the existing regimes, but they had a distorted vision when it came to the establishment of new ones, which was later realized by various sectors of the elite and public opinion in the Arab states.Consequences of chaos 3- Sliding into chaos in states that survived the repercussions of the popular revolutions in 2011, especially in an unstable region plagued by long-standing political and military conflicts, both intra-state and inter-state, and being so prolonged that they have become intractable, with the majority of them being difficult to resolve or settle. This led many assessments to assert that broad sectors of public opinion are willing to return to the pre-revolutions stages. The chaos-scenario is compounded by the risk of cross- border terrorist organizations, some of them, such as ISIS, were attempting to launch their own 'state' in Syria and Iraq. Despite the disruption of this project, the danger of the organization remains, given that its cadres and leaders moved across the porous borders. In this context, most states in the Middle East have faced actual or potential threat of ISIS, along with threats from other terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda and Boko Haram in Yemen and the African coastline respectively.Constant decline4- Weak momentum of protest movements which spread widely in many Arab countries and contributed to adopting the demands for better wages and fighting corruption and price hikes, albeit the driving forces of these protests were aware of the limited economic resources. Years later, protest movements witnessed rapid rifts over ³sharing of the spoilsímplying that their alliances were temporary and fragile.Moreover, criminal groups exploit some protests to rob, loot, break into shops and set fire to government buildings. In this context, the spokesman for the Interior Ministry in Tunisia, Khalifa al-Shaibani, said in media statements on 9 January 2018 that ³Security operations in several parts of Tunisia are unrelated to the peaceful movements demanding development or protesting rising prices´The revolutionary movements in Sudan are also fragile, as the leader of the Alliance of Revolutionary Forces, Arcua Minnawi, in a recorded speech dated January 10, called the opposition forces and civil organizations in Sudan to ³unite to change the regime through the establishment of a unified center of opposition forces´Factional

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