THE IMPACT OF SIDI BOUZID REVOLUTION IN MENA REGION
Middle East and North Africa, or MENA, is facing an unprecedented challenge after the Tunisian uprising sent warning messages across and beyond the region. Unemployment, rising food prices, lack of freedom of speech, lack of accountability and transparency are widespread in this region, but on December, 2010, a 26-year old Tunisian youth, Mohamed Bouazizi; had ignited the candle to disclose the cause of these problems. Bouazizi has opened a new page for the history of Arab world after he continuously tackled to improve his family’s situation in the face of heavy police crackdowns. The Tunisian police as usual treat their citizens in a tyrannical way and a lot of young Tunisians as a consequence have been compelled to be unemployed and therefore are frustrated. That frustration ultimately led Bouazizi to set fire on himself in front of Municipal Office just struggling for his dignity and to get a solution for youths’ exasperation in Tunisia.
The world has experienced much more bitter despotic rulers since long time those eventually ended up with misery and bad consequences. The classic example, of course, in this scenario is French autocratic Monarchies which were sealed its doors off in the course of the great French Revolution in 1789. As has proved this Revolution, the Tunisian-Style Revolution would probably send similar signs of courage and inspirations throughout MENA region which would more likely pave the way for widespread political transformations in Arab world in the near future.
From Morocco in Northwest Africa through Meddle east, authoritarian regimes do generally remain in power more than half a century, but this time they have to consider their political power more than any other time because of the messages coming out from their tyrannical colleague of Tunisia. As a result of tyrannical regimes, the East European communities under the iron-fist communist Soviet Union regime also wrestled to twist that high-handed of their Masters after high food prices and unemployment were the whimper of those societies, which further became the catalyst of the collapse of the Soviet Union followed by profound political transformations in Eastern Europe in 1989.
No doubt, history repeats itself and today, the revolutions arrive in Arab world and would in fact eventually prove the same as those earlier had achieved. More fascinating still is the fact that the current uprising in Tunisia has a unique phenomenon which no one has ever expected. Unlike other more popular revolutions in some parts of the world, the Tunisian-style revolution led entirely by youths without guiding spiritual Religious clerks as was the case in Iran or some charismatic leaders as other cases were. Furthermore, the Tunisian youths were unexpectedly mobilized through social networks like Facebook and Twitter thus producing an overwhelming majority for the awareness of the uprising which is also fundamentally different from conventional revolutions. In an optimistic perspective, it would more likely produce tangible results as well as long lasting achievements across the region since most Arab youths share similar frustrations under their leaders. Subsequently it can be expected that many major Arab cities would be host, sooner or later, to a Tunisian-type phenomenon.
As soon as Zine El Abidin Ben Ali, the Tunisian president since 1987, fled his country on 14th January; many carrot packages were simultaneously announced in many Arab countries. For example, Jordon has promised $230 million packages to lower prices and $280 million to fight for the poverty. Algeria pledged to reduce food prices as well as to cut taxes on Sugar and Oil, while Syria took similar measures and pledged $250 million in loans to poor. The Akhbar newspaper has reported that Egypt also has promised to take such procedures as to avoid the wave of those crises. More likely others would follow suit, but very soon, it come to light whether or not the Arab youth’s dissatisfactions are dealt with effectively.
On the other hand, the Arab Economic Summit meeting in Sharma Sheikh on 17th January 2011 has convincingly tended the attention of the platform towards Tunisian issue even though the official agenda was different. The Secretary-General of Arab league Amir Musa hailed in the meeting that Tunisian situation is not far away from an Arab domino effect and he further called it an “Arab Renaissance”. In the light of the fact of these challenges, the MENA region is a turning-point!
Abdulkadir Suleiman
A student of International Relations in the University of Karachi, Pakistan
Specializing in Middle East and CBMs (Confidence Building Measures)
"Didiinglay dhamaateih"
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