From ‘Arab Spring’ Repression to Tunisia’s Constitutional Coup

A good panorama of the situation in the MENA region. However, I think that there is too much focus on ‘democracy’ without a single mention of capitalism in a left wing publication. ‘Democracy’ is narrowly defined and although Alaoui highlights the role of counterrevolution, he never grounds ‘democracy’ in a socio-economic revolutionary’ context. The revolution broke out in December 2010 before its spread to other countries raising socio-economic slogans and issues, not ‘democracy’. 

‘Neoliberal’ for of capitalism is meant to be the culprit along the counterrevolutionary forces as if the working of capital itself is not counterrevolutionary. ‘Aid’ replaces debt as mechanism of subjugation.

The question (the headline) itself begs the question: what is the relevance of the question since the author clearly speaks about the regimes as the leading force behind the counterrevolution?

‘Popular’ as in ‘popular forces’, ‘popular currents’, ‘popular mobilisation’, etc.  is often repeated in order to replace working class/classes. Apparently, there are middle classes in the Arab socio-economic formations, but no working classes. 

Yes, there has been no alternative ideology, but there is not even a hint to what an alternative ideology could be, only the repetition of the noun ‘democracy’ 12 times and the adjective ‘democratic’ 6 times.

Then there is the problematic comparison albeit a very brief one with 1848 revolutions. 

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From Arab Spring repression to Tunisia’s constitutional coup

Will old regimes listen to the voice of Arab youth?

The Arab world faces multiple crises: political, economic and environmental. Its best hope is the younger generation, who are tech-savvy, politically astute and more aspirational than their elders.
by Hicham Alaoui

Le Monde Diplomatique September 2022

Hands off! Protest against Tunisian president Kais Saied sacking dozens of judges, Tunis, June 2022 

Yassine Gaidi · Anadolu · Getty

More than a decade after the popular uprisings of 2011, Arab societies are in a state of inertia and fatigue after a relentless wave of counter-revolutionary pressures. On one side, ordinary people are exhausted. There are no inspiring ideologies worthy of the name, and those who still have the will to mobilise face constant repression. On the other side, political elites are so worn out they have ceased trying to convince their people that the future will be brighter or more prosperous. Instead, they protect their privileges by maintaining the status quo.

These two dynamics have combined to put the majority off politics. Some Arabs see emigration as their only option. But those who remain will not stay quiet in the coming years: the scale of the looming social and economic crises suggests that another wave of popular mobilisation is coming.
The current inertia comes from many sources. The first is bitter disillusionment with democracy itself. Tunisia is the best example. As the pioneer of the Arab Spring protests in 2010-11, it long resisted the rollback of democracy that followed. If President Kais Saied’s constitutional coup of 25 July 2021 succeeded, it is because Tunisia’s post-revolutionary institutions have proved extraordinarily fragile, and because the Tunisian public has become tired of endemic corruption and the political elite’s wheeling and dealing.

Recent political developments in the West have also contributed to popular disenchantment with democracy in the Arab world. Not only have Western democracies replaced their fine principles with a cynical preference for stability in the Arab world at all costs, but they themselves have suffered from the rise of authoritarianism at home, to the point that some are now prepared to dispense with the rules of democracy. Many Arab thinkers and activists in Rabat, Amman and Cairo used to see the West, if not as a model to be emulated, at least as proof that the struggle for free elections, pluralism and political rights could result in fairer forms of government. The West showed how far, and under what conditions, democracy could flourish. It offered a moral yardstick for political progress elsewhere.

Growing political polarisation and the way political power is exercised in the United States and Europe upended this assumption. Two political strategies typify this. One, often used by the far right, treats society as fundamentally split into two warring camps — a corrupt elite and an innocent public. Politicians put themselves in the centre of the political field and bend state institutions such as the judiciary and legislature around their own positions on a whim; use nationalism, chauvinism and racism to whip up popular frustration; and designate scapegoats and create a climate of tension and antagonism similar to that which many Arab regimes use to maintain the status quo. President Viktor Orbán in Hungary and former president Donald Trump in the US are the worst offenders.

The other, supposedly rival, strategy used by Western politicians involves the elite presenting themselves as legitimate and as under siege from a section of the population, whose protests mask antidemocratic leanings. This justifies repressing their opponents, such as the Gilets Jaunes movement in France. Even today, many Arab regimes are quick to point to the violence of such protestors to justify their own policies.

The failure of Islamism

Islamism’s inability to offer a credible alternative also weighs heavily. Islamists have failed to adapt to social change. The most prominent movements, such as Ennahda in Tunisia, the Muslim Brotherhoods of Egypt and Jordan, and Morocco’s PJD (Justice and Development Party) are gerontocracies that have long lost touch with the youth of their societies. There are qualitative differences between these various Islamist actors, of course; whereas Ennahda was a governing party in post-revolutionary Tunisia, the PJD held only limited power during the time it led the Moroccan government.

Yet they share similarities. Their economic outlook is neoliberal but offers no clarity as to what material justice might occur under an Islamised state. Moreover, when Islamists in positions of authority fail, they attribute their downfall entirely to manoeuvres by the ‘deep state’, as in Egypt and Morocco, or else are content to become tame political parties no different from any other legalised opposition that pays deference to the state.

In addition, Islamists have lost ground on the very issue that made them unique — religion. Their original appeal lay in their claims to offer a more responsible, just and restorative form of government grounded in a renewed sense of faith. They based these pledges on linking personal piety with morality in the public sphere on issues of family, women and sharia.

However, most Arab regimes have over the past decade undercut Islamism by appropriating the same religious discourse that once gave the movement its appeal. They have introduced their own brand of social conservativism in regard to families and women, and dabbled further in the language of sharia. The result is a form of state bigotry that entails the use of police, courts and officialdom to enact new laws that constrain social values and personal behaviour. The growing criminalisation of sexual freedoms is a critical example.

Thus, Islamists no longer have an automatic monopoly on the use of religion within politics. This does not mean the end of Islamism, because Islam as a faith remains core to the identity of many Muslim Arabs. It does mean, however, that Islamist groups can no longer take for granted their status as a religious compass guiding citizens’ thoughts on these issues.

No safe cyberspace

In addition, the Internet and online spaces no longer offer a safe space to young Arabs wishing to evade the tentacular reach of their regimes. On the eve of the Arab Spring, Western social scientists fondly called cyberspace a ‘liberation technology’ since it gave people social media platforms and digital tools that could help them spark protests, disseminate dissent and elude censorship.

Technological battles, however, are inevitably cyclical. Most Arab regimes have caught up with the activists and have now equipped themselves with a new toolbox of regulations on the Internet. Their technique is no longer to cut access to online spaces, but rather to overwhelm those spaces with their presence; they have created new ecosystems of surveillance, complete with hacking, state-sanctioned media, geolocation, police operations, political blackmail and judicial interventions. The goal is to turn cyberspace into a modern-day panopticon, where everyone’s speech and profiles are perpetually visible to authorities. The Covid-19 crisis, which entailed social tracking and lockdowns, provided a convenient alibi for extending this trend.

Another authoritarian strategy is to cause confusion by attacking dissenting citizens on message boards, Facebook and Twitter with a veritable battery of cyber-weapons such as troll armies, fake news and conspiracy theories. Such disinformation has drowned out legitimate information and actual knowledge, forcing dissidents to retreat to offline spaces. The result is a combination of censorship and self-censorship: either regimes directly punish those who criticise them, or they create sufficient fear to convince critics to keep quiet.

Targeting civil society

Another development is the way civil society itself has become fractured and targeted. Not only have most regimes clamped down on civic organisations, such as labour unions and professional associations, but NGOs have also fallen into the trap of substituting short-term goals for long-term change.

Western and international NGOs, in particular, are prone to this. Most have stopped envisaging long-term political reforms and democratic change, and instead divide their projects and demands into small, negotiable packages.

The issues they promote are certainly meaningful: press laws, women’s rights, educational quality and entrepreneurship are all important areas to develop. But by advocating for these small slices of social life, NGOs have unwittingly contributed to the decoupling of these issues from bigger political questions regarding democracy.

Thus, when they speak of ‘good governance’ or ‘rule of law’, NGOs’ piecemeal actions on the ground — such as training lawyers or funding judicial institutes — appear strangely detached from the very state institutions that these activities would logically transform. The same holds true for women’s rights: NGOs and civil society groups can appear to advance gender equality, but without ever mentioning democratic reform, despite the fact that neither can exist without the other.

Militias depoliticise

Finally, the devolution of some states into arenas for competing militias — as in Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Yemen and Syria — has depoliticised some societies. Militias, as non-state actors, provide public goods, such as security and education, to their clientele. They see both a centralised state and grassroots movements as their enemy, and hence reject both.

However, militias usually succeed once they secure patronage from outside powers, which in turn exploit these local actors to further their own interests. The losers, in the end, are states and societies. Democracy is impossible without a centralised political system that can hold elections, uphold a constitution and guarantee equal rights. Moreover, foreign patrons cannot force militias to disarm, given their binding alliances and the leverage that coercive violence gives these groups. Trapped between weak states and militia camps, societies remain suffocated, as seen so clearly in Lebanon, Libya and Iraq today.

Algeria and Sudan are partial exceptions to these trends, with their own ongoing struggles. Sudan remains a case of stalled transition, in which well-mobilised groups have yet to surrender to the intransigence of the military. Algeria is different. It was relatively quiescent following its 1990s civil war and, as there is not yet a transition, Algerians continue to confront the old order on purely political terms, seeing their governing system as military rule veiled by a thin civilian facade.

This is in contrast with Algeria’s neighbours. Tunisia is witnessing the retreat of its democratic transition, while in Morocco, the political liberalisation process has run out of steam. The traditional makhzenremains an object of criticism, but the debate about political change has recently given way to simple social expressions of everyday concerns, such as corruption and rule of law.

To understand political fatigue from the perspective of ruling regimes, consider the mitigated results of the counterrevolution. The Arab autocracies that outlasted the 2011-12 uprisings implemented a counterrevolutionary programme designed to demoralise democrats by encouraging more repression, launching military interventions, marginalising the Palestinian cause and supporting fellow dictatorships. Insofar as their goal was to staunch the regional wave of democratic uprisings, the counterrevolution succeeded; but insofar as it sought to create a stable authoritarian equilibrium, it failed.

Without any alternative ideology

The overarching aim of the counterrevolution was to sap the spirit of democracy by discouraging activism and burnishing the appeal of authoritarianism. It has failed on both counts. The counterrevolutionary agenda did not present Arabs with an alternative ideology. It belittled the old left, while besieging Islamism and Islamist movements everywhere. It created discord around the goal of democracy, conflating political rights with extremism and conflict, and instigating the very violence it promised to contain.

Yet the counterrevolution failed to eradicate democratic yearnings, although it did manage to derail positive transformations. It had no ideology of its own — only an imperative to restore the autocratic status quo through fear and coercion. It imparted only the notions that democracy was inherently dangerous and could not deliver economic results. So it offered a ‘strongman’ model of absolute rule to fill the gaps. Yet that model has broken down under its internal contradictions.

One common counterrevolutionary theme was that authoritarian regimes alone could modernise their societies through massive projects of economic innovation, whereas democratic governance could only lead to further privations. Technocratic mega-projects were promised with great fanfare: development parks, industrial zones and job creation programmes.

Yet, those neoliberal economic mirages are not the solution. They require not only massive financial resources, which no state can sustain except those that still rely on oil rents. They also fail to resonate with their own publics. Their primary audience has become the West, plus a narrow segment of privileged citizens. They do not provide a meaningful framework for a more just or equitable economy. Formulated by Western consultants and disconnected from the basic social protections and public goods required by ordinary people, such expensive undertakings merely retrench existing inequalities.

A deeper divide among leaders

In many ways, this fixation on technocratic solutions reflects a deeper divide among today’s leaders. In the post-colonial era, the Arab world featured rulers who ensconced their views of politics within anthropological conceptions of how history, identity, citizens and states fit together. They were not democrats, but they saw ideas and power as inextricably intertwined in the collective memory of their nations.

Many regimes today, however, are guided by a newer model of corporate leadership, one unrealistically disconnected from the popular currents of their societies. They care more for PowerPoint presentations to attract Western diplomats and global businessmen than for creating organic bonds — even despotic ones — with their citizens. In the past, those bonds took many forms: mass ideologies and monarchical symbolism were two prominent examples, followed closely by campaigns for national or regional solidarity around common causes. This corporate paradigm has become entrenched in the Gulf, with the exception of Qatar, Oman and Kuwait, whose leaderships follow the latest trends while upholding historical and cultural values. They recognise the sacred nature of Jerusalem, for instance, and continue to call for Arab solidarity.

As a result, the counterrevolution has become so diffuse as to have lost all coherence. Military interventions in Yemen and Libya had become so costly that all strategic coherence was lost; and economies around the region, save the smallest oil-rentier kingdoms, were mired in stagnation. Even the Saudi-Emirati alliance, which originally drove the counterrevolutionary impulse, has grown wary and tense after the attention it has attracted. These regimes have now shifted considerable attention abroad. For instance, some are building close relationships with far-right movements in Europe, presenting themselves as oases of modernity in order to stoke anti-Islamist sentiment.

This points to a new turning of the historical page. There are no more utopian narratives coming from autocratic regimes’ mouthpieces, only an array of cynical manoeuvres and tactics. This leaves many citizens seething with frustration, ready to take to the streets once more.

The current inertia will not last forever. New crises are converging, and they will produce a renewed surge of activism and protests that will defy existing constraints.

The first crisis is demographic change, which no government can halt. Two thirds of all Arabs are under 30, and they are more aspirational than their elders. These are the voices that catalysed the first wave of regional uprisings a decade ago. They are technologically connected and politically savvy. Among these youths, a new cohort of reform-minded activists is emerging — one that rejects blind imitation of Western models and instead seeks indigenous solutions to their ills.

Those ills are many. Public educational systems remain woefully outdated, still geared towards producing obedient graduates for the public sector rather than cultivating critical thought. Women want more voice and representation, but still suffer sexism in both politics and labour markets, in which the state is complicit. Young people want a fair chance at obtaining employment, but there are simply not enough jobs: the Middle East suffers from the highest regional rate of youth joblessness in the world, at over 30%.

Second, just as these societies become arenas for bottom-up action by their youth, climate change is creating a region-wide disaster. Iraq, Jordan, Yemen and other countries are facing grave water shortages. Lebanon’s garbage crisis encapsulates the imbalance of rapid urbanisation with land mismanagement. Iran and Egypt are suffocating under dangerous air pollution. Heatwaves have sparked unprecedented wildfires in Syria and Turkey.

Youth lead on climate crisis

These environmental crises increase the burden on public finances, for instance by requiring more social spending; but they have also created more stress on the distribution of very limited resources. Youth activists and grassroots movements, not governments, have sounded the alarm on these problems. The climate crisis offers a new pathway for these forces to act independently and outmanoeuvre their rulers in rallying public support for change.

Arab citizens know that their economic structures remain as outdated as their political logic. Although most Arab regimes have embraced the technocratic rhetoric of neoliberal economics, they are still entrapped by cronyism and corruption. This allows ruling elites to strategically divvy up their resources as if they still held the reins of development. It also makes these countries highly vulnerable to the supply chain disruptions that have come through external shocks, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Ukraine war. The young understand this, because they feel the brunt of worsening inequality and relative deprivation the hardest.

Foreign aid is not the solution. While rising energy prices still provide a handful of rentier states with a modest (though declining) fiscal cushion, most other Arab economies remain dependent on international assistance. Governments describe the cash infusions given by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and Western donors as development aid for their societies. In reality, such financial help is life support: in many countries, such as Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, national economies would have collapsed altogether in the past decade without it.

Elsewhere, the domestic response of many Arab regimes has been insidious. Realising that they cannot plan their way out of the crisis without painful economic changes, many have simply given up. No longer convinced by neoliberal panaceas, they instead seek to elevate only a select few into their new political economy. These are the ‘productive’ classes, composed of state elites and professional bourgeoisie willing to trade complacency for the promise of prosperity. They are the model citizens who are to live in mega-project cities like New Cairo in Egypt and Neom in Saudi Arabia, and who consequently support the suppression of any popular activism that would endanger their authority. Privatised healthcare and two-tier education systems, which promise upward mobility to those willing to pay to access them, cater to this group.

This is, essentially, an internal political secession — and even a physical one, in the case of new gated communities and cities. Everyone else is left behind, including the poor, migrants, workers and above all youth. When these excluded voices rally to protest or openly criticise their governments, the privileged class casts them out as traitors and trouble-makers. The utilitarian logic of autocracy has weaponised the principle of class in an unprecedented way. While elites and professionals are provided with the means for true mobility and self-enrichment, these unproductive forces are merely allowed to survive.

The counterrevolution’s fatal flaw has been the assumption that since more Arab autocracies survived the 2011-12 uprisings, the danger of popular mobilisation has passed. It has not. The memories of a failed revolutionary moment can endure for many years, linking a new cadre of activists and rebels with the original generation that fought for change. The European revolutions of 1848 illustrate this point. Though those revolts quickly gave way to monarchist restorations, the inheritors of their nationalist spirit became victorious within two decades, and inaugurated the true European Spring.

A new Arab Spring wave?

This suggests that the next wave of the Arab Spring will be more explosive than the previous ones. Societies that appear to be politically dormant today will rediscover their voice. New revolts and protests will focus as much on the catastrophic conditions of everyday life — such as food prices, global warming and social freedom — as on constitutionalism and democracy. These will not be Islamist revolutions, nor will they rely upon old online tools or borrow from the language of Western NGOs. They will be grassroots in nature, technologically adaptive and suspicious of all compromise.

Those who will struggle tomorrow may find allies in today’s professionalised middle classes, now being recruited into authoritarian political economies. The latter may realise that affluence is ephemeral, and ultimately constrained by the arbitrary decisions of autocrats. Such a novel coalition in the Arab world, between popular forces and professional classes, would represent an unprecedented challenge to Arab regimes unaccustomed to such an alliance. They may have no choice but to compromise, or else inflict even more brutal repression. That will only hasten their demise.

Hicham Alaoui is an associate researcher at the Weatherhead Center, Harvard University, and the author of Pacted Democracy in the Middle East: Tunisia and Egypt in Comparative Perspective,Palgrave, London, 2022.