Spring has been used very commonly as a term to explain this phenomenon of uprising throughout the Arab world. But spring is a term which is, for the last part, a misnomer. The term spring has a European connotations. It is referring, in comparison, to the spring of nations in 1848, or the Pra, the Prague Spring of 1968, or the spring of nations in Eastern Europe after the fall of communism. A spring that ushered in secular democratic regimes for the most part against regimes that were very authoritarian. But this has not been the outcome in the Middle Eastern countries. And in the Middle Eastern countries for the most part, as mentioned before, in this challenge between the forces of modernity and tradition on neo-tradition. It is these neo-traditionalist forces of Islamism and sectarian politics or tribal politics that have come to the fore much more than democratic regimes. Why was spring used as a term to explain what was happening in the Arab world? Just as there was an emphasis on this European comparison. There was a similar emphasis in explaining the emergence of the Arab Spring on technologies such as the new media of Facebook and Twitter. This was a means of giving the revolutions in the Arab world a universalist kind of character. That is, similar to other parts of the world and a non-recognition of the otherness of the other. There is a tendency on the part of scholars in the West, usually ideological multiculturalists, to underrate or even to ignore the cultural input of the other as a valid explanatory and analytical tool, and to obfuscate the importance of religion as a factor in people's behavior in the Middle East. Even though it is fairly obvious that religion is a key marker of identity in Muslim societies. In short, culture matters. That is not say that this is a case from Middle East and exceptionalism, not at all. It is just to say that culture matters in all cultures, in all parts of the world. The Middle East included just as it matters in other regions of the world and in other cultures. And those scholars have been urged by some to be careful not to throw out the political culture baby with the bath water. Many have done so and many still do. Why the reluctance to deal with culture? It is very much a result of the amazing impact of Edward Said's Orientalism. And Said's rejection of the Orientalist emphasis on culture. And Said, in his book, Orientalism, dismissed the notion that there are geographical spaces with indigenous, radically different inhabitants, who can be defined on the basis of some religion, culture, or racial essence, proper to that geographical space. But as others have pointed out, this results in the proclivity. To explain events as if these were generic phenomena inextricably linked to paradigms of a universal nature. Such universal paradigms attempt to explain widely divergent historical developments as if differences in culture, time, and place had no vital bearing on historical outcomes. Thus, there is this politically correct tendency to ignore the undercurrents of political culture and to focus on the more superficial, readily apparent globalized features of universalism such as Facebook and Twitter. Instead of the more profound and less immediately recognizable political undercurrents of Middle Eastern societies and we, as we have seen them in this course over the last 200 years. The focus therefore in those who spoke of the Arab Spring was on the secular democrats, and not the Islamist. But it was the Islamist who actually rose to the fore very much at the expense of the secular democrats. There were those who said that, perhaps Arab Awakening would've been a better term than Arab Spring. That's an interesting term to think of, Arab Awakening. It's not original. It's 100 years old. Arab Awakening is the name that was given to the Arab nationalist awakening in the early years of the 20th century. That, that we discussed on the eve of the first world war and during the first world war. But there's a huge difference between that Arab Awakening and the awakening now if that is the term to be used. The Arab Awakening of the early 20th century was essentially secular. It was about Arab nationalism. It was about defining people in accordance with the language they spoke, Arabic. Not by their religion, Muslim or otherwise. So the Arab Awakening had a certain secular thrust, in the early 20th century. But that is hardly the case now, when secularism, as we have seen, is very much in retreat. And there are a number of reasons for this secular retreat. The path of secularism in the late 19th and 20th centuries in the Middle East was very much in emulation of the West that was at the height of its power. The height of its power and expansion, and it was the source of this power that those who secularized sought to emulate it. But the West in recent decades is far less impressive and the economic decline both in the United States and in Europe. It is a far less appealing example to follow these days than it was earlier in the 20th century. There was another great secular model to follow that was very much the case in the middle of the 20th century, and that was the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was this great example of a weak country which within the space of one generation turned into a superpower. For the Arabs who were in this urgent quest for power, prestige and prosperity, the Soviet Union seemed to be the ideal model to follow. But the model of the Soviet Union collapsed in the Soviet Union itself. And there is nothing much left of the Soviet model to follow. Thirdly and perhaps most importantly of all was the failure of Arabism. Arabism was, after all, not only a movement for the unity of the Arab people. Arabism was a secular ideology. Arabism was the platform for the secularization of Arab politics and society. After all, Arabism spoke about uniting people on the basis of the language they spoke and not through religion to which they belonged. But the failure of Arabism also meant the failure of this platform of secularization and the general weakening of the Arab states. Against the background of this weakening of the Arab states, we see the rise to the fall in the Middle East of the non-Arab powers. The elevation of Turkey and Iran as regional super powers. These two countries, Turkey and Iran, much like the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire of the 19th century, meet in the territory of present day Iraq in their respective spheres of influence. Turkey influential in Northern Iraq and Iran in pretty much the rest. But these are not just the spheres of influence between these two rising powers, Turkey and Iran. They are also the spheres of influence between Sunnah and Shia. Turkey being the most powerful of the Sunni states, and Iran the leader of the Shiite countries, and the Shiite members of the Middle Eastern countries. Iraq, like it was in the days of the Ottoman Empire, is now the border area between Sunnah and Shia. And it is interesting to note that in the arrangement of Middle Eastern alliances these days, it is not the pro-American states against the pro-Soviet states, which is obviously very much of an anachronism, and totally irrelevant in the present. It is neither the monarchies versus the republics. But the states of the Middle East organize themselves these days in alliances on the basis of their religious affiliation. The Sunni states versus the Shia states, and the case in point is the Arab Spring in the island of Bahrain. The island of Bahrain is a country where you have a Shiite majority ruled by a Sunni minority. And in the early months of the Arab Spring in early 2011, it was very much the Shiite majority that rose in rebellion against the Sunni minority. But the transformation of Bahrain into a Shiite dominated state would be for Saudi Arabia and the other countries of the Gulf, the transformation of Bahrain into a state of Iranian influence. And Iranian platform of subversion close to the coast of Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states. Therefore, the Shiazation of Bahrain was totally unacceptable and untenable for Saudi Arabia which invaded Bahrain and put down the Shiite rebellion there, just to prevent Iran from making any strategic gain in the Persian Gulf area. And if between states, relations are governed very much by the religious fault line. This is all the more so within the various states of the Middle East. The neo-traditionalist forces of Islamism, Sectarianism and Tribalism can be readily identified in every single example of the Arab Spring, and we can go through them one by one. Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, Libya and Yemen are all examples of this resurgence of the neo-traditionalist forces of Islamism, Sectarianism or Tribalism.
