Unrest in the Middle East: An Update

Today, your current dose of news consists of the death of the world’s most sought after bad guy, the recent nuptials of Canada’s beloved Crown Prince and the sudden change in Bristol Palin’s facial structure. Many Middle Eastern countries however are still waging wars against their own governments in an effort to achieve political and personal freedoms. For all those engineers who crave to be more meaningfully informed than using the 6 o’clock news, a comprehensive update of several Middle Eastern countries that have failed to make the final cuts of popular news programs follows below.

Tunisia:

Tunisia, in the beginning of 2011, was identified as being the catalyst to the Middle East uprising by being the first to remove an authoritarian president from office using non-violent street protests. It is safe to say that this small country had introduced a form of democracy to the Arab world that inadvertently changed the history of this region in ways nobody could have predicted.

On January 14^th, 2011, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was ousted from office, and a state of emergency was declared. A coalition government was created which included members of Ben Ali’s party (the RCD) and other opposition figures. This was done in the hopes that formal elections could be organized within two months of the president’s departure. However, protests continued as the protesters demanded that the RCD should have no part in the coalition and should be dismantled. Due to this unrest, the prime minister of Tunisia resigned from his post on February 27^th. By March 9^th, in accordance with protester demands, the RCD was officially disbanded. Despite the progress, the Tunisia has suffered major setbacks due to mass desertions of public officials and police officers from their posts.

With this unrest, the country is in fear of descending into anarchy since the transition to a multiparty democracy in Tunisia has been met with many obstacles. New developments from Tunisia indicate that the election of a constitutional council needed for rewriting the constitution has been set for July 24^th, 2011. The caretaker president of Tunisia, Mohammed Ghannouchi, has therefore refused to resign before the election is held and a date for the general elections is set.

Egypt:

While the story of Egypt’s uprising via non-violent protests thrust the Arab revolutions into attention, many news networks have failed to the document the issues that Egyptians continue to face in the aftermath of ousting their authoritative leader from power on February 11^th.

As you all know, the Armed Forces of Egypt took control as the interim governing power in the hopes of keeping the country under control over this tumultuous time period.  One of the first demands that the interim power acted on was to hold a constitutional referendum on March 19^th. Needless to say, the constitutional referendum was passed with an overwhelming majority of 77.27%. However, political affairs quickly deteriorated in the beginning of April when the remaining Egyptian cabinet passed a law criminalizing protests and labour strikes. These became punishable by jail or the equivalent of a $100,000USD fine.

Due to this sudden change, between the weeks of April 1^st and April 8^th, 2011, over a hundred thousand people set up protests in Tahrir Square condemning the rule of the Armed Forces as they had not fulfilled the people’s demands. These included the immediate removal of the remaining figures from the Mubarak regime and the removal the nation’s public prosecutor. His removal was demanded due to the corruption among officials and the pace at which the investigations were being conducted at. In retaliation, Egyptian security forces enforced a fiercer crackdown than that imposed by Mubarak himself. During this time, more human rights violations were carried out by the army where even civilians caught criticizing the military regime were immediately detained without trial. Presently, it has been reported that the coalition government has begun to carry out protestor demands, which include the disbandment of Mubarak’s party and the promise to hold a general election in months to come.

Yemen:

Like all the other Arab countries mentioned in this article, Yemen followed Tunisia’s example in the form of non-violent street marches. This story has not been documented as well as other countries involved in this wave of revolts. The Yemenis began protesting in mid-January with demands that included the immediate resignation of President Ali Abdullah Saleh from office. In an effort to quell the demonstrations, Saleh responded with a promise to not run again.

However, this did not stop the demonstrations; thus, with the support of the tribal leaders and military commanders quickly waning, Saleh ordered security forces and government supporters to open fire on thousands of protesters on March 18^th, 2011. While this effort killed at least 50 people, the demonstrators refused to move. After this attempt, Saleh lost much of his support and by March 21^st, many officials, including five army commanders, resigned.  The Joint Meetings Party, which was the coalition party formed, proposed that Saleh leave by the end of 2011; however, the protesters outright rejected and demanded that the president resign immediately. During this time, the violence between the protesters and armed forces continued to the point that it almost plunged the country into a full-fledged civil war.

On April 23^rd, Arab mediators proposed that Saleh would shift power to his deputy over the course of 30 days by signing an agreement in which the president would leave his position on the condition that he and his family would be granted immunity. This was rejected by the protesters but was accepted by the Joint Meetings Parties. However, the intended signing date of May 1^st was postponed since continuing talks led to the suspicion that Saleh was “playing for time.” This led to more protests by Yemeni youth groups, to which security forces responded by opening fire on the people on May 9^th. Since then, the violence has continued as the protesters have refused to relinquish their position.

Bahrain:

Bahrain, under the influence of the revolutionary political wave of the Middle East, began its own political revolution on February 14^th, 2011 when street protesters camped out at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama. Unlike the other political situations mentioned, these protesters were composed of a secular religious group protesting discrimination and human rights violations. After a month of protests, the king of Bahrain, King Hamad, declared martial law and a three-month state of emergency in an effort to dispel the protesting crowds at Pearl Roundabout. The day after this declaration, the Bahraini police fired at the civilians, hundreds of which were killed. Another imposition on civilians was that the communications in the country were either shut down or  heavily controlled by the government. After increasingly more violent crackdowns on demonstrators, the people began to retreat in April. However, the intensity of the crackdown did not cease as the hospitals in the area were soon guarded by the militia in an effort to refuse protesters treatment for injuries sustained.

The religious turbulence between two religious sects in Bahrain quickly resurfaced during the revolt. The largely secular protestors, making up 70% of the population, were viciously attacked by the Saudi-controlled army called in by the Bahraini government. With the political clashes quickly escalating, Western countries have condemned King Hamad’s rule. However, the western hemisphere has thus far refused to intervene as a result of the relations that the protesters have with Iran. Hence, the western hemisphere has been reluctant to take definitive action against this blatant abuse of power that rivals Col. Gaddafi’s regime in Libya.

Given the number of countries still engaged in political protest, not all countries could be covered in this article. Nevertheless, millions of civilians from almost twenty countries in the region have engaged their own revolts in the first five months of 2011. Syria, for example, is experiencing a civil uprising of secular groups similar to that of Bahrain and Yemen, while major demonstrations in Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Morocco and Oman are currently underway. Smaller protests calling for government reform have also been reported in Middle Eastern countries like Kuwait, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia as well as Northern African countries like Djibouti, Mauritania and Sudan.

It is also important to note that only two countries out of this extensive list, being Tunisia and Egypt, have succeeded in ousting their respective dictators from office. However, the aftermath of these two revolutions clearly reveal that such drastic methods of reform do not come without loss. In any case, the non-violent and youth-organized protests have become a source of pride for the people of the Middle East since they have proven that such methods are still relevant when aiming for political reform.  Each nation’s revolution was a huge achievement in itself. The real test, however, will be the actions of these countries as these will dictate whether they successfully make the transition from volatile, government-less states to multiparty democratic nations.