scholarly journals Reflections on the Aftermath of the Arab Spring

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-163
Author(s):  
Jay Willoughby

On November 18, 2014, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, founder and board member,IIIT; leader of the Malaysian opposition; and former deputy prime ministerof Malaysia, shared his “Reflections on the Aftermath of the Arab Spring” withthe general public at the IIIT headquarters in Herndon, VA.He opened with “O you who believe! Obey Allah and obey the Apostleand those in authority from among you” (Q. 4:59), which he considers one ofthe Qur’an’s “most used and abused verses.” In addition to being used to supportdemocracy, it is abused by many others to demand the masses’ supportfor dictators, authoritarian, and military junta rule regardless of how they aretreated. This verse also highlights an issue that has rocked the Arab world eversince December 17, 2010, when Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi sethimself on fire to protest the continued abuse and harassment inflicted uponhim by the Tunisian police force: the issue of governmental legitimacy, whichis a problem in both the West and the Muslim world. Anwar stated that thegovernment must represent a majority consensus, respect some process (e.g.,democracy), and allow people the freedom of expression so that they can expresstheir support, disgust, or opposition.The Arabs’ demand for legitimate governance has been on the mind ofIIIT as well, for its leaders have spent the last decade addressing this concernfrom the point of view of the maqāṣid. Anwar traced this concern back to along-ago meeting when several of the IIIT founders were discussing why therewas no Muslim equivalent of the “Western canon,” the “Great Books,” a “greatintellectual tradition.” This was the start of an ongoing process to fill this gapin contemporary Muslim literature.The outbreak of Arab Spring clearly revealed that there is still a need todeal with ethics in governance, for lasting reform can only be actualized inthe form of systems. The ongoing abuse, corruption, repression, and brutalityinflicted upon the people by their own leaders is, according to him, something ...

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wafa Abu Hatab

<p>The 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor, Mohammad Bouazizi set himself ablaze, sparking demonstrations and revolutions in more than one country in the Arab world. Protestors utilized all possible forms of expression to give an outlet for the long suppressed feelings, attitudes and thoughts. A new social discourse emerged where freedom of expression was imposed. Tunisia led the move and was followed by Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Syria. Though these revolting countries have many things in common, each has its own touch to the mosaic portrait of the new social discourse. Political satire has its place in this discourse where political humor has witnessed a tremendous boom. The present study was based on data obtained from cartoons, slogans, digital discourse and jokes. It investigated the use of humor by protesters in the Arab Spring countries, the linguistic devices employed and the role of intertextuality. The study revealed that humor was used in the Arab Spring countries to denigrate the presidents. Sources for intertextuality included proverbs, songs, poetry and commercials. Humor made use of some linguistic devices such as puns, synonyms, antonyms, lexical ambiguity and rhyme.</p>


Author(s):  
Larbi Sadiki

This chapter looks at the Arab uprisings and their outcomes, approaching them from the perspective of the peoples of the region. The Arab uprisings are conceived of as popular uprisings against aged and mostly despotic governments, which have long silenced popular dissent. Ultimately, the Arab uprisings demonstrate the weakness of traditional international relations, with its focus on states and power, by showing how much the people matter. Even if the Arab uprisings have not yet delivered on popular expectations, and the Arab world continues to be subject to external interference and persistent authoritarian rule, they are part of a process of global protest and change, facilitated by new media and technology, which challenges the dominant international relations theories.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 309-319 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya De Vries ◽  
Maya Majlaton

Facebook is one of the world’s largest social networks, with more than 2,7 billion active users globally. It is also one of the most dominant platforms and one of the platforms most commonly used by Arabs. However, connecting via Facebook and sharing content cannot be taken for granted. While many studies have focused on the role played by networked platforms in empowering women in the Arab world in general and on feminist movements in the Arab Spring, few have explored Palestinian women’s use of Facebook. During and after the Arab Spring, social media was used as a tool for freedom of expression in the Arab world. However, Palestinians in East Jerusalem using social media witnessed a decrease in freedom of expression, especially after the Gaza war in 2014. This article focuses on the Facebook usage patterns and political participation of young adult Palestinian women living in the contested space of East Jerusalem. These women live under dynamic power struggles as they belong to a traditionally conservative society, live within a situation of intractable conflict, and are under state control as a minority group. Qualitative thematic analysis of 13 in-depth interviews reveals three patterns of usage, all related to monitoring: state monitoring, kinship monitoring, and self-monitoring. The article conceptualises these online behaviours as “participation avoidance,” a term describing users’ (non-)communicative practices in which the mundane choices of when, why, and how to <em>participate </em>also mirror users’ choices of when, why, and how to <em>avoid</em>.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 160
Author(s):  
Salem Toubasi ◽  
Ahmad Alzubaidi ◽  
Mushir Abahra

The author presents a brief study of the Arab solidarity. Furthermore, From the point of view of the author the Arab cooperation is one of the most controversial topics in the Arab world, whereas this idea extends to the first history of the Arab countries, we can also mention the creation of the Gulf Cooperation Council, and then the Maghreb Union of Arab Countries. In this article, the topic of Arab solidarity will be presented, through the views of many thinkers, and based on many analytical researches of Arab public opinion, the view of Arab solidarity and analysis of many ideas put forward for this project. There are new positive ideas possibly can be implemented to achieve the Arab solidarity, which is still a very important project for a wide sector of Arabs, this analytical study will present the case of the Gulf Cooperation Council states as example of positive implementation of Arab solidarity. This article includes the results of Arab public opinion and shed the light on the Arab spring which affected many international and local events. The author asks if Arab solidarity will a real case in the future. This study will investigate these issues and provide the readers with a modern perspective on this topic, furthermore this research approaches this subject from three different areas of discussion: the realism approach, the functionalism approach, and the idealism approach.


2013 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 422-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
As'ad Ghanem

This paper examines the implications of the Arab Spring for the Palestinians. The aim is to point out the basic lessons and implications of the transformations occurring in the Arab world for the Palestinians as an exceptional case, due to their situation under occupation and exile. Cause for optimism is discerned in the anticipated increase in broad and practical Arab support for the Palestinians. However, the contention here is that Palestinians themselves have derived too limited a lesson from the Arab revolutions by focusing only on the call for unity between the competing Palestinian factions. Their reconciliation is only about their self-preservation and that of the system which has served them hitherto. The recommendations posited here are for the Palestinians to embrace the full message of the Arab Spring and make peaceful protest en masse and across the whole Palestinian people their path to liberation.


Author(s):  
L. Fituni

The author presents his own original conception of the 2011 Arab upheavals. First, he tries to find parallels between the Arab Spring and the 19th century European Spring of Peoples. Second, he dwells on the idea of three types of transition in the Arab World: economic, demographic, and ideological. Third, he reflects on the issues of democracy and autocracy in the Arab countries emphasizing the role of youth. Fourth, he puts forward some new ideas as regards the relationship between Europe and the Arab World, offering such terms as “democratic internationalism” and “young democratic safety belt” in the Mediterranean region.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 78
Author(s):  
Mohammad Dzulkifli

<p><strong>This article aims to describe the Arab Spring phenomenon through critical discourse analysis of the Qatar Debate. This research is a qualitative descriptive study with the note-taking method. The results of the study show that the structure of the discourse contained in the Qatar debate consists of several structures. First, the macrostructure that contains thematic elements or general themes, namely about ‘Arab Spring has failed’. Second, is the superstructure which contains schematic elements referring to the system and the rules of the game in the turn of speech. Third, the microstructure contains elements of semantics, syntax, stylistics, rhetoric, and metaphors. The semantic element of the Qatar debate shows the uses of language that aims to rever to connotative meanings. Syntactically, the Qatari debaters are dominant using active sentence patterns and noun sentences (jumlah ismiyah). From the stylistic aspect, both teams have their own style of language, as the pro team uses a lot of declarative styles while the counter team tends to use an interrogative style. The rhetorical and metaphorical elements are used a few times but not in large portions. This study also shows the different views of the two teams from two countries that represent the social views of the people in their respective countries towards the Arab Spring phenomenon.</strong></p><p><strong><em>Keywords</em></strong> – <em>Arab Spring, Critical Discourse Analyst, Qatar Debate</em></p>


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