Essay: The Arab Uprisings and Self-Determination - The Missed Opportunity

This essay was written in August 2013 and was published in German in Novo Argumente. I am publishing it in English for the first time here. 

As I write these words, a bloody massacre is being committed by the Egyptian police and army as they attempt to clear out two Muslim Brotherhood encampments set up to protest the military coup that removed President Mohamed Morsi from power on the 3rd of July. Amid the violence that claimed hundreds of lives, the authorities declared the return of the dreaded State of Emergency, a reminder of Egypt’s decades-long dictatorship which came to end when Hosni Mubarak was deposed on the 11th of February 2011. The combination of the violent repression and the reinstatement of the State of Emergency have effectively ended Egypt’s short-lived democracy, at least for now.

The Paradox of the Fragile Revolutions

It is perhaps a sign of these uncertain times that our perception of the Arab uprisings has been accompanied by a deep sense of anxiety. While the uprisings provided the most inspiring examples of political change we have witnessed for a long time, they have also been perceived from the beginning as fragile revolutions. This apparent contradiction fits with the wider political context that the uprisings were born into and that impacts on how outside observers and the Arab people demanding change perceive them. This is the paradox of the Arab uprisings: the apparent resurgence of political agency in an era in which the nature of that agency is understood primarily through its limitations.

A short handbook to revolution: Six myths about the Arab uprisings

The spectacular and expeditious ousting of Mubarak and Ben-Ali from their long-held positions of power left many scrambling for a convenient interpretation. What largely emerged however were hastily constructed narratives designed more to confirm their authors’ convictions than to reveal meaning. It didn’t take long for those accounts to be rattled when the subsequent uprisings did not adhere to the neat model observed in Egypt and Tunisia. Libya’s uprising was the first to deviate from the script, followed by Bahrain, Yemen and lastly Syria. As we encounter complex situations threatening extended periods of instability, it's time to dispel some of the lingering myths about the uprisings.

The No-Fly Zone in Libya: Hijacking the Arab Uprisings

Last night’s UN Security Council’s decision to authorise military action in Libya was greeted with almost universal jubilation revealing how confused the anti-imperialist camp has become. The very same people who had been opposed to the US invasion and continuing presence in Iraq and Afghanistan cheered the decision that will supposedly prevent Qaddafi from massacring his people. This also revealed the left’s lack of faith in revolutionary politics: overnight the Libyans were turned from subjects attempting to take control of their destiny into victims in need of protection. The most troubling aspect of this is the willingness to recognise the West’s moral superiority, failing to acknowledge that Western intervention has been actively propping up authoritarian Arab regimes for decades. The no-fly zone is nothing to celebrate, on the contrary it signals a major turning point that will hand the West the initiative allowing it to ensure its interests are maintained in the region. It will also undermine the legitimacy of the autonomous Arab uprisings as they begin to be associated with Western sponsorship. We have entered a new phase with direct Western intervention that will pose serious threats to the pursuit of freedom in Arab countries.