Arab Spring leads to Winter of Discontent

[pscot]

This long piece frames events in the Middle East.

Sadly, that outcome remains a stark anomaly. There were six Arab countries in which massive peaceful protests called for hated rulers to go in the spring of 2011. None of the other uprisings came to a happy end. Libya and Yemen have imploded, their central states replaced in whole or part by warring militias, some backed by foreign powers, some flying the flags of al-Qaeda or Islamic State. Egypt and the island kingdom of Bahrain are now yet more autocratic, in some ways, than when the protests began. And Syria has descended into an abyss. Half its cities lie in ruins, much of its fertile land has been abandoned; millions have been displaced within the country, millions more have fled beyond it; hundreds of thousands have died; there is no end in sight.

With the exception of its far east and west—the oil-rich Gulf and quietly prospering Morocco, aloof behind a border with Algeria that has been sealed for 21 years—the rest of the Arab world does not look much better. Iraq’s Shia south and Kurdish north and north-east are, in effect, separate countries, while in the war zone of its Sunni-dominated west the fearsomely brutal rule of the so-called Islamic State has taken root. The Algerians and Sudanese have emerged from civil wars to find themselves still beholden to opaque and predatory army-backed cliques. Palestinians, divided into rival cantons, are weaker and more isolated than ever. Jordan remains an island of calm preserved through fear: both the kingdom’s own people and the donor countries that prop it up are too spooked by the chaos buffeting its borders and flooding it with refugees to talk much of political reform.

....

In short, Arabs have rarely lived in bleaker times. The hopes raised by the Arab spring—for more inclusive politics and more responsive government, for more jobs and fewer presidential cronies carving up the economy—have been dashed. The wells of despair are overflowing.

The wealthy Gulf states have seen their incomes slashed by collapsing oil prices. The tighter immigration rules they have set up to replace expatriate labour from other Arab states with natives, or Asians, have hit the remittance flows through which they subsidised their poorer brethren. Demographic pressures are unyielding. Some 60% of the region’s population is under 25. Figures from the International Labour Organisation show that youth unemployment in the Middle East and north Africa, already a terrible 25% in 2011, has risen to nearly 30%, more than double the average around the world. Rent-seeking remains rampant, and standards in both public education and the administration of justice are still dismal. Economic growth is slow or stagnant; the hand of the security forces weighs heavier than ever, more or less everywhere. Sectarian divisions and class rivalries have deepened, providing fertile ground for radicals who posit their own brutal vision of Islamic Utopia as the only solution.

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21685503-five-years-after-wave-uprisings-arab-world-worse-ever

[EdwardBernays]

1. all very bad, and the worst part for the West..

is that even if the citizenry of the West doesn't know what their governments have been up to in the ME and Africa for the last couple hundred years, the people in the countries do.

Ignorance is bliss... until it condemns you to suffering...

[pscot]

2. Unchecked population growth

doesn't help.