Introduction
The Arab world has experienced an unprecedented uprising that has scarred the community as a whole and inflicted pain and suffering on the people. The Arab Spring swept across the entire Arab world swiftly after what began as a secluded event in Tunisia when a trader burnt himself up in protest over the corruption levels in police and high handedness (Bhardwaj, n.d. p. 77).
There was violence reported in the respective countries as the revolution took its toll. The violence continues to take its toll in the region. However, two significant occurrences can describe the Arab revolution. While the revolution has been successful in dethroning the incumbent authorities in some countries, it has failed in its mission in other countries.
In most Arab African countries such as Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, the revolution succeeded in replacing the authorities with new regimes that are considered to be people-friendly. However, in other countries such as Syria, the revolution has not succeeded in changing the leadership.
Heavy fighting continues as both the authorities and the protestors engage each other for close to two years now (Sharp & Blanchard, 2013, p. 1). This paper seeks to discuss the challenges posed by the Arab uprising in detail, for both the states that have experienced change as well as those that continue to seek to influence the region’s political direction.
Challenges for the States that have Experienced Change
Control over militias or military by the public
Most Arab countries that successfully underwent change because of the Arab Spring happen to have experienced strong participation from militia groups (Behr & Sasnal, 2012, p. 9). These militias, however, continue to operate strongly outside the control of the new governments established after the revolutions.
Due to their participation and contributions during the revolution, the public still has a lot of confidence bestowed on the groups. The groups take the advantage to further their activities and agenda beyond the control of the newly established regimes.
In Libya, for instance, several groups of militias who have taken control over parts of the country and continue with their activities sometimes run parallel with the government’s control (Behr & Sasnal, 2012, p. 25).
On the other hand, the military in these countries has acquired some level of ‘political pivotalness’. In other words, the military enjoy the power, resources, as well as privileges that consequently enable them to suppress any opposition that occurs against the regime. However, these powers and privileges also act against the newly established regimes as they empower the military to act equally against them (Joshi, 2011, p. 60).
A strong case in point that highlights this condition is in Yemen and Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood, from which the Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi comes, has continuously been on a collision course with the military ever since it came into power (Amin, 2012, p. 33).
There have been increasing public strikes, as well as escalating political tension owing to the collision between the ruling regime and the military. In summary, the revolutions witnessed in countries that successfully experienced change face the challenge of restoring the civilian authority over the military.
Justice system reforms
Most of the countries with new regimes following successful revolutionary changes still grapple with excessive power enjoyed by the established executive over the judiciary. The reformed governments, in a bid to pursue justice over past regimes, are setting up special as well as military tribunals to try individuals (McKay, 2011, p. 50).
However, these tribunals and justice systems in general fail to adhere to the fundamentals of human rights. They have purposely destroyed due process, while eliminating a fair trial in as far as criminal, civil, as well as administrative matters are concerned.
The trials of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak have continuously been engineered by the new regime, with the help of the military (Marvin, 2012, p. 6). This highlights the fact that the country’s judiciary system, even under the new regime, is not independent and is, therefore, less likely to achieve justice for all.
A similar situation is witnessed in Libya, where the newly established regime has set up a tribunal to investigate the criminal actions of the fallen former President Mummer Gadhafi. In Tunisia, a similar tribunal found former President Ben Ali guilty of crimes and sentenced him in absentia.
These countries require having new justice systems together with reforms on law enforcement. The characteristics of government agencies in the previous regimes, such as oppression by the police and excessive use of power, require drastic trimming in order to achieve the targeted reforms.
However, such negative characteristics, which also happened to be the main cause triggering the Arab revolution, will not be addressed fully unless the new justice systems are transparently constructed with the aim of protecting individuals and their liberties.
Detention, torture, exemption from the basic rule of law, as well as arbitrary arrest will continue to dog the new regimes unless transparency in the justice system is achieved.
Most countries in the Arab world are synonymous with the culture of the incumbent governments wielding too much power with both immunity and impunity. These practices are likely to rear their ugly scenes with the post-revolution regimes because most of them have failed to address the justice system within their countries.
Economic and social welfare development
The revolutionised Arab world is facing the challenge of fostering growth in economy in order to generate employment, as well as alleviate poverty (African development Bank, 2012, p. 16). Part of the reasons that sparked the uprising in December 2010 included the capturing of important segments within the economy by the ruling elite.
There was a precedent where the ruling elite managed to create a rent seeking system that was entrenched in crony capitalism. Entrepreneurship remained smothered by the state through corruption, as well as through regulation. As a result, important public services, such as education, housing, and healthcare, remained neglected for far too long by the authorities.
As the new regimes take over control of their respective governments, they are facing all challenges that have been entrenched in the system. Expectations are running high from amongst the members of the public that their new governments will succeed to change the fortunes within a short period and restore their confidence. However, this is not possible to be achieved within a short span, as per the expectations of the citizens.
Additionally, there have been rapid demographic growths for a period running up to three decades, a situation that compounds the problem even further. The number of job seekers who are well educated is growing increasingly, and the pressure is on the new governments to act with haste and provide them with a workable solution before their hopes are lost.
Within most of the urban areas, there is significant high unemployment, lack of proper public services, and escalating poverty. These scenarios are only helping to create wide discontent, notably among the huge youth populations.
According to the World Bank, the Middle East region and indeed the entire Arab world requires approximately 50 million new job opportunities in order to achieve both social, as well as political stability (Chaaban, 2010, p. 15).
Indeed this has been the reason why most of the countries have experienced renewed waves of violence and demonstrations as members of the public demand that the new governments be ousted.
In Egypt, President Morsi has been the subject of renewed demonstrations as discontented Egyptians fail to witness the kind of reforms that they were expecting within the short period going forward. The same can be said of Tunisia, with successive revolutionary governments leaving office as soon as they are elected.
In other words, the new governments are racing against the public clock and are not being allowed ample time to address the issues at hand. They are easily looked at as the villain rather than the agents of reform that they were during the revolutionary struggles.
Understanding a government system properly and being able to realign the issues that are inherent is not a task that can be performed within a short duration, particularly where the actors are new as is the case with most of the Arab countries.
In the face of the sensitive revolutions that in most instances turned out to be deadly, the new regimes are inheriting governments that suffer from acute shortage of funds. Most countries lost business opportunities, especially where such opportunities were to come from association with foreign businesses and countries. Tourists avoided, while foreign direct investments also dropped significantly.
In essence, these countries are currently facing a reduction in their foreign currency reserves. This, coupled with the slow global growth at the height of the revolution, because of the global economic crisis, has left most governments in poor financial positions. Recovery of the economic situation is anticipated to take some significant period before positive results can be witnessed.
Challenges to the States seeking to Influence the Region’s Political Direction
Controlling the youth population
The Arab revolution has largely been successful in countries where regime change was witnessed, particularly because of the active participation of the youth.
Most youths in the Arab world took advantage of the internet integration to support their colleagues in other countries and give them advice on how to stage demonstrations. The threat of the social networking sites spread to countries within the region, such as Saudi Arabia, which have sought to influence the political direction within the Arab world (Shihade, Fominaya & Cox, 2012, p. 8).
The governments, thus, continue to face the challenge of dissuading the youths from instigating any such similar violence. As a result, new measures have been proposed to see to it that Saudi youths get employment at the expense of foreign workers who have flocked the country in search for jobs.
Among the measures include deporting foreign workers from other countries and imposing stricter rules on Visa qualifications. However, Saudi Arabia still suffers from the problem of incompetency in terms of the domestic workers’ skills.
This problem has particularly been heightened by the closed system of education that is adopted by Riyadh. Hence, more foreign workers still need to be maintained in the country in order to continue providing their expertise to the country.
Pre-emptive suppression
There is no doubt that the Saudi Arabian government has been involved in too much pre-emptive suppression measures to ensure that the country does not follow on the same way that other Arab states have gone through because of the Arab uprising.
However, the pre-emptive mechanism has not been easy for the government throughout the revolutionary period. In particular, the government has adopted a three-pronged strategy that aims to ensure any protests are nipped in the bud (Barany, 2012, p. 23).
The strategy involves using excessive amounts of money, using religion to distract protestors and their plans, as well as using military force. The government’s agencies have remained highly alert to determine any instances where protestors could be seeking to advance their demands.
A case in point is the manner in which the Saudi government tackled the ‘Day of Rage’ that was slated for the 11th of March 2011. The notorious Eastern province of the country remained under scrutiny from the government, with more than 10,000 security officers being drafted well in advance to check the situation (Barany, 2012, p. 24).
Thus, as the Arab revolution still rages on, it is prudent to point out that those governments that escaped protests and forceful overthrow by the public continue to remain highly vulnerable. The governments are spending too much effort and resources in ensuring that they put under control any threats of public protests that may threaten their stay in power.
Fast-fix Solutions to Social and other National Problems
The problems that face the Arab world are almost synonymous in every country, with escalating corruption and poor public service being cited almost in all the countries.
Countries seeking to influence the political direction of the Middle East and indeed that of the entire Arab Word are grappling with fast-fix solutions as the only way of maintaining calm in their jurisdictions. In Saudi Arabia, for instance, the authorities have spent billions of dollars to ensure they put under control the loyalty of their subjects.
On the first year of the revolution, on February 23rd 2011, Saudi’s royal family pledged grants to the tune of $35 billion. The pledges by King Abdullah were mainly meant to address the areas of housing, studying abroad, as well as social security. The state announced an increase in salary to the tune of 15% for all government employees, while infusing a further $10.7 billion into the development fund.
The fund offered interest-free loans to enable Saudi’s build homes, start small businesses, or even start their marriage lives. The fast-fix solution also targeted to address the escalating unemployment rates in the country.
Another financial grant by the monarch to the tune of $70 billion dollars was released in March 2011. The bulk of the amount was set aside to address the housing situation within the country, particularly being apportioned for 500,000 housing units in the country.
A further $4 billion was released to boost the healthcare infrastructure through construction of new medical centres. Another significant portion from the grant was directed towards the loan fund, betterment of the welfare benefits, and further raises for government employees’ bonuses.
Although a section of the public showed their contentment with the move, there were still voices of discontentment. Thus, the government’s quick fix strategy through the release of huge amounts of funds failed to tackle the threat of the uprising spreading into Saudi Arabia. Additional funds were, therefore, directed towards boosting the national security, with 60,000 new security jobs being formulated.
Salaries for the military personnel also received a hike. The religious establishment was not left out either. About $300 million were offered as grants to the religious establishment to help in building more offices throughout the country, as well as constructing and renovating mosques and other Islamic centres with an aim of promoting Islam.
The above series of events point at a regime that is not comfortable in the operations of its roles and duties in serving the public. More effort is being spent in putting checks rather than addressing the situation from its inner core. There are chances that the issues that triggered the Arab revolution may after all not be effectively addressed by the quick-fix solutions that the Saudi government is adopting.
Domestic shifts
Countries within the Arab world that survived the Arab uprising, and which seeks to establish their regional leadership position have had to contend with domestic shifts. For instance, the Saudi government managed to strengthen its position domestically, although it shifted its position as far as the Arab protest movements within the region are concerned (Jahner, 2012, p. 38).
The Saudi regime initially renounced the unrests, but later offered its support to the military action that was going on in some specific countries. Through its membership in the Arab League, Saudi Arabia expressed support for the military action that aimed at overthrowing former Libyan President Muammar Gadhafi.
Equally, the Saudi regime has in the recent times led the Arab charge in diplomatically isolating the embattled Syrian government under President Bashar Al Assad.
There is a significant shift amongst Saudi’s clerics as well. Initially, a section of the clerics termed the anti-regime protestors as a people who were only traitors with the intention of undermining stability. However, there was change of stance amongst these clerics as they began acknowledging the demands of protestors as ‘legitimate’. This has challenged the regime’s standing orders.
This gradual change of stance has in some instances seen clerics coming out strongly to support the wave of the movement as an advantage to the Wahhabi state (Jahner, 2012, p. 40). Given the strong influence that religious leaders have in Saudi Arabia, this shift has continued to portend a great challenge to the authorities.
Control of the media
The Arab world is taking scrutiny of the media a little more serious, especially within the regional states that are seeking to achieve leadership position. The fact that the Arab uprising was mainly fuelled by social media has put the authorities in jeopardy. There are endless efforts being put into place to ensure the media is controlled and gagged to thwart any efforts of fuelling similar uprisings (Dalacoura, 2012, p. 63).
Saudi Arabian authorities, for instance, enacted a high level of restrictions that are meant to dissuade Saudi’s from inciting each other into protests against the government. In January 2011, the Saudi government, through the Ministry of Culture, enacted a Press and Publication law. Under the law, all news sites, as well as discussion forums and text messaging on mobile phones are required to be licensed by the government.
Equally, all email groups must be registered by the government before being given the go ahead to operate in the country. Only Saudi nationals or companies can qualify to be given the licence, but must have attained at least 20 years to be eligible. Additionally, a high school degree is a must for those seeking the licence (Dalacoura, 2012, p. 65).
Conclusion
The Arab revolution continues to take its toll in countries within the Middle East and North African regions, which are predominantly of Arabic demography. While the revolution has been considered successful in some countries following the forceful removal of despotic regimes, there are numerous challenges that the countries are grappling with.
There has been growing discontentment with the new regimes following the slow action to improve on the general welfare of the public. Most countries have been ravaged economically, and a significant period is required to restore stability. However, the masses are running out of patience and expect things to move very fast.
There have also been instances where the militia groups involved in the revolution constantly find themselves on a collision course with the military. Full reforms in such countries, such as Egypt, may not be realised unless such collisions are addressed and lasting solutions found. The judicial system also lacks credibility in the manner in which they have been constituted in many of the countries.
On the other hand, Arab countries seeking to influence change are also facing numerous challenges from within. There is immense pressure from the masses in seeking to dethrone the governments as well, although much force is also being applied to dissuade such plans. Saudi Arabia, for instance, uses the military force to disorganise any plans by the revolutionary voices, while also using a lot of money to buy loyalty from the public.
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