Pre-Debate: “This house believes that the Arab Spring has done more harm than good”

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Aaqib Javed

The spontaneous protests that marked the start the “Arab Spring” across parts of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula promised to bring about social, ideological and political change. However, initial optimism of transformation and transition to democracy in the region has waned as a result of a prolonged and largely stagnated military battle in Syria and what is now largely perceived as a coup against the elected Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Instead of a sweeping revolution, it appears that the Arab Spring has caused only humanitarian suffering and has ultimately caved in under ideological and political motivations of external players.

Critics of the prolonged Syrian revolution have argued that the Free Syrian Army (FSA) has been hijacked by Al-Qaeda fighters seeking to topple the Shiite-Alawite leader Assad and replacing him with a Sunni based government. However, such an assertion has to be verified through the scope of realism. Some analysts state that 80% of the 40,000 strong FSA are Al Qaeda fighters. But can it be deemed possible for a crippled and maligned organisation such as Al Qaeda, under the new and divisive leadership of Al-Zawahiri, to recruit 32000 fighters willing to participate in a largely nationalistic revolution? It would appear that there is an exaggeration of just how deeply the FSA has been hijacked by the presence of Al Qaeda inspired fighters. It would be unfair to uproot the purpose of the uprising from one seeking to assert the people’s opinion in a dictatorship which has monopolised Syrian resources systemically over a 40 year period to that aimed at establishing an “Islamist” state.

The Muslim Brotherhood was elected into power in the 2011 and 2012 parliamentary and presidential elections. However since then, the Morsi led government has been overthrown by General Sisi which has instigated a chain of events leading to the arbitrary detention of several prominent Brotherhood members as well as the banning of the organisation outright. Although the Muslim Brotherhood has been accused of implementing an “Islamist” ideology in Egypt, the true reason of the coup can be pinpointed to Morsi’s mishandling of presidential affairs, which includes him passing a controversial law allowing him to rule without judicial oversight. Instead of a democratic alternative, Morsi threatened to establish a dictator-like rule which warranted his dismissal from government.

To claim that the Arab Spring has become a movement aimed at establishing an “Islamist” state or committed to furthering the interests of terror organisations would be doing a great wrong against the hundreds of thousands who have sacrificed their lives to dispose of authoritarian despots across the region. The failure of the Muslim Brotherhood does not mean that the Arab Spring has failed the Egyptian people, it simply proves that the values of the revolution, namely liberation, equality and democracy, are still at the forefront of the change the Egyptian people wish to see.

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Nadeine Asbali

The motion that ‘The Arab Spring Has Caused More Harm Than Good’ strikes me as a rather audacious claim. Perhaps our, albeit subconscious, conditioning of Western privilege is so deep rooted that we deem ourselves worthy to critique the socio-political actions of other sovereign nations, armed with secondary and biased news sources, and our own arrogant ideas of how the course of democracy should run, as our only tools.

My main qualm with the motion, is that it appears to support judgement without contextualisation, thus lending to a rather reactionary, patronising conclusion. Admittedly, it is tempted to become gripped by sobering news stories of fierce sectarian violence, the marginalisation of minorities, and the ominous prospect of an ‘Islamist Winter’. However, we must not let ourselves be so naïve as to believe these have only evolved as a result of the Arab Spring; misogyny has long been an issue within the Middle East, and oppression of minorities in society is certainly nothing new. Indeed, the situations were often just as dire under dictatorship: Libya, for example, had a sizeable Jewish population until Gaddafi forcibly extradited them, and Saudi Arabia is ample example that the root of Middle Eastern misogyny is not the Arab Spring.

The reason for the influx of troubling news stories is not because these are issues exclusive to a post-Arab Spring paradigm, but rather because Western news agencies finally have unencumbered access to the Middle East. The atrocities of dictators went largely unreported either because of their pariah status (Gaddafi), or because of their worryingly cosy relationship with the West (Mubarak), and it is rather elementary to use the comparative abundance of news coverage, to reason that the Arab Spring must have caused overwhelming harm.

It is vital that we rid ourselves of the air of superiority when discussing such matters. The course of the movement has been far from smooth, however that is only to be expected. The Middle East is a highly sensitive region, plagued with countless nuanced issues, and is still grappling with a freedom it has been denied for decades. To suggest that the Arab Spring has caused more harm, is to suggest that citizens were better off under autocratic rule than they are under an (albeit messy) freedom, which is both insolent and untrue. Generations have been gifted with their first free elections, constitutions, pluralist politics, and above all, hope.

Ultimately, my own emotional involvement in the Arab Spring (as someone of Libyan descent) makes me irrevocably supportive of the movement, and unapologetically so. Until convinced otherwise, I will continue to view claims that the Arab Spring is overwhelmingly negative as a disservice to the intentions of those who continue to strive for all that we take for granted.

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