Revolution in the Arab World - Observation of a lost soul Blog

foreign policy • revolution in the arab world • Tunisia
The Wages of Arab Decay
BY MARC LYNCH
For the last few weeks, a massive wave of protests has been rocking
Tunisia over the Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali regime’s alleged corruption, authoritarianism,
and economic failings. A grisly suicide attack on a Coptic
Christian Church in Alexandria on New Year’s Day has sparked escalating
worries about the state of Christian-Muslim relations in Egypt. Over the
last few days, Jordanian security forces have struggled to put down riots in
the southern town of Maan, the latest in an increasingly worrisome trend
toward local violence and clashes. Kuwaiti politics continue to be roiled by
the fallout from the Dec. 8 attack by security forces against law professor
Obaid al-Wasmi and a group of academics and parliamentarians. What do
these have in common
These four seemingly unrelated incidents over the last month all draw
attention to the accelerating decay of the institutional foundations and fraying
of the social fabric across many of the so-called “moderate,” pro-Western
Arab regimes. What seems to link these four ongoing episodes, despite
the obvious differences, is a combination of authoritarian retrenchment,
unfulfilled economic promises, rising sectarianism at the popular level, and
deep frustration among an increasingly tech-savvy rising generation. The
internal security forces in these states remain powerful, of course. But even
if these upgraded authoritarians can keep hold of power, there’s a palpable
sense that these incidents represent the leading edge of rising economic, social,
and political challenges that their degraded institutions are manifestly
unable to handle.
Stalled politics and authoritarian retrenchment certainly plays a role in
this institutional decay, as entrenched elites have proved skilled at manipu-
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