The Peace on The Horizon - 75 Years after The World War 2 in the Middle East (175)

 

(Japanese Version)

(Arabic Version)

 

(contents)

 

Chapter 7: The "Arab Spring" - A fleeting dream (8)

 

175 Arab spring has come (4/4)

The political change in Tunisia was named the Jasmine Revolution after the national flower of the country. The fire of the revolution quickly spread not only in the northern African countries such as Egypt, Libya, Sudan but also to Syria and Jordan in Levant and Bahrain and Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula. In Cairo, the capital of Egypt, a large number of demonstrators gathered in Maidan(square) at Tahrir (Tahrir means revolution in Arabic) in response to Twitter's call. They collided with army force. There were many casualties. Mubarak's speech, which tried to quell the protestors, rather added fuel to the fire. Eventually President Mubarak resigned in February 2011.

 

The Western media named a series of revolution as "Arab Spring". The Arab Spring inspires anti-government activists in the Middle Eastern countries who were oppressed by tyranny of the dictatorship regime. In Yemen president Saleh was faced to intense antigovernment demonstrations. His tribal groups and allies in the family betrayed him and he finally gave up dictatorship. A woman activist, Tawakkol Karman, who was a leader of the antigovernment demonstration won the Nobel Peace Prize of that year.

 

(To be continued ----)

 

 

Areha Kazuya

(From an ordinary citizen in the cloud)