The Fires of Spring: A Post-Arab Spring Journey Through the Turbulent New Middle East - Tunisia, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Egypt

403 Pages·2016·2.28 MB·English

by  Shelly Culbertson

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Table of Contents
About the Author
Copyright Page

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To Iliano Cervesato, my husband
To Richard and Linda Culbertson, my parents
To Christopher Culbertson, my brother
A NOTE ON THE TEXT
I traveled to Tunisia, Turkey, Iraq, Qatar, Jordan and Egypt for this book
between June 2014 and April 2015. While the narrative is consecutive, my travel
for research was not always. I traveled sometimes by myself and sometimes with
others. For the sake of continuity of the narrative, I wrote the scenes in the book
without my travel companions. Public figures interviewed are called by their full
names. Interviewees who are private individuals are called by a single first name
that is not their own, and in some instances, identifying characteristics were
changed.

INTRODUCTION
In a small town in Tunisia, Mohammed Bouazizi, a young fruit seller, was
angered and humiliated by a bureaucratic inspector who slapped his face and
confiscated his apples. He poured paint thinner on his body and lit himself on
fire. He died in January 2011. His story roused the sympathetic indignation of a
generation of Tunisian youth. They saw themselves in him—lacking
opportunities and doing their best to make do, subject to the petty whims of
bureaucrats who could assault them and take away their livelihood with
impunity.1 And then that rage spread elsewhere around the Middle East, with
citizens both demonstrating peacefully and violently overthrowing governments.
The peoples of the region wanted something more than to eke out an existence
amid stagnation and repression. A new generation revealed its frustration with
the established order’s corruption, patronage, authoritarianism, and failed
governance.
These events were optimistically termed the “Arab Spring.” The inspirational
movements of the Arab Spring captured global imagination for what might be.
Arab Spring movements demanded a better way of life and new models for
societies that were not realizing their potential. But the aftermath has ranged
from tentatively encouraging to halting processes for change to devastating civil
wars that have resulted in challenges to the very borders of the Middle East and
mass refugee crises.
What are we to make of the disparate and tumultuous events in this part of
the world? What was the Arab Spring about? What was accomplished? What
trends are shaping the Middle East after the Arab Spring?
I sought answers to these questions. And so I set out on a journey through six
countries of the Middle East (not all of which are Arab countries) with varying
roles in and experiences of the Arab Spring: Tunisia, Turkey, Iraq, Jordan,
Qatar, and Egypt. This book is a narrative of that journey. I visited historical
sites and delved into scholarship on the region. I conducted interviews with key
figures in the protests and revolutions, government officials, media leaders, and
people who lived through important events of the Arab Spring. To show multiple
points of view, I spoke with people who vehemently disagreed with each other.
It was a privilege to have had the opportunity to talk with people who played
such roles, took great personal risks, and exhibited courage and creativity. I hope
to capture some of that spirit in this book.
I chose the six countries in this book to illustrate the region’s diversity and a
variety of Arab Spring experiences. These experiences include government
overthrows, peaceful protests and incremental change, interfering in other
countries’ Arab Springs, or being impacted by the Arab Spring. Among the six,
there are stable countries, unstable countries, rich countries, poor countries,
democracies, autocracies, and monarchies. The people in this book are of
multiple ethnicities, including Arabs as well as Turks, Kurds, Berbers, and
others. There are people who speak different languages and practice religion in
different ways.
The journey of this book begins in Tunisia, the country where the Arab
Spring revolutions started, and where there emerged a model of a positive,
sustainable, and inclusive, albeit fragile, way forward. Next, although it isn’t an
Arab country, Turkey’s protest movements challenged growing government
autocracy, and the history of the fall of the Ottoman Empire provides historical
context for understanding conflicts in the region today. I move then to
neighboring Iraq. There, I traveled in the Kurdistan Region. While Iraq did not
have a significant Arab Spring movement (although there were some protests), it
was affected by the Arab Spring and was also an important part of the Arab
Spring context. The Kurdistan Region underwent a “spring” of investment in
development, after the American war in Iraq and before threats by the Islamic
State,2 itself a perverse outgrowth of Arab Spring desires for new forms of
government. Qatar is next, a country of contradictory activities. While Qatar has
made efforts domestically to build a cosmopolitan knowledge-based economy, it
has been involved in other countries’ Arab Springs through reporting by Al
Jazeera, backing of Islamist political parties in other countries, and funding
violent factions in Libya and Syria. The story continues with Jordan, a middle-
income country that made strides in development despite its tough
neighborhood. Jordan’s Arab Spring protesters made demands for incremental
economic and political reforms (not government overthrow), and the government
responded with incremental change. Finally, Egypt is home to a quarter of the
Arab world. Its dramatic 2011 revolution overthrew a man who had ruled for
thirty years, followed by the democratic election of a Muslim Brotherhood
politician, mass protests over his abuses of power, and finally his overthrow by
the military. While Egypt’s revolution is viewed as a disappointing failure that
ushered in an even more repressive regime, the reality is more complex.
Profound changes have begun in Egypt’s social fabric. Finally, many of these
countries have in some way been affected by the violent civil wars elsewhere in
the region that were set off by the Arab Spring, whether through absorbing
refugees, having their own stability threatened, or witnessing examples to avoid.
Writing this book has been an act of both love and frustration for me. It is
written out of love for a region that delights with its friendships, aesthetics,
heritage, adventures, and professional opportunities. It is written out of
frustration with the destruction of people and places, mindsets that no longer
serve the people there, and a squandering of human aspirations and ability
through corrupt and inept governance.
I have lived, studied, worked, or traveled in the Middle East extensively, first
as a student lured by the potential for adventure and by rich and ancient history. I
have been coming back ever since. The region has been a formative part of my
life and world outlook. For ten years, I worked at the RAND Corporation on the
Middle East. This included living in Qatar for seven years advising on education
and innovation policy, developing K–12 education plans for the Kurdistan
Regional Government of Iraq five years, and analyzing public services for
Syrian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, and Turkey. I worked on the Turkey desk at
the U.S. State Department, lived in Egypt to study Arabic, and studied in
Morocco and Israel for short periods. And I have spent a considerable amount of
time meandering through the bazaars, mosques, and museums housing great
works of art and heritage of almost every other country in the region. I have met