Ten years ago today Mohamed Bouazizi burned himself to death in a public square in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. It would become known as the catalyst behind the Arab Spring that swept away regimes across North Africa and West Asia. Yet the truth is that the so-called Arab Spring began in the last colony in Africa: Western Sahara.
The Gdeim Izik camp began in October 2010 and lasted until November before the Moroccan security forces cleared the protesters. The police arrested 3,000 people in clearing the camp and riots followed.
Seventy people were injured and three people were killed. This was a key part of the run up to the explosion of political energy that rushed the world in late 2010 through 2011. While the Sahrawi protests were crushed, the mood was turning in neighbouring countries.
No one paid any attention to Western Sahara outside of human rights NGOs. So no one really paid much attention until protests engulfed Tunisia and spread across North Africa, bringing down President Ben Ali, a reliably pro-Western tyrant. Suddenly the world seemed much less certain to Western powers.
There were protests in major cities from Algeria and Morocco to Bahrain and Iran. Then in February, Egypt’s President Hosni Mubarak was toppled. It was a great moment of relief, and release, for a people that had been governed by emergency rule for 30 years. Huge demonstrations in Libya and Syria seemed so hopeful.
It looked like the Arab world (as we in the West see it) was changing in a matter of weeks. This was a hopeful time. Little did we know that the results would be far from perfect and that the struggles would not end in weeks or even months.
A decade later and Western Sahara is still occupied by Morocco. The Polisario Front and the Moroccan army are, once again, fighting over the future of the territory. The Moroccan government seized Sahara in 1975 after Spain was forced to withdraw.
Meanwhile Libya is free of Gaddafi but not the roving militias who filled the void left behind. The Syrian Ba’ath regime has managed to cling to power by butchering tens of thousands of people. Yemen, just like Libya and Syria, has been ripped apart by civil war.
Likewise, Egypt has gone through a swift counter-revolution. The military apparatus that operated behind Mubarak is still in power, but in a new guise. In classic Bonapartist vein, General Sisi claimed he was taking the revolution forward when he overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood and massacred hundreds of protesters in al-Nahda and al-Rabaa Adawiya.
The only success story is Tunisia, where the revolution has produced a modest amount of political change. The old corrupt elite is still in power, but elections are much more open and the space for dissent is greater than it was in the past.
However, the fundamental problems that led to the Arab Spring – corruption, unemployment, economic stagnation, poverty – continue to worsen in Tunisia and throughout North Africa and West Asia. This won’t change until there is another revolution waged.
Sadly, the terrible losses of the Arab Spring will mean most people will prefer not to risk radical change. The Syrian civil war, in particular, is a defeat not just for Syrians who wanted democracy but for millions of people living under tyranny in the region.
Nevertheless, the story is far from over. Demonstrations in Algeria helped bring down President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, while Sudan saw protesters topple President Omar Bashir. Movements demanding change have swept Lebanon, Iraq and Iran.
In other words, what began in 2010 is still playing out today. The long story may be more mixed than tragic. Democracy and freedom are not exclusive to the West and should not be flown in and imposed from above.
The people can and should take matters into their own hands. They can emancipate themselves, against incredible odds. And that’s where the true hope lies.
Joshua White 