Tahrir Tartan
On December 17th, 2010, a 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor called Mohamed Bouazizi fatally set himself alight in front of a government building to protest the arbitrary seizing of his vegetable stand by police, following his failure to obtain a permit. This tragic act of despair triggered the so-called ‘Jasmine Revolution’ in Tunisia, which forced authoritarian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to abdicate and flee to Saudi Arabia.
A wave of popular uprisings then resulted in rulers being ousted in Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, as well as public uprisings in Bahrain and Syria, major protests in Algeria, Jordan, Kuwait, and Oman; and, minor protests in Lebanon, Mauritania, Sudan, and Western Sahara (#MOVEME). Known collectively as the “Arab Spring,” these movements were carried out mainly by the defeated, the excluded and the marginalised across the Middle East and North Africa.
“If Bouazizi’s tragic act sparked the revolutions, it was Mubarak’s fall that truly emboldened protesters throughout the Middle East, breaking a decades-long veil of fear and reinforcing the belief people could make a difference. As the region’s most populous nation, Egypt was traditionally its trendsetter, and Mubarak was the doyen of Arab despots. If he could fall, who was safe? For millions determined to shake up the old order, it was the moment the impossible seemed possible” ~ Financial Times
A decade on, however, Egypt is more oppressive than ever and people have never felt more fearful for the future. Tens of thousands of people have been jailed since President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi seized power in 2013. The government crackdown has since evolved into an assault against all forms of critical debate.
“Rather than ushering in the freedoms many Arabs yearned for, the uprisings exposed the difficulty of fostering change in nations long ruled by despots who had hollowed out state institutions and built predatory patronage networks. The Arab Spring also highlighted the struggles of popular movements in transforming people power into institutionalised political influence.” ~ Financial Times
Since the Arab spring, conditions have worsened. In 2011, there were about eight million people in the Middle East and North Africa living below a poverty line of $1.90 a day. By 2018, that number had swelled to 28m, according to the World Bank, in a region with the world’s highest youth unemployment rate. Thousands of Tunisians still make the perilous journey to Italy every year in makeshift boats.
Although the popular uprisings of 2011 mostly failed, as the New York Times points out, they gave the region a taste for democracy that continues to whet an appetite for change.
Democracy is under assault across the globe. According to a report by Freedom House, which studies democracy, political freedom, and human rights: “Global freedom faces a dire threat. Around the world, the enemies of liberal democracy —a form of self-government in which human rights are recognized and every individual is entitled to equal treatment under law—are accelerating their attacks.”
Source: Freedom House
Source: Freedom House
“I know a poem can’t stop a tank. But the reverse is also true. As I’m writing this, the streets of China and Iran have been alive with infuriated, chanting crowds, so tired of being institutionally deceived and robbed of any personal agency or independence of mind that they are prepared to risk arrest and imprisonment rather than be silenced by regimes demanding obedience to lies.” ~ Simon Schama, Dec 3 2022
“Rather than ushering in the freedoms many Arabs yearned for, the uprisings exposed the difficulty of fostering change in nations long ruled by despots who had hollowed out state institutions and built predatory patronage networks. The Arab Spring also highlighted the struggles of popular movements in transforming people power into institutionalised political influence.” ~ Financial Times
“The Tahrir tartan charts the journey from dictatorship to democracy in the Middle East (Tahrir is a word of Arabic origin meaning ‘liberation’). The single black line signifies the martyrdom of 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi, the oppressed street trader whose desperate act of self-immolation ignited the revolution (represented by the red stripe) that has swept the region, catalysing similar movements worldwide. The green square represents the state building period when new institutions must be established to guarantee the basic rights and freedoms that people are fighting for. The double black lines symbolise statutory opposition, the cornerstone of any enduring democracy. This tartan honours the many thousands of Arab youth who risked everything to free themselves from the grip of authoritarian regimes, reclaim their dignity and shape their own destiny.”
Jubilation in Tahrir Square
Photo: Licensed from Mostafa Sheshtawy
