Arab Spring Then and Now. Robert Fisk
TIDE OF REVOLUTION SLIPPING AWAY
POLICE STATE STILL RULES
CHAPTER 3
LIBYA SPRING
‘THERE WILL BE CIVIL WAR’
GO DOWN FIGHTING
FLEEING TRIPOLI
RAG-TAG MILITIAMEN
NATO MISTAKES
THE ROAD BETWEEN AJDABIYA AND BENGHAZI
FRANCE AND BRITAIN COMMITTED TO REMOVING GADDAFI
OLDSTYLE IMPERIAL VENTURE
THE PRESS IN LIBYA
‘GADDAFI CANNOT HURT HIS PEOPLE ANY LONGER’
CHAPTER 4
BAHRAIN SPRING
ARABS SHOOTING AT ARABS
PEARL SQUARE
CALL TO END KHALIFA FAMILY RULE
SAUDI ARMED INTERVENTION
MARTIAL LAW
BAHRAIN ARMY ASSAULT
SHIA REPRESSION
SAUDI PROTECTORATE
TARGETING WOMEN
DEMENTED SAVAGERY
TORTURING A POET
ANSWERING PROTEST WITH LIFE IN PRISON
CHAPTER 5
YEMEN SPRING
AL-QA’IDA IN YEMEN
PRESIDENT SALEH FALLS
DESCENDING INTO CIVIL WAR
CHAPTER 6
SYRIA SPRING
NOT GIVING IN TO ARAB SPRING
CAN THIS CORRUPT REGIME BE CLEANSED?
THE PEOPLE WANT CHANGE
GUNNING DOWN PROTESTERS
TELEVISION HORROR SHOW
IT’S THE KILLINGS THAT TERRIFY THE PEOPLE
INCREASING VIOLENCE
CHAPTER 7
FADE TO AUTUMN
WEST CAN NO LONGER RELY ON COMPLIANT DICTATORS
HOPES FOR DEMOCRACY FADE
PART 2
ARAB WINTER
THE NEW MAP OF THE ARAB WORLD
A SPRING THAT BEGAN IN HOPE BUT ENDED IN DESPAIR
AN ABSURD ISIS DEBATE
FREEDOM IS SCARCE FIVE YEARS AFTER ARAB SPRING
THE MIDDLE EAST BURNS
A TERRIFYING CHOICE BETWEEN WAR AND PEACE AWAITS
IT’S NOT TRUMP THAT MATTERS NOW – IT’S PUTIN
CHAPTER 8
TUNISIA WINTER
ATTACKING ARAB SPRING’S ONLY SUCCESS
TUNISIAN TERRORIST EXPORT
THREAT OF ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
CHAPTER 9
EGYPT WINTER
MURDER OF GIULIO REGENI
PROTESTING AL-SISSI’S RULE
CHAPTER 10
LIBYA WINTER
FATE OF THE GADDAFIS
GADDAFI’S PROPHETIC WARNING
NEW GOVERNMENT TAKES POWER FROM ISLAMISTS
CHAPTER 11
BAHRAIN WINTER
ADOPTING THE ‘EGYPTIAN STRATEGY’
CHAPTER 12
YEMEN WINTER
AL-QA’IDA NOW HAS A MINI-STATE IN YEMEN
DOUBTS ABOUT THE FUTURE
FUNDING A WAR IN YEMEN WHILE OIL PRICES COLLAPSE
WAR ON AGRICULTURE
CHAPTER 13
SYRIA WINTER
HIGH ON ARAB SPRING, WE FORGOT SYRIA WAS SHIA
SHIITES ARE WINNING
FAKE ANTIQUITIES
LIFE IN DAMASCUS
COUNTRY OF SIEGES AND LONG CANYONS OF DESTRUCTION
‘THEY ARE JUST ANIMALS’
ALEPPO’S AGONY
BODIES AND BLOOD
SURREAL WAR FROM THE GOLAN HEIGHTS
AFTERWORD
A DANGEROUS NEW WORLD
ARAB SPRING ─ ARAB WINTER TIMELINE
PHOTO CAPTIONS AND COPYRIGHTS
FOREWORD
Saturday, 31 December 2011
ONE MAN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD IN 2011
In truth, Mohammed Bouazizi only survived a few days into 2011. On 4 January, in a coma and swathed in bandages that covered his terrible burns, he died in a hospital near Tunis, aged just 26. He was an ordinary man, just a humble fruit vendor trying to make an honest living and support his family.
On 17 December 2010, however, after one routine petty harassment too many from the authorities, something inside his long-suffering soul snapped. He dowsed himself in petrol and set himself ablaze. In doing so he lit a fire across the Arab world that blazes to this day.
His act of self-immolation stirred protests in his home town of Sidi Bouzid, that quickly spread across all Tunisia. In a bid to save his regime, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled the country for the previous 23 years, paid a visit to Bouazizi's bedside a few days before he died. But on 14 January, Ben Ali was swept from power.
The 'Arab Spring' had started. The protests spread first to Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak would be ousted on 11 February, then to Libya, Yemen, Bahrain and Syria. Some regimes made reforms, some resisted, and some were toppled. But not a single one was unaffected.
Anyone familiar with the Arab world had long known that sooner or later its problems - corrupt regimes that tolerated no independent political movements, feeble economies and mass unemployment in populations in which two-thirds were aged under 25 - would explode. But no one knew when or where the spark would come, still less that it would be provided by Mohammed Bouazizi.
His father died when he was aged three, and though his mother remarried, his stepfather was in poor health and unable to earn. The son attended secondary school, but left to become