What Instigated the Arab Spring Uprising?

Nidal Kabalan

(Damascus) The term Arab Spring refers to a series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that have spread across the Middle East since late 2010 and the “spring” of 2011 (hence the name Arab Spring), through a chain of what was supposed to be pro-democracy uprisings that enveloped several largely Muslim countries, including Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Bahrain. However, the political and social impact of these popular uprisings remains significant today, years after many of them ended.

Consecutive events were widely portrayed by both international as well as some regional media, as popular movements in response to oppressive regimes and low standards of living. But the protests that were supposed to be peaceful in nature, soon took a dramatic turn and turned into wide-scale acts of violence and multiple mini wars, involving scores of “foreign” fanatic Muslim movements along with almost all major hardline terrorist and separatist groups and Jihadi organisations, from al Qaeda down.

The new slogans of a “Holy War” in the name of Islam, has attracted hundreds of thousands of extremist Islamic terrorists and outlaws from the four corners of the globe, regardless of the paradoxical fact that this ‘War’ has been fought largely against other fellow Muslims. So, what turned the Arab Spring upside down, and transformed it into a nightmarish Autumn?

A disillusion with these movements now reveals a set of sinister schemes that have largely succeeded in dismembering whole nations and fracturing, sometimes beyond repair, some of the region’s key countries. Whilst the spring season is naturally associated with blossoms, flowers, greenery and joy, the Arab Spring has brought nothing but chaos, destruction, instability, insecurity, hatred, animosity, bloodshed and wars with all their associated humanitarian disasters.

No wonder, the so-called Arab Spring has become widely viewed as the Non-Arab Autumn.

The Arab Spring started with events in Tunisia, late 2010, with the infamous incident of a Tunisian called Bouazizi setting himself on fire in protest against hard living conditions in the country. Large-scale protest and clashes soon spread out, culminating in the overthrow of President Ben Ali, who fled the country with his family to Saudi Arabia on January 14th 2011.

Libya soon followed suit, with the so-called February 17th uprising in 2011, quickly turning into armed confrontations, culminating in the killing of Qaddafi on October 20th 2011. The country is almost completely dismembered and torn out by feudal and inter-tribal wars. While Qaddafi might have been a dictator who ruled Libya for 40 years, but at least there was a unified country to rule. Following the intervention by Turkey, Qatar, the UAE, France among others, and thanks to the pro-democracy “revolution”, Libya now lies in ruins and need a miracle to recover.

Egypt’s wide-spread anti-government protests soon followed the  events in Libya, with the Egyptian army taking control and quashing the unrest, albeit through the removal from power of Egyptian president Mubarak who resigned on February 11th 2011.

Syria has been the only exception. With the war entering its 9th year, the Syrian army and government remain in control of over 80% of the country. Albeit with the help of some allies, mainly Iran, Russia and Hezbollah, the Syrian army has in recent months, weeks and nowadays made some major advances in uprooting extremist groups and terrorist organisations from nearly three quarters of the country. The Syrian steadfastness and resilience continue to be a mystery for many.

Burhan Galion, a prominent Paris-based Syrian opposition activist and former Syrian Coalition chairman, admits now that “revolutions in Libya, Yemen, Syria and largely Egypt, have spread frustration among large sectors of Arab public opinion”.

The question frequently asked is: “Who has orchestrated and masterminded this massive pan-Arab upheaval”?

It is rather difficult to pin the charge on one single person; a few names quickly jump to mind, primarily Bernard-Henri Levy, along with top US politicians and lobbyists, such as former US Secretary of State, presidential candidate and now Senator, Hillary Clinton, the current National Security Advisor John Bolton, as well as one of his not any less belligerent predecessors, Condoleezza Rice who, form 2005, has preached “Total/Creative Chaos” for the Middle East.

Yet, Levy remains a key figure among those who orchestrated and advanced the Arab Spring theme and chain of events which followed. Levy, who was born in Beni Saf, Oran, French Algeria in 1948, has often bragged about his Godfatherly role in this regional chaos, having appeared in numerous photos with rebels, armed to the teeth and sometimes in action, all the way from Libya to Iraq and northern Syria.

In a recent interview on the Arabic Al Ghad (meaning Future) TV network, an UAE financed television network broadcasting from Cairo, Egypt and from London, UK respectively, Levy turns now to Algeria, his birth place, which has seen some protests which culminated in the resignation of President Bouteflika. Levy again brags about his support for the anti-government movement there.

“Algerians have been ruled by a military dictatorship, and a single-part system; I wanted them to be free of this heavy toll for independence”, Levy maintained. Levy then refers to what he called an “unfortunate incident” he faced in Tunisia last year, when participated in a round table organized by Libyans. “I was shocked the explosion of a volcano of anger against me on social media networks” Levy exclaimed.

But why and what turned the Arab Spring upside down?

The most convincing explanation and rational attribution as to what has turned the Arab Spring into Autumns of Destruction and Bloodshed, lie in the fact that what was, at least hypothetically, intended as a series of peaceful protests calling for more freedom and better standards of living for ordinary civilians of Middle Eastern and North African Arab countries, has been taken over by extremist manipulators and warmongers of all skins, types and missions; manipulators and satanic warmongers who thrive on conflicts and wars, regardless of their tragic ramifications and catastrophic human cost.