The Middle East’s Lost DecadesNovember/December 2019 55dictator Hafez al-Assad. The regime
may have won the civil war, but these
demonstrations suggest that it will
struggle to restore its authority.
The Middle East today is witnessing
a perfect storm: as social and economic
conditions erode and regimes double
down on the repressive policies that
provoked the Arab Spring, a new
generation is coming to the fore. The
young Arabs o this new generation are
accustomed to voicing their dissatisfac-
tion. They have seen both the promise
and the failures o the 2010–11 revolts,
and they are resistant to their leaders’
attempts at manipulation. Those leaders,
moreover, no longer have the means to
buy o their populations. What today
looks like a regional regression since
2011 may well, in the future, be regarded
as the initial phase in a much longer
process o Arab revival. The road to that
revival will likely be a dicult one,
paved with pain. But i there is one thing
that Arab populations know, it is that
the status quo cannot be sustained.∂Omar al-Bashir, to step down. In both
countries, the protesters took care to
remain peaceful—even in the face o
violent government responses—while
at the same time demanding genuine
democratic reforms rather than a new
form o military rule. And in both
countries, the protesters seemed to
have learned from the failed demo-
cratic transitions in Egypt and Syria.
In Sudan, protesters continued to call
for a peaceful political transition and an
accountable government, even after a
massacre in June that left at least 100
dead and scores injured. On August 17,
the Sudanese military and the opposition
reached an agreement on a three-year
transitional period, during which civil-
ians and the military will alternate turns
in power.
In Algeria, despite the resignation o
the ailing BouteÁika in April, citizens
have continued to demand the ouster o
key Ägures o the old guard. Some
members o BouteÁika’s inner circle
have resigned or been arrested, and
elections have been announced for
December. Many protesters are skepti-
cal o the elections, which they see as
an eort by the military to bring a
pliant president to power. Yet they have
already shown that they are not willing
to be cowed into accepting a modiÄed
version o the old regime.
This new culture o protest is also on
display in Syria, which has seen a wave
o civilian protests in former rebel
strongholds now under the control o
the Assad regime. Earlier this year, for
example, hundreds o Syrians in the
southern city o Daraa—the birthplace
o the anti-Assad protests in 2011—
turned out to oppose the installation o
a statue o Assad’s father, the longtime