216
East never recovered and was partly responsible for the mushrooming of
extremist ideologies, terrorist actions, sectarian divide and continuing
unrest. The September 11 attacks also contributed to a resurgent backlash
against Islam and Muslims in different Western countries, often termed as
Islamophobia. The sense of grievance has been the theme song of both sides
with limited self-reflection and appreciation of the grievances of the other.
The second major development was internal and came in the form of
the Arab Spring. Beginning with Tunisia, protests spread to different parts
of the Arab world, and even oil-rich Gulf Arab countries known for their
cradle-to-grave welfare arrangement did not escape from its spell. Only
Qatar, the country with the highest annual per capita income of over
US$125,000, did not witness any popular dissent.
The monarchies weathered the storm by resorting to economic largesse
and limited co-option, with poorer ones like Bahrain, Jordan, Morocco
and Oman receiving financial support that ensured regime survival.
Republican regimes were less fortunate as they opted for a militant
response to political and economic grievances of their citizens. Thus, while
the eight Arab monarchies survived, all the republican regimes plunged
into an endless cycle of internal violence, civil war and ruptures. States
such as Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen no longer control their post-Ottoman
boundaries which heralded their existence. At the same time, more than
seven years later the Arab Spring has no clear roadmap, irreversible mile-
stones or accomplishments towards a more democratic political system.
Demographically small Tunisia remains the only major achievement, with
the Ennahda adopting a more flexible and democratic approach in refrain-
ing from imposing Islamism upon the secular public.
The upheavals in the Arab world and the inability of the rulers to
accommodate popular demands for change and reform paved the way for
external interference and intervention. The three non-Arab countries
sought to leverage the chaos for their advantage; if Israel wanted Hosni
Mubarak to survive, Iran and Turkey tried to work towards regime changes
in some of the key Arab countries. Disregarding their historical dishar-
mony with the Arab worlds, they attempted to offer their political history
as ‘model’ for the leaderless Arab Spring protests; the cleric leadership in
Iran sought to depict the Islamic revolution and Shia concept of resistance
and justice as the roadmap for the Arab masses, while Recep Tayyip
Erdogan urged the Arabs to emulate the success of the AKP. Both these
countries downplayed, if not ignored, the historic Arab-Ottoman and
Arab-Persian discords and ayatollahs also ignored the Shia-Sunni divide.
P. R. KUMARASWAMY AND MD. M. QUAMAR