The Arab Spring Muslim Movement: Authoritarian Regimes

Name Instructor Course Date The Arab Spring The Arab Spring is a Muslim Movement, it involves the democratic uprisings which spread across the Arab world in 2011. This movement begun in Tunisia and involved other Muslim countries which included Libya, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, and Yemen. The Arab spring involved the pro-democracy uprisings and protests which happened in 2010 to 2011 in the north and Middle East of Africa (Kaucsh 773). The aim of these protest was t entrench the authoritarian regimes. The demonstrators were expressing their economic and political griverncies. The movement started with the death of Mohamed Bouazzi. The Arab spring in all the country had the main goal of changing their ruling government. The aim of this discussion is to discuss the role of Islamist in Tunisia and Egypt during and after the Arab Spring. In Tunisia the Arab spring happened on December 2010. This happened when a vendor known as Bouazizi Mohammand came up with an act of self-immolation when a Tunisian police officer took his fruits and restricted him from selling at his location. Following this action by the vendor and death, many citizens went to the street and protested against the government led by Ben Ali. Bouazizi’s act is seen as the spark of revolution. There was frustration in Tunisia society which had existed for many years before this event took place. In the terms of religious role in the initial protest in Tunisia, many of the protest and organized rallies were being carried out by secular organizations. The major Islamist political organization that existed in Tunisia was Ennahda (Lesch 11). During this period this organization was limited in carrying out its activities. Due to the absence of the strong Islamist presence there was an aggressive attempt by the Tunisian regimes to have the Islamists eliminated from the public life. Ben Ali took an action where in the 1990s he kept hundreds of the member of the main Islamist Movement in Tunisia on trial accusing them of many allegations of torture and some of the party leaders were sentenced to life imprisonment. The Tunisia Islamist groups faced a lot of restrictions based on their political activities. During the rule of Bourguiba many leaders of the Islamist party went to jail or were forced to leave Tunisia. This happened when the Islamist Tendency Movement voiced the criticisms which they had against Bourguiba and his party. After this action many of the Islamist party members were arrested for what referred to as defaming the president. The arrest of the Islamist leaders led to minimized role of Islamists in the Tunisian politics thus reducing the presence of the Islamist. In 1984 the government went after MTI again since they felt that the organization could be behind the antigovernment protest which were happening in the country at that time. The government also refused MTI to form as a political party. Despite these actions by the government, MTI still continued to raise their voices against the government particularly against the economic policies mainly which seemed to be affecting the low class. Again, Bourguiba arrested other MTI prominent figures and charged them with having plotted to overthrow his government and thus they wanted to create an Islamic State (K...