Compare and Contrast: Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street

Compare and Contrast: Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street
Student’s Name
Institution
Compare and Contrast: Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street
Social movements have been used as a tool for change in society. The history of social movements dates back to before World War II. In this paper, two social movements will be analyzed. The first is the Arab Spring, which was a series of uprisings and protests that started in Tunisia in 2010 and spread to other Arab countries (Farhan & Varghese, 2018). The protests against government repression and anti-democratic leadership began peacefully, although this did not last. The existing regimes opposed these protests with violence (Castells, 2015), and some countries, such as Yemen, became war-torn and have not been able to recover. The second is the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement which was a protest that started in Zuccotti Park in New York, United States (US). It was organized to address the existing economic inequality (Cao, 2017). This paper will also provide a comparison between these two movements, the use of social media, political, and cultural context, as well as the forces that led to each movement. Further, a comparison between the two movements and other historical movements will be provided and the current and future state of resistance will be examined.
Overview of the Similarities/Differences between the Two Movements
One of the key similarities between these two movements is that they both utilized social media to spread their ideas and as a result, their diffusion rate was high. The Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia, was different than previous protests because Tunisia now had “…a community of digitally savvy activists… (Tufekci, 2017 p.15).” They also had higher social media usage and greater access to smartphones. Similarly, OWS also utilized social media to ensure that greater numbers of protestors were mobilized. Tufekci (2017 p.210) indicates that the OWS movement spread even to other countries because the protestors relied on “…the power of social media to balance the ridicule or silence traditional gatekeepers…” Through social media, these two movements diffused quickly to protest against injustices within their respective societies.
Another similarity is the significance of the physical places protestors occupied during the protests. In the Arab Spring movement, protestors from different Arab countries occupied different public spaces that held certain significance to them. For instance, in Egypt, protestors occupied Tahrir Square because it was close to parliament headquarters and hosted around ten ministries of government (Said, 2020). This was not the first time protestors tried to occupy this space. In the past, they had been unsuccessful as police prevented them from getting to the square (Said, 2020). During the Arab Spring, occupying this space was considered the first step towards bringing change and ousting the current regime. The successful occupation of this space inspired them to further advance their agenda. In OWS, protestors occupied Zuccotti Park because it was within the financial district, and being private property, police could not evict them without permission from the...