How to Start an Uprising: Lessons from the Arab Spring
The uprisings of 2011 seemed to come from nowhere. In fact they drew on years of organising, economic grievance and a few crucial sparks.
When a Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, set himself on fire in December 2010, few imagined that within months rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen would fall. The uprisings looked spontaneous. Scholars and activists have since identified patterns that explain how and why they started.
The ingredients
- Grievance. High youth unemployment, rising food prices, corruption and police abuse had created deep resentment across the region.
- Networks. Labour movements in Egypt, online activist groups and human rights organisations had spent years building connections and experience. Egypt's April 6 Movement grew out of support for striking textile workers in 2008.
- A spark. Bouazizi's self-immolation in Tunisia, and in Egypt the Facebook page commemorating Khaled Said, a young man beaten to death by police, turned private anger into public mobilisation.
- Communication. Satellite television, especially Al Jazeera, and social media spread images and tactics across borders.
- Divided elites. Uprisings succeeded where armies refused to fire on crowds or turned against the ruler, as in Tunisia and Egypt. They were crushed or turned into civil wars where security forces stayed loyal, as in Bahrain and Syria.
What starting is not
Starting an uprising is different from winning one. Movements that were good at mobilising crowds were often poorly organised for elections, negotiations and governing. That gap helped explain the counter-revolutions and conflicts that followed.
The legacy
The Arab Spring's lesson for activists is that mass protest can topple rulers remarkably quickly when grievance, organisation and elite division coincide. Its lesson for everyone else is that what comes next depends on institutions that protest alone cannot build.