It is important that those who are criticizing the course of the Arab Spring and warning against its outcome stop and take a look at the positive political action seen inside the communities that have already experienced that spring. These communities are boiling with demands, actions, coalitions and divisions as it is currently revealed by the Egyptian presidential elections and the internal conflicts it will produce in the ranks of the Islamic movement. This climate was never known in Arab societies since the retreat of the mandate and the colonialism which were imposed on the Arab states mid-last century. It is the first popular revolution – ever since these countries gained their independence – that is not mobilized by foreigners and does not serve a foreign agenda. Moreover, the eruption of the Arab revolutions generated doubts and reluctance at the level of the outside world's position toward them, as it was revealed by the Western stand vis-à-vis the Egyptian revolution at its beginning and the Western reluctance to truly support the Syrian revolution for the time being. From Tunisia to Libya and from Egypt to Yemen, the Arab region is going through a blooming political era in the broad meaning of the word. Indeed, there are ongoing debates and discussions which are led to the street at times and conveyed by newspaper articles and television shows at others. At this level, there is nothing wrong with this action being characterized by loud voices and acute criticisms and speeches. It is like learning how to walk after the Arab communities had been paralyzed for a long time, which is why it is normal that they trip and fall a few times before standing on two steady feet once again. There is no doubt that the concerns surrounding the Arab spring's fate are justified, after some hastened to describe it as being an autumn or a winter among other things. Those advocating this bleak vision are basing their positions on numerous considerations, some of which aim at serving the revolutions to correct their course and salvage them, while others aim at serving the deposed regimes for the toppling of which the revolutions broke out. It would be useless to argue with those claiming to be concerned about the revolutions, considering that they were benefitting from and allied with the former regimes. Hence, they are still defending their policies under the headline of upholding the country's security and that what is known is better than the unknown. On the other hand, there are regimes using the alleged national slogans to justify their stay, claiming to be the only ones capable of achieving the nation's aspirations and dignity. This team believes that higher national interests to achieve the alleged goals of the regime at the level of resistance and liberation are worth sacrificing the domestic demands and the calls for political and social rights. As to those using the turmoil sweeping Arab societies following the revolutions to justify their position in support of stability, they are disregarding the fact that this stability was like a fire beneath the ashes and was the one that led to the major explosion currently witnessed in these societies. Alongside the fearful over the deposed regimes or the ones on the brink of collapse, some are fearful over the expansion of the Islamic tide inside the new regimes. The latter are divided between hardliners from within the religious minorities who are naturally entitled to fear for their rights as equal citizens but are instinctively afraid of all that is Islamic, and those who are extreme in their secularism and perceive the religious rhetoric as being a threat to the civil societies they are seeking. But alongside these groups, this same team includes some who are criticizing the influence of and expressing fear toward the Islamists, while they are actually the allies or creation of a regime that does not conceal its religious identity represented by the Velayat-e Faqih. In any case, the fearful over the influence of the Islamic movements are forgetting two facts. The first is that these movements' renewed rhetoric is characterized by exceptional openness that has not been seen since their bloody fallout with the former dictatorships. This particularly applies to Egypt and Tunisia, as well as to the experience of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria. It is important for those criticizing the emergence of the Islamists and those who fear them to read well into the new political rhetoric of the latter and judge it with an open mind and not based on their underlying fears. As to the second fact, it is related to the new climate in which this Islamic tide is spreading, i.e. the democratic pluralistic climate characterizing the regimes and societies following the popular uprisings we have witnessed. Therefore, it will be hard to see the Arab communities going backward or allowing the stay of regimes similar to the ones against which they turned, regardless of these regimes' color and whether they are civil or religious.
