The Arab region, as we all know, has been witnessing major political and historical events since the beginning of this Hijri year 1432 H (2011). These events have immensely affected the politics of this important region of the world and will continue to do so in the future. Their effects and marks will more than likely influence the entire world and human history altogether. They are similar to the repercussions that happened in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1980, the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact in 1991. Some said that these uprisings bear some similarity to the French Revolution which began in 1789 and had a major impact on the world still seen today. With increasing interest, amazement and joy — and, pain sometimes — we and the rest of the world watched around-the-clock news coverage on the developments of these events, which have come to been globally as the “Arab Spring” and are still unfolding. Sadly, most of them are bloody, destructive, chaotic and murky. Arab patriots are patiently waiting for the sun to rise and bring light for the murkiness to disappear. However, the same question still poses itself over and over again: What was the catalyst for these events in the first place? The attempt to answer this question will undoubtedly lead to the correct meaning of real “stability”. These events were manifested for the first time during the peaceful unrest staged first in Tunisia on 18/12/2010 then in Egypt on 25/01/2011. Their direct repercussions reached the republic regimes as well as the obsolete political regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. It is a rare popular uprising against tyranny, dictatorship and oppression, according to some American political experts. Who would have thought that Muhammad Boazizi's self-immolation on 17/12/2010 would be the spark to ignite the Tunisian revolt? Boazizi was a common Tunisian citizen, a resident of Sidi Bouzid. He decided to set himself on fire in front of his hometown's municipality after a local female police officer slapped him on the face and confiscated his vegetables cart, his only source of living. Boazizi could not find a job to make a living and support his family although he was a university graduate with academic qualifications. He did not want to beg and humiliate himself. Moved by Bouazizi's act of self-immolation, the Tunisian people, who have been suffering for so long, decided to revolt against the government and demand the ouster of the regime. As a result, protests swept over the country. The Jasmine Revolution, as it was dubbed later, was simply an overwhelming popular uprising which was peacefully staged to vent Tunisians' deep-rooted wrath at a regime that had suffocated them for 23 years during which they, as revolutionaries would say, were subjected to all forms of slavery. Despite the draconian measures taken by Tunisian security forces to suppress the protestors who took to the streets to oust the dictator, the revolution did not lose its momentum. On the contrary, the capping of protestors' demands rose to include justice and the overthrow of the regime. Twenty three days after Bouazizi's death, the Tunisian people won the battle. Theirs was a unique revolution — the ousted president fled the country to save his life. Afterwards, the regime started to collapse under continuous popular pressure. What transpired in Tunisia surprised most political observers, scientists and those interested in the Arab region's affairs. Most of them thought it was highly unlikely that any form of uprising could take place in Tunisia. And if it occurred, Bin Ali's regime would crush it and throw the leaders of protest movement into prison camps, as usual. But protestors were highly organized and their leaders were experts on modern technological communications. Besides, the army did not interfere to help the regime. All these reasons helped the revolutionaries to mobilize hundreds of thousands of Tunisians who had the same demands and legitimate grievances against the government. There was a huge sea of protesters expressing peacefully a deeply-held grudge, demanding the stop of oppression and the ouster of the regime. Moreover, protestors did not raise shallow ideological slogans; rather, they expressed simple and clear demands: any type of tyrannical government is rejected and should be replaced with the usual alternative, which is accepted globally. Based on the similarity between the Tunisian events and the events that took place in some countries afterwards, I believe that the best scientific and intellectual way to fathom what happened, and is still going on, is to use the “Introduction to Types of Governments” approach, as I am doing for the next article. The role of some visual media (TV channels, with good and bad intentions) was to show the world what was happening in Tunisia in detail at a time when most of the official Tunisian and Arabic media dubbed merely as simple riots in some Tunisian streets. TV channels showed the stages of the conflict between a regime, viewed by observers to be tyrannical and repressive, and the revolutionary people who rose against it. The whole world watched what was going on hour by hour. The deposed president and his regime could not nip the revolution in the bud and had to resort to truce and false resounding promises. But it was too late — the overthrown president and his regime had been stripped of their legitimacy to rule. The regime collapsed fast, although some of its former figures remained “actors” behind the scene. It looks like this Tunisian “spring” scene was a source of inspiration for the popular political Arab movements later. Other peoples, who suffered from the same problem, followed suit, trying to achieve what armies, opposing and ideological parties could not achieve. Egypt was the first country which benefited from the Tunisian revolution after it followed suit. The next article will analyze the Egyptian scene, its major events, as well as their positive and negative aspects. *Shoura Council Member, Professor of Political Science __
