On Oct. 5, Steven A. Cook, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, discussed the failures and impacts of the Arab Spring in a talk about his new book “False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East.”
* This might take a few seconds to load.
He felt that Washington analysts were comparing the Arab uprisings to the democratic transitions seen in the American Revolution, World War II or the Cold War, “rather than understanding what was happening.”
By Jenny Lindell, Burkle Center Intern, Class of 2018
UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, November 2, 2017 — Stephen A. Cook (https: //www.cfr.org/experts/steven-cook), Enri Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and an expert on Arab and Turkish politics, gave a talk on October 5, 2017 at the UCLA School of Law. The talk, open to students, staff, and the public, was sponsored by the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, the UCLA Center for Near Eastern Studies, and the International and Comparative Law Program at the UCLA School of Law. In a lively hour and a half, Cook discussed his latest book, “False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East (https: //www.cfr.org/book/false-dawn),” about the failure of the Arab Spring to bring about meaningful change in the Middle East.
The Inspiration Behind “False Dawn”
Cook introduced the book as his effort to “understand what happened in the Middle East after the uprisings in the Arab World, and why Turkey's transition to democracy (https: //www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/07/how-erdogan-made-turkey-authoritarian-again/492374/), which seemed so hopeful fourteen, fifteen years ago, ended up the way that it has now.” He described the book as a “natural progression of the previous two books” he wrote. His first book discusses the impact of the military on political development in Turkey, Egypt, and Algeria, and drew the conclusion that these militaries “were so inexplicity linked to the regimes that these regimes were not just stable, they were ultra stable,” and therefore, these regimes were unlikely to experience uprisings and regime change. However, only a few days after finishing his second book on Egypt in January 2011, Cook found himself in the midst of protests in Tahrir Square (http: //www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-16716089) in Cairo, Egypt, and observed Egyptian citizens “screaming ‘we want the end of the regime, bread, freedom, social justice.” This “extraordinary moment” was “the kernel for this project” that would eventually result in “False Dawn.”
Another inspiration for the book came from the “lazy analysis” he saw coming from Washington, D.C. between 2011 and 2012. He felt they were anticipating “a democratic pot at the end of these rainbows,” when really “what [experts] know about transitions to democracy is that the vast majorities of them actually fail.” In addition, Cook was struck by the “odd effort to shoehorn these uprisings into successful models of transitions into democracy.” He felt that Washington analysts were comparing the Arab uprisings to the democratic transitions seen in the American Revolution, World War II or the Cold War, “rather than understanding what was happening.”
Why They Occurred
Cook’s talk focused on a few important messages about the Arab Spring and its aftermath that he addresses in his book. Cook started off the core of his discussion by attempting to answer the question of why the uprisings occurred. “Egyptians...said it the best when in Tahrir Square they demanded bread, freedom, and social justice,” he remarked. “This was not purely an economic message,” he added, it’s about “economics, it’s about dignity, it's about freedom, it's about democracy.” When trying to identify why the uprisings occurred when they did, he answered by visibly shrugging his shoulders and pointing out, “there’s no way of knowing these things…the very nature of uprisings or revolutions...is that they are unpredictable.”
Why the Uprisings Failed to Bring About Change
Cook transitioned to talking about the institutional stability that prevented the uprisings from succeeding. Cook explained, “We tend to think of these things as revolutions… the Egyptian revolution, in Tunisia the Jasmine Revolution (https: //www.britannica.com/event/Jasmine-Revolution) … they weren’t though, actually revolutions. They were uprisings, they chased leaders from power, but they did not result in the overthrow of the political institutions of these states, and importantly, the social orders that mutually reinforced these political institutions.” The uprisings failed to overthrow the long lasting, corrupt institutions of the state, which led to an inability to affect real change. Instead they left behind “strongmen”— such as Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan (https: //www.britannica.com/biography/Recep-Tayyip-Erdogan), Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (https: //www.britannica.com/biography/Abdel-Fattah-al-Sisi), Libyan Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar (http: //www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27492354), and those surrounding President Beji Caid Essebsi (http: //www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/tunisia-s-ruling-party-implodes-as-president-beji-caid-essebsi-stands-accused-of-trying-to-build-a-a6718626.html) in Tunisia—who lead with authoritarianism effectively ensuring “that those people [who] want to live in more just, open, and democratic societies cannot succeed.”
Identity After Uprising
Lastly, when discussing how each nation’s identity changed post-uprising, Cook said that “the fight over identity, over what it means to be from a place in the Middle East, over what the relationship is between the individual and the state, religion and society… those battles, those questions became more intense as things became more contested.” The governments that were left behind after the uprisings failed to establish any sort of identity beyond a “state-manufactured” identity that lacked a “positive vision of the future.” In Cook’s view, this partially explains the ideological appeal (https: //www.brookings.edu/opinions/fighting-ideology-with-ideology-islamism-and-the-challenge-of-isis/) of messages such as those of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi because he offers followers an identity and purpose through ISIS.
The Role Of The U.S. Moving Forward
Cook, an expert on U.S. foreign policy, affirmed that the United States “has made tremendous errors,” and he emphasized that “we can’t get the Middle East right.” When looking at problems in the Middle East, Cook said, “the tools of American diplomacy are not relevant to these problems.” The struggles in places like Egypt and Tunisia are defined in existential terms by their citizens, added Cook, explaining that they are “fighting for the heart and soul of [their] country,” and that there is little that the President of the United States can offer under those circumstances. Cook further explained that the citizens mostly do not want the United States weighing in on their conflicts saying that it is “not really our business.”
Cook summed up his lecture with a poignant assertion about the future of the Middle East: “The era of authoritarian stability has given way to an era of authoritarian instability, and that is what we will be contending with for a very long time, … for which nobody really has a very good answer… [and] that’s what the book is about.”