Arab Spring, Essay Example

Since the inception of the Arab uprisings in 2011, there has been an ongoing debate regarding whether or not the domino of conflicts and social movements constitute a revolution or a revolt. Both the Egyptians and the Tunisians overthrew the draconian dictators presiding over their respective countries, and the civil war that erupted in Libya resulted in a victory for the rebels over Gaddafi’s government while the crisis in Syria intensified with the various uprisings springing up. Various Gulf states suffered from social instability and profound uncertainty, thereby rendering the situation in the Middle East fluid for a protracted period of time. The questions remains whether or not there really was an Arab Spring, of it was merely a series of uprisings that were not altogether linked to one another. Indeed, the Islamic State has encroached in Iraq, Egypt is no back under the control of the military, President Assad maintains control in Syria amidst a tense civil war, and Libya has devolved into a state of utter chaos. These events that took place in the Middle East have yielded inconclusive results, many of which have been slow to manifest. Nonetheless, hundreds and thousands of people have lost their lives, which is why the term Arab Spring–created by an American scholar—does not seem fitting. Rather, “Arab Spring” has emerged as a phrase used by individuals in the West referring to a series of relatively peaceful uprisings by ordinary people who were fed up with corrupt government regimes in the Middle East. Moreover, it intimates that antiquated government regimes would just collapse in the face of such uprisings and popular will. Although initially it appeared that old government systems would collapse, with the flight of the Tunisian president to Saudi Arabia after acting as dictator of Tunisia for twenty three years. Thereafter, regimes in Jordan, Oman, and Algeria all were reformed and experienced vast changes therein. However, as mentioned previously, the current state of the Middle East reveals that the Arab Spring never truly existed and has created a mess in the Middle East.

Although the Middle East remains one of the wealthiest locales across the globe as a result of the substantial amount of oil reserves there, the GDP growth of Middle Eastern countries remains quite slow in the aftermath of the Arab Spring in 2011. Protests and uprisings have continued to hamper various markets there that serves to perpetuate pejorative perceptions of the region as a whole. Destinations such as Tunisia, Syria, Egypt, and Libya have all suffered for the past four years, while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have benefited from the domino of uprisings. Tourism has sharply declined in the region due to the instability that continues to plague the region. Within the Middle East, air transportation is the primary mode of travel. Air transport accounts for the major source of travel within the region, yet the Arab Spring has resulted in the decline of air travel both within the region and from an international perspective. New private airlines have experienced bankruptcy because of the dearth of mergers within the region. In many of the countries in the Middle East, infrastructure such as transportation and tourism remains underdeveloped as a result of the rampant instability that continues to plague them on the heels of the 2011 Arab Spring.