As the popular refrain of “
ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam” rang out across the Middle East in the early months of 2011, the nature of political life and relations between rulers and ruled began to fragment. The chant – which roughly translates as “the people want the fall of the regime” – became the slogan of the Arab uprisings, a wave of protests in states across the region.
The uprisings highlighted the fractious nature of political life and relations between the people and their governments, resulting in the toppling of authoritarian rulers in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.
But these were limited victories – and protesters elsewhere were not as successful. Over the course of the following ten years, close to 1 million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced from their homes. The protests revealed a profound political crisis that continues to resonate across the region. And in most cases, the issues that provoked the protests – economic inertia, a lack of political accountability, rampant corruption and a growing gap between rich and poor – continue today.