Around a year ago we were reminiscing about how a decade had passed since the mass protests in Alexandria, Egypt in June 2010 against the police murder of a young Egyptian, Khaled Mohamed Saeed, and since the start of the Third Sahrawi Intifada in Gdeim Izik, a protest camp in occupied Western Sahara, in October 2010. We talked about how for us that marked the beginning of a life-changing epoch.
In the year that followed, a wave of revolt spread throughout the whole Middle East and North Africa region, in what came to be called the ‘Arab Spring’. These uprisings were acknowledged as world-shaking events. The Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions ignited historic upheavals in North Africa and beyond. People there celebrated the toppling of the dictators, Ben Ali and Mubarak, and looked ahead towards meaningful change in their lives. These uprisings, like most revolutionary situations, released enormous energy – a collective effervescence, an unparalleled sense of renewal and a shift in political consciousness.
Shattering stereotypes
The peoples of the region are all too familiar with the racist stereotype and contemptuous cliché embodied in the facile falsehood that ‘Arabs and Muslims are not fit for democracy and they are incapable of governing themselves’. The imperial and colonial dominance over the region has led to it being seen in some quarters as a homogeneous entity that can be systematically reduced through negative tropes.
