It might sound absurd to make such a statement, given the usual and not entirely erroneous presentation of chaos and violence that has come to popularly define what is occurring in many of the struggles in the region.
Some have attempted to make the Arab spring ‘unknowable’ as a socio-political phenomenon, all the better to obscure the intentions of its subjects and justify counterrevolution. But the reality is that its aims of establishing freedom and democracy in a region run by decades-old systems of tyranny exists beyond its popularly accepted timeline.
How many people in the liberal democratic world knew or cared about the daily lives and hopes of the millions of Mohamed Bouazizis who were struggling across the region? How many even considered the dreams and fears of the Khaled Saids? It was only through the former’s self-immolation and the latter’s torture and murder that ‘Arabs’ forced themselves into the consciousness of the collective world.
