Omar Hassan speaks to Algerian scholar and activist Hamza Hamouchene, coordinator of Environmental Justice North Africa and co-founder of the Algeria Solidarity Campaign, about the mass movement sweeping the country.
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While the Arab uprisings of 2011 have been in a lull, the tentacles of capitalism continue to mutate in Tunisia. The Arab Spring was a mass movement to topple a dictator but it was strengthened by the self-activity of labour. Not only did they directly challenge capital but they helped to convert the decades of lethargy and state domination of the UGTT into a more active union.
Six year's ago, Mohamed Bouazizi's protest inspired millions of others to protest their regimes and the status quo. The protests did not bring the renewal that was promised by the branding phrase "Arab Spring," but rather what followed were more of the old calamities. To say that the old Arab regime is better than the revolt against it is like saying that the accumulation of pus in a boil is better than incising the boil and letting the pus out.
"I left India more convinced than ever before that nonviolent resistance was the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom." - "The Autobiography of Martin Luther King Jr.," edited by Clayborne Carson. In this decade - in which more people are using nonviolent resistance than ever before - scholars and practitioners alike would do well to consult the pragmatic and principled wisdom of Gandhi and King in building a way forward.
Protests expanded across the country this week in reminiscence of the Arab Spring. Unemployment is high, and citizens are unhappy with the pace and direction of reform.
Dialogue is essential. It is the only way to put an end to situations of conflict. Otherwise there will be particular interests that will push conflict. There are governments, which claim that they want democracy but at the same time they encourage and assist terrorist bodies. To bring peace to the world is not an easy task because this depends on social justice.
Six short films profile nine women across Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen, with each detailing their journey through uprisings and crackdowns. While each story is unique, they often share an arc similar to the larger political developments of the post-revolution countries in the region, where an initial hope for change is quashed by increasing repression and conflict.
Keep one thing in mind: the rebellions of the past three years were led by Arab millennials, twentysomethings who have decades left to come into their own. Don’t count them out yet. They have only begun the work of transforming the region.
As unrest simmers in the Middle East and the United States edges toward detente with Iran, Israel and Saudi Arabia are trying to ride out the storm together.
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