One week after the departure of Hosni Mubarak, thousands of protesters returned on Friday, Feb. 18, 2011, to Tahrir Square in Cairo, the capital of Egypt, to celebrate the fall of his regime. (Credit: Patrick Baz/AFP Archives)
Fifteen years ago, a wave of revolutionary upheaval shocked the Arab world, propelling to the forefront a generation of young people demanding greater social justice and political freedom. But in a region where political space had long been tightly controlled, early victories were short-lived.In Egypt, the 2013 coup brought then-Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power, extinguishing hopes for democratic change that had already been undermined by a brief period of Islamist rule. In Tunisia, President Kais Saied’s gradual consolidation of power since 2021 effectively brought the country’s democratic transition to an end. Elsewhere, several countries descended into civil war, notably Libya, Yemen and Syria.Even when a second wave of protests erupted in Sudan, Iraq, Algeria and Lebanon in 2018 and 2019, the resilience of entrenched...
Fifteen years ago, a wave of revolutionary upheaval shocked the Arab world, propelling to the forefront a generation of young people demanding greater social justice and political freedom. But in a region where political space had long been tightly controlled, early victories were short-lived.In Egypt, the 2013 coup brought then-Field Marshal Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to power, extinguishing hopes for democratic change that had already been undermined by a brief period of Islamist rule. In Tunisia, President Kais Saied’s gradual consolidation of power since 2021 effectively brought the country’s democratic transition to an end. Elsewhere, several countries descended into civil war, notably Libya, Yemen and Syria.Even when a second wave of protests erupted in Sudan, Iraq, Algeria and Lebanon in 2018 and 2019, the resilience of entrenched...
