The world of Arabs is of extreme significance for both global politics and the global economy. This region is featured by slow democratic development, political instability, religious extremism (Islamic fundamentalism), and many reasons for long-time inter-ethnic conflicts, especially Israeli-Arab relations, and regional insecurity. The world of Arabs needs comprehensive political, social, and economic reforms which the Arab Spring’s protesters requested in 2010-2013. The crucial issues of reforms are about national development and governance, a succession of political authority, removal of political authoritarianism, and Arab relations with Israel and the USA.    

The Arab world comprises 22 member states of The League of Arab States, including those from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and connected by numerous bilateral and multilateral conventions and agreements. These 22 member states are different in size, form of government, and richness of natural resources, but all have many common attributes that unify them culturally, confessionally, and ethnically: language, alphabet, religion, history, customs, values, and traditions.

Arab League Organization

The League seeks to promote political, cultural, and economic cooperation between its member states (including representatives from the Palestine Liberation Organisation). It was founded in 1945 by six founding Arab states: Iraq, Egypt, Transjordan (today Jordan), Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. One of its first political acts was an economic boycott of Zionist Israel from its proclamation in 1948 until the Oslo Accords in 1993.

However, attempts to present a united political (Arab) platform on some broader issues followed by harmonious economic cooperation has been limited, usually due to American interference in Arab affairs. Such failure is also due to the functioning of the Arab League Organization as its decisions are binding only on member states that voted for them. Internal factors, like form of state (monarchy or republic) have influenced Arab States’ disagreements.

External relations have historically and currently divided the League. During Cold War 1.0, they supported either the USA or the USSR. Currently, their relations with different external actors (Russia, China, USA) directly determine the political and economic actions of member states, as, for instance, in the two Gulf Wars or and Arab Spring in 2010-2013. In 2011, the Arab League condemned Libyan leader Muammar Gadaffi’s human rights abuses and called for imposition of a no-fly zone over Libya in an unprecedented request for UNSC intervention.     

Historical context

Most of the Arab world for some four centuries consisted of provinces under the Ottoman Empire. The first half of the 16th century saw three large Islamic empires: Ottoman Empire on three continents, Safavid Empire in Persia, and Mughal Empire in India. In the mid-16th century, these three empires controlled huge territory and seas from Morocco, Austria, and Ethiopia to Central Asia, the Himalayas, and the Bay of Bengal. Much of Central Asia was held by another Turkish dynasty – the Uzbek Shaybanids, whose capital was in Bukhara.

Khanates with Muslim rulers existed in the Crimea and on the Volga River at Kazan and Astrakhan. All these states have been established by Turkish-speaking Muslim dynasties with an extreme military feature. All except the Safavid (Shia) Empire in Persia were of Sunni Islam. This encouraged sharp antagonism, rivalry, and warfare in which the Middle Eastern Arabs were involved. Up to 1639, a majority of the Arabs became governed by the Ottoman Sultans.

By the time of the death of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II the Conqueror in 1481, the Ottoman Turks conquered the Byzantine capital Constantinople, and the biggest portions of the Balkans. Thereafter, the sudden revival of Islamic Persia under Ismail I (1500-1524) pushed them back to the western part of the Middle East. However, Ismail of Persia was defeated in 1514, and Syria and Egypt were conquered in 1516-1517 by the Ottomans.

Since then, the Ottoman Empire was indisputably the greatest Muslim state of the time. Around 1530, Ottoman subjects numbered around 14 million compared to England which had 2.5 million, or Spain 5 million. To European observers, the power of the Ottoman Turks flowed from the strength and discipline of the Ottoman army.

The end of the Ottoman Empire after WWI should have resulted in the independence and self-governance of the Arab people. However, provisions of the secret British-French Sykes-Picot Agreement (May 16th, 1916) divided and kept most of the Arab states under their imperial rule. Two decades after WWII, some Arab nations are still fighting against colonial domination by the West. French colonialism ended in 1946 in Lebanon and Syria, in 1956 in Morocco and Tunisia, and in 1962 in Algeria. However, the Bretons after WWII sought to extend their colonial power in the Middle East by signing treaties and making connections with loyal Arab local rulers.

Nevertheless, the impact of the Western colonial legacy on the new Arab countries is enduring for several reasons:

1)     The Western colonial order established traditional systems of administration with absolute family rule in the majority of Arab communities. Over time, the colonists offered their loyal Arab regimes financial, military, and technological support.

2)    The political authority and territorial-administrative border have been marked, recognized, and institutionalized to protect the present situation. What was created and maintained as political entities by the French and British was not for coherence, economic functioning or historical reasons, but to satisfy their colonial-imperial interests.

3)    The legacy of the British colonial rule of Palestine (the Mandate) from the 1917 Balfour Declaration to British withdrawal in 1948, not only failed to integrate or harmonize the Judeo-Jewish and Arab Palestinian communities, but intensified the differences to become one of bloodiest conflicts in post-WWII history (2023-2024 Gazan War, Israeli aggression on South Lebanon in 2024).

4)    Political anti-colonial opposition groups started to be formed in the Arab Middle East and North Africa between two world wars to resist foreign colonial power and administration and gather the Arabs to support their own political independence. The opposition movements later fought for reforms of Government and benefits for the working class and poor social strata.

5)    A social stratum was created and grew increasingly large as modernization followed by oil revenues gradually transformed the societies of the MENA. The new working class became directed against both foreign (Western) occupants and their exploitation. It became a national struggle and attracted those Arabs who had been marginalized within their societies. Step by step, the opposition political groups, parties, and movements within the Arab world attracted socialists, Islamists, communists, and nationalists for the realization of their political and national tasks.  

Thus, the historical context of the Arab position in the contemporary Middle East is crucial to understand current tensions and wars, and to bridgethe values between the Arab world and the West. Foreign (Western) involvement and occupation of Arab provinces in the Middle East did not end with independence. The most troubling problem pondered by Arabs today is the humiliating fact that the Arab region is the only part of the world where foreign armies still invade and occupy Arab lands. The present Western advocacy of democracy and freedom are deeply mixed with images of historical Western colonial domination and occupation in the contemporary Arab collective memory.

The second Gulf War in 2003 (Western military invasion of Iraq) illustrated how the problems of the Arab Middle East very often are transformed into a state of greater regional complexity. Instead of progress toward solutions to current problems, the Arabs appeared to be involved in a situation of total insecurity and administrative-institutional incapacity.

While reforms are a common wish in Arab countries, it is unclear how to break out of old undemocratic political models of government and how to develop and encourage competent, ethical, and accountable systems of governance in the majority of the MENA countries as was the agenda of the Arab Spring in 2010-2013. No less challenging for the Arabs is to be able to lead effectively within a new reality in global politics where “pre-emption” with armed forces and “threatening diplomacy” are increasingly becoming the methods of conflict resolution.

Arab Spring (December 17th, 2010-October 26th, 2013)

The Arab Spring began in mid-December 2010 in Tunisia and in the spring of 2011, people’s demonstrations brought an end to the 23-year-old regime of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The Tunisian protests began when Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire when he could no longer pay police bribes. These events inspired protests against authoritarian regimes in the MENA region - Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Iraq, Jordan, Bahrain, and Oman. But general regime change across the Arab MENA did not come as quickly as in Tunisia.

During the Arab Spring and up to the present, thousands of protesters in the MENA region were /are tortured, imprisoned, or sentenced to the death penalty. The Arab Spring continued in Syria, Yemen, and Libya in the form of a prolonged civil war in which different groups of Islamic fundamentalists participated. In some countries it became a long and devastating civil war; the initial optimism by the international community which saw the protests as a democratic cross-regional movement became gradually pessimistic.

Some features of the Arab Spring can be summarized as follows:

Poor long-term economic growth across the MENA region contributed to dissatisfaction with the economic situation. In general, economic growth of the Arab world during the last half century has been negative and rates of unemployment, underemployment, and poverty were among the highest in the world in 2010. Social inequalities increased along with the corruption and clientelism of the ruling classes.

The Arabs who took the streets desired democratic freedoms and accountability of their Governments and Presidents/Kings. They wanted recognition of their human and political rights and protection from repression at the hands of the state and its corrupted institutions.

The international dimension of the Arab Spring is differently presented by different academic researchers and actors. Many regional orientalists claim that the people of the MENA region are ungovernable and deserve autocratic rule. Others emphasize that external actors share responsibility for ill-targeted economic policies and hard-line state repression. The negative influence of the IMF policies on Arab employment and the promotion of export economies by Western actors like the European Union are well known.

External powers have also supported regional autocratic regimes from the Cold War 1.0 onward. The essence of the Arab Spring was that external factors continued to do so after the uprisings began. Western powers were concerned about stability, anti-terrorism and anti-Islamic radicalism policies, and their bilateral relations with Zionist Israel. Even the Arab Governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, or regional Iran, influenced the outcomes of the Arab Spring by supporting existing political authorities or certain military-political organizations (Hamas and Hezbollah).