The Crisis in the Middle East

By Xavier Markowitz

In 2011, a multitude of protests happened around the same time in the Arab world. They toppled long time rulers in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. These protests also started an uprising against the Syrian dictator, Assad. This made people very optimistic about the future of the Middle East; they thought that the region might become democratic. It was called the Arab Spring. Three years later, Libya is becoming increasingly violent, Syria is in a civil war, in Tunisia the government is fragile and in Egypt the military has thrown the president out and killed hundreds of his supporters. I believe that the Arab Spring failed and the Middle East will not become a democratic region.

I think the Arab Spring failed because the countries that had protests were unable to build stable governments. They were not able to do this because the dictators had left the countries in a fragile state. I think that the Middle East will not become a democratic region because of Egypt. It is the largest country in the Arab nation with a population of 82,000,000. It is often thought of as the trendsetter country. Egypt's military is becoming stronger every day. They use tanks, snipers, and tear gas to attack protester encampments, and have turned Cairo into war zone. Some people worry that if Egypt can't become democratic, the entire region will become a land of dictators. "If democracy can't take hold there, some experts worry that the entire region is in danger of slipping backward into despotism." (Upfront Magazine) I think this is a meaningful sentence because when it says "slipping backward" I think that means that the countries will be even farther back along the road to democracy then when they started. I think this truly shows the gravity of the situation.

The Arab Spring and the crisis in the Middle East makes me think deeper about humanity because it shows that without political cooperation, the countries could not create order when they wanted to. Although they stood up for themselves they could not make a running country because everyone wanted different things. In Egypt, some people wanted the president out and some people wanted him to stay in office. While people were arguing, the military took over the country and killed most of the president's supporters. This shows that without cooperation between countries they could fall into war.