The Arab Spring

Abstract

Earlier this year London played host to the highest ranking female politician in the Arab world, her position made possible by the advent of the Arab Spring – and specifically the Jasmine Revolution which catalysed it in her home country of Tunisia. Mehrezia Labidi came to hold the position as the Deputy Speaker of the Tunisian National Assembly following the election of Ennahda in the first democratic elections in Tunisia after the Jasmine Revolution in October 2011. A few months earlier the Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Tawakul Karman1 had also been in London following her role in popular protests in Yemen, which catapulted her into the international spotlight. Th e common thread running through their experiences has been the events of the Arab Spring during the last 18 months. Th e development of the Arab Spring across the Middle East was not a gender based issue, yet it was the issue of women’s rights which sought to defi ne it in the perception of the ‘West’. Th e increase in articles from a wide spectre of British, European and American journalists on the role of women sought to use women’s rights and gender issues as a mark of success of the Arab Spring.2 Th e Western audience watched (and continue to do so) with baited breath at the Arab Spring unfolded across the Middle East, with hopes for new democracies and liberal revivals as old dictatorial regimes were overthrown and rebelled against. As has become a common part of Western discourse, the measurement of democratic success is weighed in the treatment of women, their advancement in politics, media and social spaces and the ways in which women’s issues are defi ned and responded to.