Arab Spring is a recent Middle East phenomenon that showed the good, the bad and the ugly of revolution. The last lecture on week 9 was more likely an analytical implementation on different Middle East country revolutions. Arab Spring has been started on 18th of December, 2010 in Tunisia; and gradually it went to Yemen, Libya and finally now in Syria. Wherever Arab Spring has been raised, people have been more awake and demanded for freedom. Many people assumed it as a conspiracy of western world, while others thought it as a timely demand from the citizens of Arab world.
In the next session, we had been showed four speeches about different concept of Arab Spring. Among all the four I liked the first speech that was delivered by Dalia Mogahed on “Attitude that sparked Arab Spring.” The main reason that attracted me was sophisticated analysis without biasness. She provided some statistics that were evidence for her speech. Another speech that I liked was about “Why Libya’s revolution did not work and what might?” delivered by Zahra Langhi because she provided very realistic reasons for the failure along with suggestion. Other speeches were also well structured and informative.
The second video was about the Egyptian Revolution which by Wael Ghonim who explained why and how this revolution started off? He introduced this revolution as Revolution 2.0. According to him, previously the country was full of poverty and unemployment. No job was there for public. “The psychological barrier of fear’ made them to be kept at home for long time. But when they understood it is time to revolt and come out of home, they started communicating with all types of citizens through internet, sharing their similar ideology and beliefs. They opened a page on facebook and connected each other. Firstly, they came out to the street in Alexandria and showed silent protest. Later when government sent the military and police, they also joined them because the citizens were their people, family and relatives. Mainly, the revolution was inspired by Tunisian spring and believed in winning because they had dreams, unity and faith.
By analyzing the videos and news, I have found out that the fundamental constitution of the revolution were to gain freedom of choice and dignity of citizenship. Another common observation that everybody knows was these revolutions were mainly done by the young.
After that we had a practical experience of Q&A session with one of my Syrian friends. The students asked many question and he was able to answer them reasonably. I really like the session specially the videos that provided me many information on Arab Spring.