When Tunisia started a campaign to rise up against the corrupt ways of the society in which they live, Egypt then Syria decided to host revolutions of their own. In doing so these countries have only seen failure in the eyes of the World."The Tunisian and Turkish parties have affirmed that Tunisia represents a successful model of some Arab Spring countries." (World Bulletin) Egypt drafting a constitution such as Tunisia did, but only to land back in their vicious cycle. Syrian citizens uprising against their government only to end up in a bloody battle for their lives. The Arab Spring from 2010 to now has held great success for the goals of Tunisia, but in following this revolution with goals of their own Egypt and Syria have acquired little success.
“Something stirred on July 26, though. Tunisia had not witnessed the heedless crackdowns and street violence that have been the norm in fellow Arab Spring states like Egypt, Libya, Syria, and Yemen. Sure, in Tunisia there were serious religious and political disagreements, but those were being worked out in relative calm.” (Dasgupta) Tunisia in overthrowing of President Zine al Abidine Ben Ali face a wall to get over. This wall was created through a history of secular rule. In order to achieve getting over this wall, a team consisting of 35 American, Bangladeshi, British, German, Indian, Spanish, and Tunisian human rights and economic advocates, a U.S. state assistant attorney general, international law experts, and members and staff of the Tunisian Ministries and Parliament and the U.K. Parliament was assembled. Although the Tunisians needed to make decisions of their own to make this team drafted a constitution in which they felt best represented the goal of Tunisia.
“Tunisia is a free, independent and sovereign country. Islam is its religion, Arabic is its language, and it is a republic. There is no possibility of changing this article.” (Bar’el) This is what the new constitution of Tunisia states. To much appeal of most Tunisian citizens, the rejection of Religious movements aspirations to insert the Koran or Islamic law into the foundation, held great success for the people. As well as the request to restrict the inequality of men and women have been rejected. As a result not only does the constitution come off as the most liberal out of all the Middle East, but also as a new model of political conduct, in which election victory is not a necessary condition for power. This is because the well being of the public and stability of Tunisia are more important than political power. Although Tunisia will still need some work on their economic policies, in time this can be sorted out.
“Egypt’s recent arrest of four Al Jazeera journalists, right before the new year, forced me to admit something I had been reluctant to acknowledge: the Egyptian revolution has failed.” (Quartz) In following the visit in October 2013 of Andre Vltchek, a journalist, filmmaker, and investigative journalist, the realization is made that this civil war within Egypt isn’t even about Egypt anymore. These ordinary citizens don’t even know who to support. They do `know that at 15:30 hours everyday once the muslim brotherhood is done with their prayers they are coming straight to the streets to create violence. There is no logic in use, the military wants to retain its power while the Muslim brotherhood wants to gain their power back. The revolution in Egypt got to the point where no one cared about social justice, education, alleviation of poverty, jobs, or even which direction Egypt will go. These people are simply killing each other and for what?
So like Tunisia Egypt has tried to draft a constitution of their own. Although there may have been 98.1 percent of voters voting yes on the new constitution only about 38 percent of Egypts 53 Million voters actually voted. So how could this be? Well the constitution arguably still leaves a lot of power to the military and prior to the voting anyone who held a sign or banner saying “no” was arrested. “There were no reports of major irregularities during the vote, though election monitoring was limited, with about 5,000 observers for more than 30,000 polling stations.” (Al Jazeera) Although Mohammed Morsi may be out of political rule, whose to say that if General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi runs, who is almost guaranteed victory if he does, Egypt won’t end up on the deep in military rule in which the revolution aimed to remove.
"The Tunisians had already been freed. The Egyptians were on their way to be free. We thought it was our turn to be free too"- Amer Matar, organizer of the first major protest in Syria (BBC News) This was the thought of Syrians as they attempted to use Tunisia as a model for their revolution. The main complication being the failure of President Bashar al Assad’s resignation from office. In spite of this the rebels began seizing large parts of Northern and Eastern Syria. As a way to fight back against the rebels the President and its rebels began to fight back and regain territory and popular centers in the South and West. Although there is much conflict neither side has managed to gain any leverage and this is leaving Syria back where they began.
“The world will face terrible consequences over many years to come for failing to intervene in Syria,” (The Guardian) Tony Blair Said. Although the US have been punitive to send military support, the president was forced to destroy Syria’s chemical weapons. Although the National Coalition had agreed to a peace conference and are insisting that President Bashar al Assad step down he refuses. As a result, “The number of those killed surpassed the 100,000 mark in January, when the UN stopped counting. Activists in Syria say as many as 146,000 people may have been killed in the unrest thus far. Over 2.5 million Syrians have sought refuge in neighboring countries, while 6.5 million have been displaced within the country.” (RT) The world wants to join forces to eliminate the Assad Regime but who knows what kind of turmoil this will cause if the rest of the World steps in. This has been the main struggle of Syria and if Bashar would eventually step, which he won’t, they may be able to move on as a Country.
“Like a suit that is still baste-stitched before the final fitting, that’s how Tunisia looks today as it celebrates the third anniversary of its revolution this week.” (Haaretz) Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia have seen some serious corruption yet only one of them has made it out alive. Is this because the outside world stepped in? Is it because they did it more peacefully than Egypt and Syria? I’m not entirely sure. The main problems as stated above are the failures of Egypt to overthrow the military rule as well as the Muslim Brotherhoods refusal to give up their rule. As well as Syria’s President refusing to give up his rule. It truly appears Egypt and Syria have only made a revolution for the worse.
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