A new Arab street in post-Islamist times

by Asef Bayat, Foreign Policy

The popular uprising in Tunisia has surprised many — Western observers, the Arab elites, and even those who have generated this remarkable episode. The surprise seems justified. How could one imagine that a campaign of ordinary Tunisians in just over one month would topple a dictator who presided over a police state for 23 years? This is a region where the life expectancy of ‘presidencies’ match only the ‘eternal’ rule of its sheiks, kings, and Ayatollahs who bank on oil and political rent (western protection) to hang onto their power and subjugate their people. But the wonder about the Jasmine revolution — and the subsequent mass protests in Algeria, Yemen, Jordan, and more spectacularly in Egypt’s numerous cities on Jan. 25, 2011 — also comes from a common mistrust among the Arab elites and their outside allies about the so called ‘Arab street’ — one that is simultaneously feared and pitied for its‘dangerous irrationality’ and ‘deplorable apathy.’