Once Mubarak’s regime fell, and the celebrations in Tahrir Square subsided as Egyptians began to use Twitter to organize city cleanings rather than overthrow their dictator, the inevitable question of the hour became, “who is going to be next? Will the governments of the Middle East fall like dominos, one after another?”
Tunisia and Egypt have shown us that what was once inconceivable is now inevitable. However, many people have not acknowledged that Tunisia and Egypt coincidentally have remarkably similar populations. Both populations are overwhelmingly young, connected to the Internet, and most importantly united to overthrow the dictator that has presided over their country their entire lifetime. Their shared economic conditions and technological savvy fueled and expedited their respective revolutions. Many of the other Arab states lack this serendipitous national unity, making their hopeful future democratic transitions more challenging.
In order to realize the inevitability of a democratic transition, it is necessary to first acknowledge and work through the challenges that each regime presents in order to attain their common goal. Since Mubarak’s fall, two very different nations, Libya and Bahrain, have captured international attention as protestors fill the streets and vow to prove that their country is the next example of democracy in the Arab world.
Libya
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is the longest ruling leader in the world, serving Libya for over 41 years. Though his regime does not engage in the same extreme levels of corruption or kleptocratic practices as seen in Ben Ali’s Tunisia or Mubarak’s Egypt, many of the Libyan people are discontent with his de facto absolute leadership and the economic consequences of his tireless rule. Though Libya’s oil yield has increased dramatically during the past decade, making Libya the most oil-rich country in all of Africa, the Libyan people have seen few tangible benefits. Instead, they are forced to go for months without being paid forcing two-thirds of the oil-rich country to live below the poverty line.
On Thursday, February 17th, Libya staged a day of rage much like Egypt’s January 25th. However, though we slowly began to focus our gaze on Libya as “the next domino,” it is important to remember that Libya is not Tunisia or Egypt. It is Libya. Though it faces many of the same political and economic woes as Tunisia and Egypt, it also faces very different challenges that must be addressed before it is expected to be “the next domino.”
Gaddafi’s regime has responded to the surge of protests by hiring foreign mercenaries to violently crackdown on, and in many cases openly murder the protestors. Many media outlets are beginning to refer to recent events as “massacres” rather than “protests” because of the astounding quantity of bloodshed alone. Libya’s protests, whether they are successful or not, are already being described as “violent” rather than “peaceful” interrupting the pattern of relatively peaceful protests in the Middle East. In only six days, more than 200 have been killed with over 900 injured. Hospitals are overwhelmed with patients, and are running out of blood and other essential supplies. If the death toll were to continue at this rate, at least 600 will die in the next 18 days compared to the 300 that died in Egypt.
Differences in information technology also disrupt the domino theory. Whereas Egypt is Africa’s most connected country, boasting a 21.1% Internet penetration rate nation-wide, only 5.5% of Libyans are connected to the Internet and only 2.8% have Facebook pages. The social media that does exist is tightly controlled by the government, making it a largely ineffective tool for organizing.
Despite the low Internet penetration rate, Libyan authorities have adhered to the Mubarak model and permanently shut down the Internet. Though this may not affect as many Libyans, it provides a significant problem for journalists. Since Libya is one of the few countries that seal its borders to all foreign journalists, there is no “on the ground” reporting in the international media as there was with Egypt and Tunisia. International journalists are thus forced to rely on Libyans’ eyewitness accounts, something that becomes increasingly problematic as the Internet is more and more restricted and eventually turned off. The only correspondence or source of information that remains are static-ridden phone calls with the sounds of gunshots in the background.
If Libya’s protests succeed, making Gaddafi step down and cede his power to an institution such as the military, Libya’s tribal system could make this transition chaotic, uncertain, and potentially lead to civil war. Since the military is split along tribal lines, each tribe might begin vying for power, potentially igniting a massacre far bloodier than the anti-Gaddafi protests. This is another unique, cultural aspect that must be acknowledged and addressed before it makes the democratic transition in Libya one of extensive loss, rather than inspiring hope.
Bahrain
Bahrain, a tiny oil-rich island off the coast of Saudi Arabia, is an entirely different story all together. Unlike the economically oriented events that have unfolded in North Africa, Bahrain’s recent protests center on religious tensions between the ruling Sunni minority and disadvantaged the Shiite majority.
Although over 70 per cent of the Bahrani population is Shiite, the Sunni Al-Khalifah monarchy has been in power for over 200 years. Many Bahrainis describe the political dynamic between the two religious sects as an apartheid system where the privileged Sunni class has access to steady employment and most of the country’s wealth while the Shiite live in dilapidated slums. While the Sunnis are responsible for projecting Bahrain’s image as an economically stable, oil-rich gulf country with towering skyscrapers and a competitive, modernized economy, the Shiite have remained a silent, impoverished majority for centuries. However, following the recent successes in Tunisia and Egypt, Bahraini Shiites declared their hash-tagged day of rage on February 14th and began to fill Pearl Square demanding an end to the monarchy’s discriminatory policies.
Bahrainis are not a people united, but a people divided by religious and economic tensions. Though most Shiite Bahrainis face the same economic conditions as many Tunisians and Egyptians, there is still a sizeable portion of the overall Bahraini population that profits under the Khalifah monarchy. Unlike in Tunisia and Egypt, there have been genuine pro-Khalifah protests countering the Shiite uprising, which, though outnumbered by the Shiites, creating a marked dissonance within the protests.
Bahrain is also very technologically different from the other countries. Unlike Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, Bahrain has a variety of Internet providers and promotes itself as a center for communication and technology. If Bahraini authorities were to apply the Mubarak-patented “Internet kill switch” tactic to discourage resistance, this could several affect their future reputation in the international business community. Though it is rumored that Bahraini authorities have begun restricting Internet access and blocked YouTube, it is equally likely that so much international attention on such a small country has simply overwhelmed servers.
If the Bahrain domino were to fall, and the power miraculously fell somewhere other than the hands of the Sunni military, this would hold serious implications for the political structures of the Gulf States. A Shiite majority rule would be inclined to cement alliances with Iran, rather than the United States, most likely ending US military aid to Bahrain and removing the strategically placed US Navy Fifth Fleet from Bahraini waters. As a result, oil, international alliances, and nuclear strategy could be completely in limbo.
Photo by Ted, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
