The turmoil in Arab countries that is called the Arab Spring is conventionally said to have been sparked by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi in a small village of Tunisia on December 17, 2010. The massive sympathy this act aroused led, in a relatively short time, to the destitution of Tunisia’s president and then to that of Egypt’s president. In very quick order thereafter, the turmoil spread to virtually every Arab state and is still continuing.
Most of the analyses we read in the media or on the internet neglect the fundamental contradiction of this phenomenon – that the so-called Arab Spring is composed of two quite different currents, going in radically different directions. One current is the heir of the world-revolution of 1968. The “1968 current” might better be called the “second Arab revolt”.
Its objective is to achieve the global autonomy of the Arab world that the “first Arab revolt” had sought to achieve. The first revolt failed primarily because of successful Franco-British measures to contain it, co-opt it, and repress it.
The second current is the attempt by all important geopolitical actors to control the first current, each acting to divert collective activity in the Arab world in ways that would redound to the relative advantage of each of these actors separately. The actors here regard the “1968 current” as highly dangerous to their interests. They have done everything possible to turn attention and energy away from the objectives of the “1968 current”, in what I think of as the great distraction.
