The Arab Spring: One Year After

Just over a year ago, a wave of political upheaval began in Europe’s southern neighborhood that shook the power structures throughout the region. In those authoritarian countries, in which until then, any form of opposition opinion or protest had been strictly prohibited, masses of people took to the streets and demanded greater political and economic participation, better governance and the civil rights denied them for decades. For Europe, these demonstrations of individual courage, collective determination and political progress signified and continue to signify that, for the first time, realistic prospects for a democratically governed Mediterranean region are in the making. For this reason, the significance of the sociopolitical transformation in the North African and Middle Eastern countries can be compared to that of the democratization processes in Eastern Europe – 2011 joins 1989 as a date of historical import, this time for the peoples of the Arab world, but again for Europe as well.