Social Movements: The Arab Spring

Revolutionary social movements against government have become very common now. It all started with Tunisia where the tipping point occurred to inspire many countries around the world to stand up and hold their own revolutionary social movements, asking for changes in the governments and the ruling system.








If the voices of the people are heard and the government takes their interests seriously, then the social movement will end soon. However, if the people felt their voices are not being heard and nothing is going to happen about their interests they will keep on protesting. Sometimes the ruling party will resist the change even if it meant killing the people of the country like what is happening in Syria and what was happening in Libya. In that case the revolutionary social movement will try to get armed and fight back or stick with a peaceful protest. To get to that place and start moving, the people know that they will have to give many sacrifices. At this stage many people feel they have nothing to lose. Many people suffer of deprivation, objective and relative. Many people don’t have clean water to drink or a shelter for protection, others feel that they are not getting what they deserve relative to what others working close to the government are getting. They feel that the money of the country is not being distributed in the right way, they feel its being stolen by those close to the government.



As a Syrian my self, I know that the movement that is taking place in the country surprised many people in Syria. Even though the people of many Arab countries were rising against their governments at the time, many expected that Syrians will not move because they would be scared by what happened in the 80’s when the former president, the father of the current president, killed over 40,000 civilians when the Muslim Brotherhood movement was flourishing. However, as I said earlier, it seems that many people don’t have anything to lose, they know what’s the consequence of their action, but they just don’t care anymore.

Of course, the Internet has played a significant role in these movements. For example, In Syria the media is not allowed in. So, the media coverage comes from revolutionists who record videos of the events and send it thought the Internet to different news channels. Moreover, the Internet has played as a platform for the revolutionists to communicate and organize the movement across political boarders. Revolutionists inside Syria communicate with other revolutionists outside the country, and those outside the country also organize protests against the Syrian government, like in Qatar and France.