Things That Have Gone Wrong With The Arab Spring

Dennis Gruending covers a talk by Nahlah Ayed, London-based foreign correspondent for CBC Television.  These things that have gone wrong are many, and not terribly surprising if you were paying a attention.  A couple of them, as teasers:

Absence of political choices

No matter what upheavals occur, the same old regimes that come back as new ones. For example, when President Hosni Mubarak was forced out of office in Egypt, the only well-organized political opposition was the Muslim Brotherhood, which had existed for many years but had been suppressed by the regime. The Brotherhood had experience as an opposition but not in governing and things went badly once they were elected. The army then deposed the elected president Mohamed Morsi and is in control once again. Ayed said that in Egypt there “was no third way” that would represent the young people who had been instrumental in the protests that deposed Mubarak.

And:

Continued exclusion of women

Even in Middle Eastern countries where women are well represented in the workforce, Ayed said, they are not allowed to “step up” politically. Women were active in some of the Arab Spring protests, but there appears to be no place for them in the structured political systems of government or opposition.

There are a few positive signs as well, which you can read about through the link.