Tunisian vendor Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation on December 17, 2010, was not just an individual’s final act of desperation but it also symbolized a generation’s collective scream of protest against a system that stifled democratic rights of people and denied them economic opportunity.
Bouazizi’s dream to make an honorable living through hard work came to end at a highly inflammatory moment for the Arab world and North Africa street as the fiery passion for “bread, freedom and social justice” soon engulfed the entire region with unprecedented demonstrations in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
The metastasizing region-wide unrest took dictatorial regimes, intelligence organizations and world economic institutions by surprise, as none had predicted a sudden surge of protest as symbolized by the Arab Spring uprisings.
This week, a World Bank report candidly admitted the fact that traditional economic indicators of the region belied ground reality. Hardly anyone had read the intensity of frustration the middle class felt. It was the tipping point that claimed Bouazizi’s life because venal rulers – in this case the mayor and the municipal officer – had deprived him of his basic right to livelihood.
The study “Inequality, Uprisings, and Conflict in the Arab World” finds that the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) represents a puzzle. Before the onset of Arab Spring revolutions, the region had been making steady progress in terms of the World Bank’s twin goals of eliminating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity.
In the language of economy and development, the study says the percentage of poor people was declining in all economies, except Yemen. The incomes of the bottom 40 percent, measured at 2005 PPP-adjusted per capita expenditures, were growing faster than average expenditures in most Arab economies.
Not only did MENA reach the Millennium Development Goals relating to poverty reduction and access to infrastructure services (especially, drinking water and sanitation, and internet connectivity), but also made important strides in reducing hunger, child and maternal mortality, and increasing school enrollment, the study notes.
Yet, starting in late 2010 there were revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen and Libya, a rebellion that has led to a protracted civil war in Syria, and widespread popular discontent in many other countries, researchers say.
“The Arab Spring events caught the world by surprise. Standard development indicators failed to capture or predict the outburst of popular anger during the spring of 2011. What could explain this conundrum, which we refer to as the ‘Arab inequality puzzle’? Was economic inequality much higher than suggested by household expenditure data? Or were the grievances linked to factors other than economic inequality, such as decline in the overall quality of life, growing corruption, and lack of freedom, among others? ”
For answers to these questions, the study cites new research on monetary inequality (Hassine, 2015; van der Weide et al. 2015a, 2015b; Johannesen, 2015) and subjective wellbeing in MENA (Arampatzi et al., 2015), conducted as part of a comprehensive study on economic inequality, uprisings, and conflict in the Arab world (Ianchovichina et al., 2015).
What actually happened was that the people felt stuck in an unresponsive system and the middle class in particular was frustrated.
“Ordinary people were frustrated as they could not share in the prosperity generated by the relatively few, large and successful Arab firms. They struggled to get ahead by working hard. Reflecting diminishing marginal utility, the widespread system of subsidies could not compensate for all these problems; subsidies mattered less for the wellbeing of the middle class than they did for the wellbeing of the poor and vulnerable.
“The social contract of redistribution without voice stopped working. The middle class wanted more – it wanted voice, real opportunities and accountability.”
A possible answer to the Arab inequality puzzle, the research says, lies in the widespread dissatisfaction of people, especially those in the middle 40 percent, with their quality of life.
Perceptions that people cannot get ahead by working hard became more prevalent. Young men like Bouazizi were especially unhappy as they struggled to find decent jobs and start families.
“These grievances were symptoms of the deep structural issues in Arab economies. The authoritarian model of government, prevalent in the developing MENA region prior to the Arab Spring, relied on a social contract, sometimes called the ‘authoritarian bargain, which extended benefits such as free public education and health, energy and food subsidies, and guarantees for public employment in exchange for political support. “
The Arab Spring uprisings exposed the cracks in this model. The old social contract stopped working and the middle class was particularly frustrated.
“In 2011, the Arab people spoke loud and clear, voicing grievances crucial to their wellbeing. Yet, the Arab uprisings did not deliver the change people hoped for and the situation deteriorated significantly in some countries as uprisings morphed into civil wars. Importantly, many of the factors that made people unhappy before the Arab Spring are still present today.”
Since 2011, civil wars have broken out in four countries, terrorist incidents have risen and violent extremist groups like Daesh have taken control of parts of Iraq and Syria.
“Rather than economic inequality per se, we find that inter-group (ethnic and/or sectarian) inequality and its relationship with spatial inequality may have played a role in the increased incidence of conflict and radicalization in the MENA region.”
The economic losses of the imbroglio have been huge.
“The civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen have erased years of development progress and inflicted widespread suffering and displacement on a scale not seen since World War II. In several countries, state services have collapsed and large areas are controlled by terrorist groups. Syria’s case has been most dramatic with hundreds of thousands killed, disabled, and impoverished and millions driven away from their homes and wide spread infrastructure destruction. The costs of the Syrian war and the spread of Daesh have cost the Levant region an estimated $35 billion in lost output during the 3 year period since mid-2011 (Ianchovichina and Ivanic, 2014).”
My take on the study and the ongoing multiple crises:
First, the study is an eye opener for all countries, great and small. It reveals that beneath apparent economic progress lurk frustrations of the people. Therefore, there is a need for the world institutions and the governments to find new ways to determine the actual economic health of the people, and not rely on traditional data analysis.
Secondly, no regime can stop collective upsurge of demands for democratic rights when people decide to stand up for their rights. Regimes, as in Egypt, may silence the movements for the time being but in the long run the status quo has to go.
Thirdly, popular movements can only succeed if nations and societies are united. Divisions along ethnic, tribal and sectarian lines have reversed the hard-earned Arab Spring progress. Only leaders who unite people can achieve democratic rights for their people.
