Protests, violence, revolutions. This has been the norm recently throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), dubbed the “Arab Spring.” The uprising began in January in Tunisia in January against former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was thereafter ousted, and picked up steam with the protests in Egypt, which led to the downfall of long-time president Hosni Mubarak. Insurrections then sprung across the region to, most notably, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Bahrain, but also to Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Djibouti, Sudan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Many of these anti-dictator movements have been suppressed by the use of force from their respective governments. Though things remain largely unchanged in many countries in the MENA, the current wave of demonstrations has made its mark on those autocratic regimes. Most analysts and reporters have rightly contextualized these mass uprisings as a reaction to political, societal, and economic disrepair. A prime example is Egypt, where Egyptians became fed up with the dilapidated economy, zero job prospects, poor health care, and lack of housing. The unemployment rate is around 10%, yet 88% of Egyptians between the ages of 15 to 29 are unemployed—meaning they had nothing else to do except remain on the streets and “fight for their rights.” Similarly in Yemen, the general unemployment rate hovers around 8% and for those under 30 years of age, the rate is between 16-45%. One can assume the same for Libya, which also has a general rate between 15-30%. This allow for Syrians and Libyans to take to the streets without suffering economic consequences (since many do not have jobs). But what if these socio-economic factors were not the primary reasons for the revolutions, but rather helped induce an evolutionary change in the protestors and demonstrators, which has pushed them to their limits?
An ecology article entitled “Humans as the World’s Greatest Evolutionary Force” by Stephen R. Palumbi makes the case that humans, and human technology, has accelerated evolution in our eco-system through the industrialization of “our agriculture, medicine, and landscape.” Palumbi states that “technological impact has increased so markedly over the past few decades that humans may be the world’s dominant evolutionary force” and efforts to decrease evolutionary change are usually ineffective. In short, he cites examples of the human impact on the speed of evolution in pests and diseases to resist man-made antibiotics and pesticides, claiming “such changes are apparent in antibiotic and HIV resistance to drugs, rapid changes in invasive species, and pest adaptation to biological engineering products.”
If bugs evolve to resist pesticides, then perhaps there is an evolutionary force for humans to resist corrupt regimes and demand better governance. This is not to say that Middle Easterners and North Africans are analogous to pests, vermin, diseases, or viruses; nor do corrupt dictatorships resemble pesticides and antibiotics. Rather, it is the comparison of unknown forces present in small organisms and human beings that enable both to build up defense systems to resist either a debilitating pesticide or in our case, authoritarian rulers. As species of organisms and animals evolve, the species Homo sapiens also exhibits evolutionary changes, particularly in intellectual thought. Yet just because Homo sapiens are one species, not everyone within the species evolves at the same time. This does not make anyone less human than any other, but it is generally accepted that each and every person on this planet is different, particularly in intellect. Moreover, it is evolution by context. As each situation is unique to each country throughout the MENA, the new challenges that develop and the ways that those citizens will respond to these challenges will ultimately make them evolve. It must also be noted that here, evolution does not equate with civilization and those who live in the MENA are no less civilized than those who live in Europe or the United States. Normally, ecology and international affairs do not go hand in hand, but perhaps there can be another way to argue these developments in the MENA. What if there has been an evolution of thought and feeling in the MENA protesters that has come about as a way to resist the suppression and dominance of the governing regimes?
The combination of protesters’ grievances of being denied the right to freely express themselves, the constant violations of civil liberties, and no real political representation—not to mention the high rates of poverty and lack of economic and education opportunities—have exacerbated the need to form democratic governing structures in place of the current authoritarian and/or monarchial regimes. The result is that what has been transpiring in the MENA has been the evolution of thought and feeling into a more democratic outlook. The citizens of the MENA have evolved from acquiescing to their “revolutionary” leaders and the accompanied forms of authoritarian government that came to oppose full-fledge Western democracy; even though many of these leaders claimed they ran democratic states, such as with Ben Ali in Tunisia, Mubarak in Egypt, Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen, Abdelaziz Bouteflicka in Algeria, and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Although the MENA leaders constantly claimed to bring about the much-needed reform for its citizens, it has never come about. They blamed the West for their own shortfalls, and many times this has rallied the public to the support of the government. But no more. The MENA citizens know the system is broken and are now in the process of rebelling to implement other, more socially progressive systems of government that are more democratic in nature.
According to Palumbi, two factors move the process of evolution: natural selection and technology. Natural selection, or survival of the fittest, is when certain traits and characteristics—in our case ideas and feelings—become stronger and eventually the mainstay due to the influence of the surrounding environment. It is still to be determined whether the MENA protesters will be the ones to survive, along with their new ideas of how to govern a state; yet it is rather hard to eliminate ideas. For example, the people of Libya, Yemen, and Syria have built up this will to survive through the decades of injustices and corruption to show that they will stand no matter what force the government may bring to bear on them. Those brutal methods utilized by government forces, such as deploying the military to open fire on civilians, beatings, tear gassing, unlawful arrests, detainments, disappearances, and even murder are what Palumbi calls the “social price of evolution.” These “overkill strategies” such as we see in Libya, Bahrain, Syria, and Yemen, try to “slow the evolution of resistance” in hopes to eliminate the opposition to their rule. Firepower, however, is no longer a deterrent. In Syria, unofficial statistics put the casualty number at over 1,000, but Syrian demonstrators are standing strong against Bashar al-Assad. The situation is similar in Yemen, with over 500 killed and hundreds more wounded from the military response of President Saleh, who has recently arrived in Saudi Arabia for medical treatment for an injury sustained in a rebel mortar attack on his presidential palace. Additionally, a major social price throughout the MENA is the shutdown of the economies, causing losses of income and livelihoods. Yet economic difficulties are not unusual in this region and it appears that these citizens are ready to sacrifice their current situation for future prospects.
Palumbi refers to another method, “refuge planting,” which is the planting of “insecticidal toxin genes” into crops to repel pests without using external pesticides. Translated for our context, refuge planting is the planting of spies in civil society or within the opposition movements to dismantle the opposition and report back to government officials. In Egypt and Libya, demonstrators detained who they believed were plain clothes police officers or government subsidized mercenaries trying to tip the balance of power away from the citizens in the streets. This begs a question to be asked as to why some evolve but others do not, namely those who support and protect the acting regime. This is not easy to answer. Although one may be surrounded by the proliferation of ideas relating to new governance and liberty, does not necessarily mean that one will absorb them. A comparison would be the use of flu shots and their effectiveness. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention the flu shot is not 100% effective nor does it prevent the flu similarly in children and the elderly. In shot, the flu vaccine can kill one strain in some people but not the same strain in others. And as flu strains adapt and change, so does the vaccine. It takes time and patience to prevent against the flu such as it takes time for people to evolve intellectually, an essentially towards democracy. This does not mean supporters or corrupt regime are inherently “bad” or “stupid” rather they have not been opened to new ideas and ways. Revolution gives everyone something to believe in and fight for, regardless what side one lies on.
The impact of technology has advanced the evolution of the citizens in the MENA. The oppression and lies by MENA governments have not been able to stop the proliferation of technology, which has helped spread new ideas through civil society—ideas people may have either read or experienced through the likes of travel, the internet, TV, and even text messages. Yet just by having access to upload pictures or videos of the protests, including the military responses, enables more people to experience the movement and to understand the flaws of the current governing system, thereby reinvigorating the evolutionary drive of democratic ideas to solve the problems. In particular, social media networks, namely Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube, have been utilized to arrange demonstrations, disseminate information and news, and show the world the violent reactions of government forces. For example, the April 6th youth movement in Egypt that began in 2008 and took control of the Egyptian Revolution was only possible with the use of cell phones and the Internet, as they used the web to spread anti-government messages, videos, and assemble Egyptians to demonstrate. Further, Syrian and Yemen opposition groups utilize Facebook and other social media outlets to organize mass rallies on specific days, including Syria’s “Friday of Anger” and Yemen’s “Friday of Honoring Martyrs.” Telephone technology has played a major role in Libya, where engineers siding with the opposition have been able to restore and secure rebel phone lines that aid the rebels in locating targets and people as well as passing on information to friendly forces. Without these phones (and the support of NATO technology) the rebel forces would have been crushed and evolution suppressed. But because of the spread of technology in the MENA, people do not need to a join physical opposition groups to be introduced to different views on the world and governance. Now, one can turn to the internet or TV. As Dina Shehata states in her recent Foreign Affairs article, “The Fall of Pharaoh,” technology has created a “new generation of protest movements open to members of all ideological backgrounds and to those without any particular ideology at all.”
The evolutionary change in the citizens of the MENA has resulted in new thoughts, ideas, and strategies toward governance, and has culminated into the current situation of the region. Technological advancements have proliferated the availability of knowledge, which in turn has progressed intellectual evolution. Those in the MENA are now fighting for their liberty because they reject the injustices brought on by their current (or former) governing administrations. Although it appears that the result of the protests will be democracy, or at the very minimum democratic principles such as freedom of expression, equal rights, and free and fair elections, how these uprisings evolve into newfound political, social, and economic action will be fascinating. Each country’s state of affairs is different and we cannot assume these reformed countries will be overtly democratic in nature or that they will be receptive to the relationships and interests of the West, particularly the United States. However, because democratic values have been a part of the foundation of the uprisings, the development of a sort of democratic hybrid governing scheme could come about, one where religion plays a role in domestic and international policy making. Or new dictators could once again emerge, setting the MENA population backward, but still fueling the fire of evolution within.
Palumbi suggests that we should try to use the evolution of different species and diseases to our advantage, and so too should we support the protesters of the Arab Spring. This is not the first time a group of peoples has risen up against their government and it will not be the last. Yet the outcomes of the MENA uprisings will have far-reaching implications. Let us hope that those “fittest” to lead these new countries will do so in accordance with the will of the protesters.
