From hundreds of years, common people in Arab countries were struggling with the problems like political corruption, inflation, unemployment, poverty, human right violations. In the year 2010, the anger against the Government exploded in Tunisia. Arab Spring was a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests, riots, and civil wars in the middle-east countries. It then spread like epidemic in the neighbouring countries which were in similar condition.
Starting from Tunisia, this wave spread to almost all other neighbouring countries. This was first triggered by self-immolation of activist Mohamed Bouazizi in the Tunisian city Sidi Bouzid. Protests started in whole country against Government. Finally, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was exiled by demonstrators and he fled to Saudi Arabia. Egypt, which was facing the similar problems as Tunisia, was inspired by the uprising in Tunisia. Protests started against the government. They were strongly suppressed by President Hosni Mubarak using his power. But protests continued to increase. Finally President resigned and transferred his powers to Armed Forces. At Tahrir Square, Essam Sharaf was appointed as Prime Minister of Egypt.
Demonstrations were performed in a similar way in countries like Libya, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia. In Libya, protests became more violent as Government tried to oppose protestors using army. After long battles, and with the help of other countries, activists succeeded in overthrowing the Government. President Muammar Gaddafi was brutally killed by opposite forces. In other countries also, Government was ousted and new leaders were chosen by people.
New concepts of riots were discovered in these civil wars. The special feature of the Arab Spring was the use of internet services to spread the patriotic wave among people. Protestors used social media to spread their messages. Due to this, Egyptian Government restricted the internet access across the entire nation during civil war.
Though, Arab Springs succeeded in conveying positive message to the rest of the world, it is so disheartening that the major aims of this revolution were widely disputed. It has also disappointed those hoping that the removal of corrupt rulers would translate into an instant improvement in living standards because financial damage caused due to war to these already poor countries pushed them into serious trouble of poverty and inflation. The attitude of the government towards this revolution was also shocking. Instead of listening to the demands of people and coming up with a solution, they tried to smash the crowd by using their military powers eventually creating war like conditions.
About 170,000 lost their lives in this civil war. Conditions are not normal in these countries till today.
This movement has disproved the passivity of Arabs towards political issues. It gave a message to the world, that common people will not tolerate any form of injustice against them. We can define Arab Spring as a revolutionary movement done for long term achievements and whose final outcomes are yet to be known.