Fez - At the start of the “Arab Spring,” the world hoped that the era of corrupt Middle Eastern dictatorships had ended.
Citizens of the Arab World took to the streets to protest their regimes, rebelling against political absurdities and economic inequalities. The silence of decades was broken by the chanting of people in the streets, crying “end the corruption! Overthrow the regime!”
The huge protests ignited the first flames of revolution in Tunisia, particularly after Bouaazizi ignited himself as a form of protest. The result of the long strikes was that a number of Arab leaders were dethroned. People began to believe that the revolution was victorious, and the age of the dictators had ended. But as time passed, all the revolutionary gains were reversed. As the masses got weaker, regimes became stronger and more barbarous than before, killing and imprisoning thousands of opposition members. These counter-revolutions put dictators—particularly military dictators—back in power, and reversed the hard fought gains made by the Arab Spring protesters.
One of the main culprits in these counter-revolutions was the global media. The media played an essential role in impeding the masses from achieving the objectives of revolution. It has conducted a fierce war against the revolutions, and has depicted the democratically elected political entities as a threat to a stable global order.
The media was particularly virulent in its coverage of democratically elected Islamist governments, such as those that were voted in in Egypt and Tunisia. The allied electronic, print, and broadcast media wage what seems like an ideological war against Political Islam, and treat it as the enemy of the Arabs.
The lenses of media are directed at the re-establishment of what has been disestablished by the Arab Spring revolutions. In short, the media is the largest driver of the counter-revolutions which have placed new dictators on thrones briefly occupied by democratically elected presidents. Were all the cries of “end the corruption! Overthrow the regime!” merely in vain? If one turns on any television channel or opens any newspaper, this would seem to be the case.
Edited by Ilona Alexandra
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Morocco World News’ editorial policy
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