Arab Spring

The Arab Spring was the chain of protests, revolts and, in places, civil wars that spread through much of the Arab world from December 2010. Beginning in Tunisia, it brought down long-ruling leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. Elsewhere it was contained or crushed, and in several countries it gave way to civil war. The demonstrators' best-known slogan was "the people want to bring down the regime".

The protests drew on long-standing grievances: authoritarian rule, corruption, human rights abuses, unemployment, poverty and rising food prices. Many Arab states had large numbers of young, often educated people with poor prospects, and in many of them wealth and power had been concentrated for decades in the hands of a ruler and his circle. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter helped activists, especially in Egypt and Tunisia, to organise and spread news, although how much they mattered is debated.

On 17 December 2010, in the Tunisian town of Sidi Bouzid, a street vendor named Mohamed Bouazizi had his wares confiscated by an official and set himself on fire in protest; he later died. Demonstrations spread across the country, and on 14 January 2011 President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia after 23 years in power. Inspired by Tunisia, Egyptians began mass protests on 25 January, with the largest crowds in Cairo. After 18 days, on 11 February, Hosni Mubarak resigned, ending a presidency of some 30 years. Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood won the presidential election of 2012, but after renewed mass protests the army removed him on 3 July 2013.

In Libya, protests that began in February 2011 quickly turned into an armed uprising based in Benghazi. When Muammar Gaddafi's forces moved to crush it, the UN Security Council on 17 March authorised a no-fly zone and "all necessary measures" to protect civilians, and France, the United States and the United Kingdom began bombing pro-Gaddafi forces. Tripoli fell in August, and Gaddafi was killed near his home town of Sirte on 20 October 2011. In Yemen, months of protests, defections and fighting forced President Ali Abdullah Saleh to accept a deal brokered by the Gulf Cooperation Council, and he handed power to Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi in February 2012 in exchange for immunity.

In Bahrain, protests led largely by the Shia majority against the Sunni monarchy began in February 2011 at the Pearl Roundabout in Manama. In March the government declared a state of emergency, troops from the Gulf states, mainly Saudi and Emirati, entered the country, and the protest camp was cleared. In Syria, the arrest of children in Daraa for writing anti-government slogans in March 2011 set off protests against the government of Bashar al-Assad. The security forces' response helped turn the uprising into a full-scale civil war that lasted until Assad's fall in December 2024.

Large protests also took place in Morocco, Algeria, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Sudan and Lebanon, and smaller ones in Saudi Arabia and other states. Most monarchies, notably Morocco and the Gulf states, absorbed the pressure and kept order without major change.

By mid to late 2012 the initial wave had faded. The years that followed, sometimes called the Arab Winter, brought civil wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen, the army's return to power in Egypt and the rise of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Tunisia was long seen as the main success, though observers later noted a return to autocracy there too. A second wave of protests from 2018 toppled the long-serving presidents of Sudan and Algeria in 2019, suggesting that the pressures behind the Arab Spring had not gone away.

Our 2010 map shows the Arab world on the eve of the uprisings, from Tunisia to Syria, with borders that the events did not change.