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Editor’s Note

The wave of demonstrations, protests, riots, coups and civil wars that engulfed North Africa and the Middle East, known as the Arab Spring, was touched off on 17 December 2010 in Tunisia. Bloody civil wars followed in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen and major uprisings broke out in Bahrain and Egypt. Countries that experienced large and small street demonstrations and protests included Algeria, Iran, Lebanon, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Sudan, Djibouti, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Western Sahara, and the Palestinian territories. The initial wave faded by mid-2012, morphing into what some have called Arab Winter – large scale conflicts or a return to authoritarianism. Only the Tunisian uprising resulted in a form of constitutional democracy.

This book seeks to capture and contrast events in six countries (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria) during two moments in time – THEN (Arab Spring - 2011) and NOW (Arab Winter - 2016). The events are reported and interpreted by three of The Independent’s distinguished and widely acclaimed foreign affairs journalists who have specialized in coverage of the Middle East for many years – Robert Fisk, Patrick Cockburn, and Kim Sengupta.