KARACHI: One of the myths associated with the uprisings in the Arab World, is that this is a recent phenomenon. But this is untrue as the first uprising in the Arab World began in Egypt where the reigning monarch King Farouk was overthrown by Gamal Abdel Nasser, a nationalist military officer, back in 1952. This led to a domino effect in the Arab World where throughout 1950s and 1960s popular mobilisations took place toppling foreign powers that were ruling them. The difference now is the current uprisings have been led by the peoplethemselves and overthrowing dictators that have been ruling them for decades.

These thoughts were articulated by Raza Naeem, a social scientist and a research fellow at the Lahore School Economics, on the subject of `Why Arabs Rebel?` at the Pakistan Institute of International Affairs on Saturday.

Using Egypt, Tunisia and Turkey as case studies, Mr Naeem waxed enthusiastically about the subject with informative historical perspectives along with first-hand accounts as witnessed by him and his Arab friends about ground realities in these countries.

Beginning with Tunisia`s uprisingand subsequent events, he said: `Ruled by the French, Tunisian lawyer Habib Bourguiba, cut a deal with the French and brought freedom to his country. During those early years of freedom, literacy was the primary focus of the Bourguiba regime. A secular leader, he enforced a progressive version of Islam, so much so that during the month of Ramazan, he would address the people on state television with a glass of orange juice on the table. So the Tunisians were used to that kind of relaxed version of Islam. But then when Zine elAbidine Ben Ali came to power, he enriched his family at the cost of ordinary Tunisians. He cut a dealwith the IMF, the Saudis built pleasure spots in the country and all the while the condition of ordinary people deteriorated.` Berating the Western powers for supporting the regime of the `kleptocrat`, Mr Naeem said that the Western powers felt that Tunisia did not have democracy but at least its women were allowed to wear western attire and roam freely.

About the circumstances that led to the suicide of the Tunisian vegetable vendor Mohammed Bouzizi and the subsequent protests, he said that interestingly, there were two such suicides earlier, too, but they were not reported, because under Ben Ali`s autocratic regime there was no freedom of the press and hence Tunisians did not know about those two suicides. Bouzizi`s death was in fact reported by the Al Jazeera television channel and that was how the Tunisians and the rest of the Arab world found about Bouzizi leading to widespread protests in the region.

Responding to a query that Tunisia seems to be having a peaceful transition, Mr Naeem said that according to his friends that even though the Islamist party, Ennahada, in Tunisia had relatively cleaner credentials and it had made all the right noises but it did not have an economic programme, had taken loans from the IMF, unemployment continued to be a major issue and vigilantes go up to women telling them to go back to their homes.

He also gave an in-depth historical perspective on Egypt`s politics and the current uprising. `The Ikhwan or the Muslim Brotherhood were used by the British in the colonial period against the communists and nationalists demanding independence for Egypt. Later throughout the dictatorships, after Nasser, they organised massacres against people and tourists and had an onagain, off-again relationship with the Mubarak regime.

`The Ikhwan joined the current uprisings during the fifth week of the protests only when their young brigade cajoled them to become a part of the protests. Hilary Clinton who was the US secretary of state at the time admitted to being in touch with the Ikhwan for over a decade. The Ikhwan also assured the West that they would follow the Turkish model, which basically meant an utter compliance to US demands.

But, Mr Naeem added, as the Mubarak regime had withdrawn from providing health and food to the public, the Ikhwan had filled in the niche by setting up clinics and seminaries that he himself visited in 2006. And hence they got support at the grass-roots level, he said.

Concluding the talk, the young scholar said it was too early to write the obituary of the so-called Arab Spring since such processes could sometimes take a century.