OLLI Mason E-Blast: “What Happened to the Arab Uprisings? Syria as Focal Point”
Past Event
Monday, September 18, 2017 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM EDT
Mason Club
Exclusive Mason Faculty Breakfast Series!
Lecture Details Available Below
OLLI is offering two 3-lecture sessions fall term. Each session costs only $33, which includes 3 stimulating lectures, 3 continental breakfasts, and 3 free parking sessions at Mason. The lectures will be held in the exclusive Mason Fairfax Faculty Club featuring a Mason professor led discussion on a topic of interest. You are welcome to register and pay for a non-OLLI member/friend to accompany you.
For more information or to register, click the titles below:
F901 Mason Faculty Club Breakfast Series 1
Mondays, 9:30–11:00, Sept. 18
- September 18, “What Happened to the Arab Uprisings? Syria as Focal Point”
Dr. Bassam Haddad, Director, Middle East and Islamic Studies Program, Associate Professor, Schar School of Policy and Government
For casual observers, the Arab Uprisings took a sharp turn to mayhem. For cynical observers, the democratic uprisings in the Arab world were always an anomaly that was confirmed by consequences. For idealists, the uprisings were the true expression of the quest for freedom and dignity that must prevail, even in the short term. The reality is that the uprisings are more complex, less conclusive, and, finally, not over. A good starting point is to think less of the Arab Uprisings (or the “Arab Spring”) as a whole as the unit of analysis and consider the six individual cases separately as the units of analysis. Despite some commonality, each case involves a different history, society, state structures, and relations, both internal and external. The trajectory of each case reflects the interaction and synergy among these factors in a rapidly changing region and a shifting global context. Two broader factors impinged on outcomes: on the one hand, geopolitics penetrated each case in a particular manner that both thwarted expectations and reproduced either the pre-uprisings structures or the conflicts deeply embedded beneath their weight—perhaps with the relative exception of Tunisia. On the other hand, the uprisings ironically provided an entry point for new totalitarian movements and sentiments (in old bottles) that recalibrated the preferences and patterns of coalition formation among powerful international actors. The status-quo today reflects the combination of these two factors in relation to local/regional struggles. This talk will address these various trajectories with emphasis on the Syrian case, and with Egypt, Libya, and Bahrain as comparative cases.
