Did we change season from the Arab Spring?

Can we draw conclusions from the Arab Spring? All of these movements could not reach emancipating conditions as they are trapped between religious, military and imperialistic complex. On the other side Europe’s characteristic pathetic negligence, trapped between xenophobia, depoliticisation and economic strangulation.

In the Arab Spring from the one hand, the “people” (the lower social classes) gained once more the position of the historical subjects (and thus as subjects of the social transformation). Although, mainly only the apparent political superstructures are targeted (the often so-called regimes), when the authoritarian division of the social life remains untouched.

Libya has collapsed after the invasion of NATO (including Denmark). Nowadays, the country is divided into three main parts, where ISIS is possessing the one. Egypt has a classic military dictatorship, after the overthrown of the Muslim brotherhood, a conservative but democratically elected party. Bahrain is still living some Molotov cocktail nights on the streets, trying to overthrow a monarchy connected to the Saudis, which didn’t hesitate to bring tanks on the streets. Saudi Arabia is an ally and a “strategic partner” of the west, which is able to post to the public newspapers job vacancies for public executioners, who will do nothing more than beheadings for a living. The “humanitarian” interventions/ invasions of the west are forgotten, when they can just stop pumping oil in the west machine, causing unpredictable instability in the global economy, or to reduce the profitability of the military industry by holding their orders on western weapons. These weapons are currently tested in Yemen, another key point of the Arab spring, where the turn of the ongoing civil war fulfilled the perspectives of Saudi’s imperialistic dreams.

Of course then Syria, the total chaos. What can be said a graph like the one below can say much more than words can say. So many belligerents, so many different interests, so much complexity in order for people to find peace. It is far known that Wahhabi and Salafi movements of Islam, expressing the most conservative part of it, have long being supporting Islamic extremist groups, even from the time of Afghan – Soviet war, which lead in the development of Al-Qaeda and ISIS, with the tolerance and the support of the US and the West. Simultaneously Russia’s and Iran’s interests didn’t allow Assad’s regime to fall, disposing their influence in the region. All of these have led to an ongoing five year civil war, leaving more than 250000 dead and million people displaced.

Turkey is another player in the region. The protests and riots initiated by Gezi movement, are expressing the fight of the people against an apparent democratic but brutal regime. The operations of the Turkish police and army left back dozens dead among Berlin Elvan and Dilek Doğan. But Ankara oppression is not restricted only in the metropolis. Sultan Erdogan is introducing instability in Syria and Irak as maybe is trying to expand in the former regions of the Ottoman empire but mainly to stop the marching of the Kurdish liberation forces in Syria, which are causing headaches to the dominants of Turkey, as HDP is blocking the total power of AKP and PKK is continuing its guerrilla fight. The last months the oppression of the Turkish state has been escalated into extremes. From November the Turks imposed curfew in to the south east areas where the Kurds live, when videos are showing old grandmothers with white flags, being shot by tanks when they were trying to collect bodies from the streets. More than 170 people were burned alive in Diyarbakir trapped into basements from (NATO’s) soldiers imposing the curfew.

The fight of the Kurdish people in Syria and turkey in generally represents, the most progressive part that the Arab spring has to show. The idea from the movement for declaration of an independent Kurdish state, has been shifted to the so called democratic confederalism, with main pillars the ecology and feminism and of course the self-defense against the attacks of all the surrounded regimes.

Another result of this turmoil in the Middle East and is the biggest movement in human populations from the second world war’s time. People overthrown, displaced, and drown. Human flows, who search dignity and maybe peace first of all.

On the other side there is Europe’s characteristic pathetic negligence, either for corpses on the fronts of the Arab deserts or for the drown people in its sea boundaries. People, patients of massive individualism, afraid that they will lose whatever has remained from the welfare state, misguided by the scapegoats of the immigrants as the cause of their loss of standard of living and not of the predominant mode of production, the adopted neoliberal policies, which in a post 2008 world are trying to eradicate whatever had remained form the social rights.

On this, the far-right flourishes all around the fertile ground of Europe. And the “JE SUIS CHARLIE” transformed from a banner of defending the European meta-narrative of enlightenment, into a yell of war of the western societies.

What could be the review of the movements? Would these insurrections proved like stars that shine off when they run out of fuel? Ιn any case, the Spring signifies the uprising of the Arab world, indicates the overcoming of the fear and fatalism and holds a position in the history of social revolutions. It feeds the global movements, create cracks and proves that the resonant waves from the South could convulse the capitalistic structure.