*An Egyptian protester holds his national flag as he shouts slogans against President Hosni Mubarak at Cairo’s Tahrir Square in 2011. Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Images*

Ten Years of Upheaval in the Arab World
and the Workers Required for Its Harvest

In 2011, seismic shifts took place across the Middle East. Mass protests and popular uprisings against oppressive governments stirred an atmosphere of hopeful chaos. Would the Arab world see grassroots reform and would bloodless revolutions free their people from cycles of ineffective and brutal governance? A decade and several wars and regime changes later, the way forward is not as clear nor as hopeful.

Who Are the Arabs?

Perhaps the best way to understand the context of what took place in 2011 is to look at the history of the Arab peoples. Before the advent of Islam in the 600s, Arabs were a loosely affiliated group of Semitic nomads that lived in the region that spanned from the Arabian peninsula to upper Mesopotamia, believed to be descendants of Ishmael. After the death of Muhammed, the last and greatest prophet of Islam, a succession of leaders known as Caliphs ruled and facilitated the spread of Islam in his place. The Abbasid Caliphate, which led the Islamic world from 750-1258 A.D., spread from southern France in the west, China in the east, Turkey in the north, and Sudan in the south. The conquered peoples were often forcefully converted to Islam and absorbed into the Arab identity, speaking Arabic and assimilating to Arab culture.

This Caliphate system lasted until the 20th century when World War I ended the rule of the Ottoman Empire—a Turkish rather than Arab administration. During the War, the British struck a deal with Arab dissidents within the Ottoman Empire: help Britain defeat the Ottomans in the Middle Eastern theatre, and in return Britain will recognize an independent Arab state that stretches from Damascus in Syria to Aden in Yemen. The Arab Army, with the support of the British Expeditionary Forces, successfully expelled the Ottoman powers from the region in what became known as “the Arab Revolt.” Unfortunately, the British reneged on their earlier promises, and under the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916, the triumphant allied powers partitioned the defeated Ottoman territories into protectorates.

After the Second World War a few decades later, many of the partitioned regions transitioned to self-rule, which indirectly led to an identity crisis: did an Arab citizen primary identity as Arab, or did he think of himself as an Iraqi, Egyptian, or Syrian first? Was he for secular democracy or a return to the theocratic Caliphate? Leaders that arose during this time often played off these identities, redirecting the dissatisfaction of their people to exterior forces such as the colonial West that they had just expelled or to the fledgling Jewish state recently established. This new pan-Arab nationalism marked the fifties and sixties. Such movements as Ba’athism were direct results of this movement that sought to build political unity in the Arab World. Unfortunately, many states born with the dream of self-determination through democracy quickly devolved into military dictatorships that left millions of Arabs living lives marked by quiet desperation and degrading oppression. The pressure began to build over the last decades of the 20th century, reaching a boiling point in the 21st.

First years and Early Results (2011-2014)

On December 17, 2010, a 26-year-old Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire outside a government office in Sidi Bouzid. The police had recently humiliated him by slapping him publicly and had confiscated a vital part of his business: an electric scale. This act of lone protest by dousing himself in paint thinner and lighting a match—born of sheer desperation and defiance—sparked a revolution that crossed borders. Videos of his suicide spread like wildfire on social media, and a grassroots movement quickly developed. Protests began to swell in Tunisia, spread eastward to Libya and Egypt, and hopped continents to Syria, Yemen, and Bahrain in Asia. People who had suffered years of denied fundamental rights rose en masse and demanded justice, dignity, and good governance.

RELATED READING // Read our FAI Wire briefing on the civil war in Libya here.

In less than a month, Ben Ali, president and 23-year dictator of Tunisia, fled and sought refuge in Saudi Arabia. Then, in Egypt, the uprisings ousted Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for 30 years. Libya’s Gadhafi, whose brutal reign lasted 42 years, was captured, tortured, and killed on the streets. Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh resigned after holding onto power for 33 years.

As Western commentators looked on, it seemed to them that something akin to the revolutions that swept Europe in the mid-1800s was now taking place in the Middle East, a period that German historians called “springtime of the people.” Or perhaps it was an event comparable to the Prague Spring of 1968. Whatever the historical ties or comparisons, appropriate or stretching the metaphor to a breaking point, the word “spring” infused the movement with a sense of hopefulness, renewal, and reform. However, much of the Arab world referred to the protests and uprisings as revolutions or wars, and their names proved much more apt.

For instance: the use of utterly disproportionate violence as a tool of state control became a hallmark of Syria from the beginning of the movement. The Syrian revolution began in March 2011 in the southern city of Daraa. The residents of the drought-stricken region took to the streets to peacefully protest the arrest and subsequent torture of boys caught writing anti-regime, pro-Arab Spring graffiti. Government forces reacted by firing live ammunition indiscriminately into the crowds, mass arrests, and more torture. Rather than nipping the revolution in the bud, the overreactions ignited the whole country, and protests became widespread. President Bashar al-Assad unleashed Syria’s armed forces against the primarily unarmed opposition. By the autumn of 2011, the protest movement had fully transitioned to an armed uprising, and the Syrian Civil War began.

RELATED READING // Read our FAI Wire article looking back over the first ten years of the Syrian Civil War here.

What followed was the descent of beautiful Syria, an ancient land of great historical importance and home to 22 million people, into an abyss of unimaginable suffering. The rallying cry of the pro-government factions was, “Assad or we burn the country,” and they made good on their promise. Assad did not hesitate to use Scud missiles, barrel bombs, chemical weapons on the opposition forces and civilians. After particularly egregious war crimes and crimes against humanity, Assad would wait for world reaction and accountability. But the United States and many Western powers, after the complex and seemingly interminable interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq, were not eager to enter into another Middle Eastern quagmire. Despite diplomatic warnings around “red lines” from the global community and toothless accusations, Assad realized that he could act with impunity and spread his desolation across the country.

In August 2013, Assad launched a major chemical attack against the Ghouta suburbs of Damascus, killing more than 1,400 civilians, including 426 children. Russia, an ally of Assad, “intervened” and promised to oversee the dismantling of the Syrian chemical weapons program. This intervention proved utterly ineffective, as several more chemical attacks against opposition civilians were to take place over the subsequent years.

Men delicately uncover one of many mass graves found near Sinjar. This grave contains the remains of more than 50 Yazidis killed by Islamic State fighters.

The Rise and Fall of the Islamic State (2014-2019)

As the Syrian opposition was subjected to industrial-scale violence by the Assad regime on one side, they also found themselves struggling against Islamist groups like the Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State. As the disorder and complete dismantling of functional society spread, the Islamic State swept up large swaths of territory in Syria and then spilled across the border into Iraq. The success of this jihadist group that sought to brand itself as the new Caliphate brought tens of thousands of foreign fighters from across the world to help realize the vision of proper Islamic jurisprudence and the ushering in the End of the Age.

On August 3, 2014, the Islamic State launched an attack on Sinjar, Iraq, home to a religious minority known as the Yazidis, with the intent to commit genocide. The villages attempted to defend themselves but were not able to hold out long against the shelling. In the early morning, the Islamic State broke through and began mass killing. Hundred of Yazidis were killed for refusing to convert to Islam in what became known as the Sinjar massacre, and hundreds more women and children were kidnapped and brought back to Syria to be sold into slavery. Those that escaped fled to Sinjar mountain only to find that they were surrounded—trapped without food or water. The United States reacted by enacting a rescue mission, making airdrops of food and water on the mountain, and launching airstrikes against the Islamic State forces surrounding the surviving Yazidis.

On August 9-11, a safe corridor was established by Kurdish Peshmerga, PKK, and YPK Forces, allowing 50,000 Yazidis to escape to safety. By August 14, the U.S. judged that the siege was broken, and no further steps were needed to rescue the Yazidi survivors.

Because the Sinjar massacre featured prominently on international news, it, along with the capture of Mosul, served as a global introduction of the Islamic State and their brutal and horrifyingly effective military strategy. The Islamic State became a “state within a state.” It would continue to grow, controlling at its peak territory from western Iraq to eastern Syria that had an estimated population of 12 million and a fighting force of 30,000.

However, the tide began to turn with international intervention. In 2017, the Islamic State lost control of Mosul and its de-facto capital Raqqa. By December 2017, the Islamic State controlled a mere 2 percent of the territory it held in 2015. By 2019, the Islamic State could no longer be considered an organized military force though they still hold small pockets of territory in the Syrian desert to this day. However, they left in their wake destroyed cities and destroyed lives that have yet to be rebuilt.

Protestors clash with Iraqi police during anti-government demonstrations in Baghdad.

Renewed Protests (2019-2020)

As the terror and raw brutality of the Islamic State waned, so did the fear of challenging the status quo. In states with Arab majorities like Sudan, Algeria, Iraq, and Lebanon, protests erupted over the corrupt mismanagement of their governments. In Sudan, the demonstrations forced the military to oust Omar al-Bashir, their tormentor, for 30 years. In Algeria, the mass protest forced the stagnant regime to end the 20-year reign of the ailing president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Was it possible that the hopeful changes that came to pass in 2011 might be realized in these locations?

Massive movements of marches and civil disobedience shook Baghdad and other cities in Iraq in late 2019, demanding an end to corruption, nepotism, and the rule of warlords and militias. In response, government forces and Shiite militias killed more than 500 Iraqi civilians and jailed many more. Eventually, the protests successfully forced the resignation of Prime Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi, who Mustafa al-Kadhimi replaced.

In October 2019, a small demonstration in downtown Beirut set off the most comprehensive anti-government protests in Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese took to the streets of Beirut and other major cities, protesting predatory politicians that had looted Lebanon’s economy to the point of bankruptcy. Like Iraq, the demonstrations in Lebanon forced the resignation of Prime Minister Saad Hariri but failed to realize any of the hoped-for reforms.

Blast in Beirut leaves scores dead and injured. [Photo: STR / AFP via Getty Images)

Pandemic and Protest Pause (2020-2021)

Lebanon’s woes were far from over. In August 2020, a blast considered one of the most powerful non-nuclear explosions in history rocked the port of Beirut, causing 207 deaths, 7500 injuries, $15 billion in property damage, and leaving an estimated 300,000 people homeless. As investigations began to uncover that the cause of the explosion was due to massive governmental incompetence and failure to take even the most basic safety precautions, the anti-government protests gained new life and new urgency.

As COVID-19 began to emerge as an international pandemic, many Arab states were ripe to be hit especially hard because of inadequate medical infrastructure, sinking economies, and scarcity of social trust. Though the death rate seemed below the global average because the populations of Arab states skew young, the pandemic gave the authorities a perfect excuse to shut down protests altogether. For 2020 and 2021, there would be a lull in hostilities as the war against the external enemy of coronavirus took center stage.

Egypt’s current military dictator, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, smiles in uniform.

Challenges Facing the Middle East in the 2020s

What will the Middle East look like as the challenge of COVID 19 begins to fade? Will there be a return to the protests of 2019, or will an exhausted, broken people settle for some measure of stability, even if it is at the hand of oppressive governments?

Looking back over the last decade, the uprisings produced modest political, social, and economic gains for some of the region’s inhabitants. But they also left horrific and lasting violence, mass displacement, financial devastation, and worsening repression in their wake. Most experts judge the Arab Spring as a failure that, rather than delivering political reform and freedom, further entrenched the rule of corrupt leaders who would sacrifice their very nations before relinquishing power.

Syria is a land of utter desolation. Syria’s conflict alone has created more than five million registered refugees and over six million internally displaced people. Yemen is tearing itself apart, and its citizens are suffering one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. After Gadhafi’s overthrow, Libya, abandoned by the international coalition, finds itself in a civil war rife with proxy-fighting by international actors. Egypt, whose initial overthrow of Mubarak appeared so hopeful, has reverted to a military dictatorship under Sisi. Only Tunisia made a peaceful transition after the uprising into a fledgling democracy. Still, the last ten years have been marred by political dysfunction and terrorist attacks by the Islamic State.

These Arab nations that at the end of the last century dreamed of self-rule and joining the global community as modern states, bound in unity with other members of the Arab League, are in a deplorable condition. The states themselves are often corrupt and oppressive, wearing down their people with broken social contract after broken social contract. This rift between people and their government has left space for foreign entities to seize control. Iran is the dominating force in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen. Turkey and Russia have carved out vast spheres of influence across the Arab Middle East. Many Arab populations essentially live at the mercy of these powerful neighbors.

RELATED READING // Read Covenant and Controversy’s open letter to a generation here.

What worker is needed in light of these challenges?

It seems unlikely that peace, prosperity, and healthy stability will mark the Middle East any time soon. What are we to make of this information, and how should we act?

The first most practical use of this analysis is to pray. Pray that an effective door for the gospel might be opened amid the chaos and suffering. Pray that the Lord would send his labors into these “dangerous access” harvest fields that are ripe with people thirsty for truth and hope.

Many of the largest remaining unreached people groups live in the Arab world and are subject to the wars, famine, disaster, and destruction that Jesus told us would mark the time before His second coming. When nations suffer catastrophes, they desperately need the anchor that only the gospel of the Kingdom provides. Pray that workers will have heavenly wisdom in building platforms that will serve their neighbors’ felt (and often changing) needs and give them the ability to lay the foundations for long-term ministry in the region.

We can also use the above examinations for “opportunity forecasting.” Opportunity forecasting means analyzing current geopolitical standings against the global movements of God so that you can better predict what may happen in crisis-prone areas of the world where opportunities may open up to spread the gospel. In a time of unprecedented levels of information available at our fingertips, we should seek to educate ourselves about facts on the ground to leverage the gifts of the body to creatively and strategically engage the last unreached people in the midst of constantly changing circumstances.

And lastly, we can use this information to mobilize. A specific principle, called the “Pareto Principle” or “the Law of the Vital Few,” that 80% of the effect comes from 20% of the cause. That is to say, 80% of the benefits in the world come from 20% of the hardest working people. However, in these countries and regions designated “dangerous access”—because of unreached populations that live in conflict zones, natural or man-made disasters, or extremely oppressive regimes—we are currently operating at a ratio closer to 99.5% to 0.5%. This is not a strategic way to deliver these nations to Jesus. We must reorient ourselves to the growing reality that the end-time harvest of the remaining unreached people groups will in all likelihood take place in a region marked by catastrophe after catastrophe, and the Arab world is right at the center. We need organizations and people marked by willingness to respond to changing situations as new scenarios develop rapidly, and carry out the Great Commission with wisdom and joy.

Amen! Maranatha.