Where have the Arab Spring’s flowers gone?

With the cooperation of Casa Árabe, the Social Institute of Alternative Ideas and Practices (ISIPA) has organized a round table discussion on June 29 about the future prospects for the region.

There will also be debate over what path must be taken to support these societies and achieve a prosperous future in the Maghreb region and Near East.

Participating in the debate will be Haizam Amirah Fernández, main researcher for the Real Instituto Elcano for the Mediterranean and Middle East, Bernardino León Gross, a former EU envoy for the Southern Mediterranean and the United Nations mission chief in Libya, Leila Nachawati Rego, a specialist on communication and human rights in the Middle East and North Africa, and co-founder of Syria Untold, and David Perejil, a journalist, human rights activist and member of the International Secretariat of Podemos.

The event will be taking place on Thursday, June 29, in the Ambassadors’ Hall at Casa Árabe in Madrid (at Calle Alcalá, 62, first floor), and will last from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

The Arab and Muslim world became the main focus of global attention at the beginning of the decade because of the popular uprisings in different States throughout North Africa and the Near East. As of the Mohamed Bouazizi’s suicide by burning himself to death in Tunisia in December 2010, the need to achieve structural change in order to offer feasible opportunities to these youthful societies unleashed a domino effect in many other countries which, to a greater or lesser degree, shook the foundations of power structures there. Countries like Egypt Tunisia and Libya toppled their despots Hosni Mubarak, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali and Muammar el-Gaddafi, respectively, through popular uprisings.

With the exception of Tunisia –perhaps the last hope for democracy after this process of transformation–, the societies which revolted in order to demand change are currently mired in a long winter in which social demands for change, openness and opportunities are silenced, sometimes with greater repression than before.
 
The question we ask ourselves today is, what can be expected in the future for the societies which have lived through these processes?

The Social Institute of Alternative Ideas and Practices (ISIPA) is a think tank of students whose mission is to explore and debate innovative perspectives so as to understand and transform the social, political, economic and cultural structures around us.