Strategic Assessment

The terms chosen to describe the revolutionary events that swept the Middle East in the past year reflect a set of cultural contexts, worldviews, expectations, and hopes. In the West, use of the term “Arab Spring” presumed an affinity with previous “springs,” characterized by national uprisings intended by peoples to shake free of repressive rule and replace it with a secular/liberal/democratic regime. In 2011, the conceptual premise was that if such was the case in Europe, then such is the case in the Middle East. However this description is a striking case of “false universalism,” as the deep undercurrents of Middle East political culture differ from those of the liberal/secular Western world, first and foremost because Middle East societies are for the most part not secular. This article explores the gap between the universal expectations and hopes of the commentators (and in their trail, politicians) and the actual results.