The Arab Spring ten years on: a revolution that failed to blossom

Ten years ago, the Arab world was rocked by mass protests and popular uprisings that ousted long-reviled dictators. For the most part, the end result and legacy was, sadly, disaster. Simon Wilson reports

Kids standing on a tank in Tahrir Square, waving Egyptian flags
Tahrir Square, 2011: a hopeful moment that failed to live up to its promise
(Image credit: © Victoria Hazou/AP/Shutterstock)

What was the Arab Spring?

It was the optimistic name coined by Western commentators to describe the series of mass protests and popular uprisings in 2011-2012 across many Arab countries, which began with the ousting of Tunisia’s president Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali on 14 January 2011. The immediate spark that lit the touchpaper in Tunisia was the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, a young street vendor, outside government offices in the town of Sidi Bouzid. The local authorities had confiscated his fruit cart after he refused to pay a bribe – a final act of state humiliation that proved unbearable. His act of protest prompted local demonstrations against state oppression, corruption and poverty. These quickly spread to the capital, Tunis, where weeks of mass protests eventually led to the downfall of Ben Ali after nearly 24 years in power.

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Simon Wilson’s first career was in book publishing, as an economics editor at Routledge, and as a publisher of non-fiction at Random House, specialising in popular business and management books. While there, he published Customers.com, a bestselling classic of the early days of e-commerce, and The Money or Your Life: Reuniting Work and Joy, an inspirational book that helped inspire its publisher towards a post-corporate, portfolio life.   

Since 2001, he has been a writer for MoneyWeek, a financial copywriter, and a long-time contributing editor at The Week. Simon also works as an actor and corporate trainer; current and past clients include investment banks, the Bank of England, the UK government, several Magic Circle law firms and all of the Big Four accountancy firms. He has a degree in languages (German and Spanish) and social and political sciences from the University of Cambridge.