Frances Hasso discusses political Unrest in Arab world

During the past few months, the situation in Northern Africa and the Middle East has grown increasingly volatile. With revolutions in many nations with oppressive regimes, observers of the region wonder what this activity means for other nations in the area.

Even experts, who have studied the region for their entire careers, do not know what the future will hold.

Will these revolutions produce meaningful change in the long term? Or are they temporary power shifts which will eventually settle down back into oppressive dictatorships?

In an effort to understand these events and answer some of these questions, Round Table, a selective living group, invited Frances Hasso, associate professor of women's studies and international comparative studies, to host a question and answer session about the recent political protests in the Arab world.

During the discussion, Hasso reiterated that, although there may have been specific trigger events, these revolutions are the result of decades of oppressive regimes and unjust rule. The initial trigger, however, was the revolution in Tunisia.

“Tunisia broke down this huge wall of fear,” Hasso said. “Now almost every single Arab country has something going on.”

For observers in the Western world, the most common question is “where next?” Hasso noted that, although there is some predictability to the pattern of these changes, there is still a very large unpredictable element. Revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt sparked within days through social media, and ousted decade-old regimes within weeks.

“All the governments blame outside sources for their problems," Hasso said. "The Egyptian government blamed Israel and the United States. The scary thing is that it works for a lot of people; people are sick of war. That’s one of those fear barriers. Many would rather have the dictator devil they know.”