Reflection #1

Last week’s lecture touched on the concept of regimes and the dichotomy of a regime as it is described in theory and a regime as it is described in practice.  In class, we learned that a state’s regime not only refers to its government type, but also to its collective ideology, the rules by which everybody plays, and the structuring of the polity.  Armed with this knowledge, we can draw more accurate conclusions on whether or not the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings were significant regime changes or merely changes of the guard.

Considering the buzz surrounding the Arab Spring uprisings being replaced with the hysteria surrounding the most recent round of protests in MENA, it is evident that the international community has changed its lens with which it views the region.  Now, we see CNN tickers containing the words Islam and violence more often than they read regime and protest.  But I do not think we can allow ourselves to forget the root of the issue, and that is still regime.  The lack of substantive regime change in most countries in which Arab Spring uprisings occurred allowed for old or new (I would argue it does not much matter) political leaders to take advantage of a seemingly universally Muslim and seemingly violent reaction to Mr. Nakoula’s “film” in order to win some political points.  For example, witnessed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi make a mild rebuke of the violent rioters.  When studying the current situation in MENA, we should not be tempted to alter our thinking to terms of anomic radical rioters from regimes.