How was the perception of Arab Spring and pan-Arabism by local and western approaches?

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[...] M. Chloe Mulderig, "An Uncertain Future: Youth Frustration and the Arab Spring", The PARDEE PAPERS, Of Boston University, No (April 2013) Margaret K. [...]

[...] Indeed, the imperial rules which prevailed for decades upon these systems have shaped some vision about destiny, self-realization which has forged a timeless and specific Arabic vision on their past, present and future. Some go further admitting that the Middle East has never been fully decolonised. Our case study has proved that a very local event was deeply intertwined to a long-lasting regional and historical issue, itself included into a much larger-scale consecutive implications. If most of the views on the topic have stopped to the pan-Arabism question, bringing it into a large focus and detailing different possibilities for the future of the Arabic countries, our research paper has finally uncovered how important this vision was for western countries, assuming that this focus, embodying some specific western representation as Einstein quoted, "Nationalism is an infantile disease. [...]

[...] How was the perception of Arab Spring and pan-Arabism by local and western approaches? If the Arab Spring has been largely diffused as an unprecedented wave of revolutionary moves into the Arabic world, its connections to a wider global history have often been limited to the tricky issue of pan-Arabism and its underlying questions about nationalism. It all started on December in Tunisia. That day a young itinerant fruit seller, Mohamed Bouazizi, exasperated by poverty and police humiliation, set himself on fire in front of the prefecture of Sidi Bouzid, in central Tunisia. [...]

[...] This mistaken perception resulted in a highly divided western/eastern approach while the concept of global history may help understand its real and deep implications. Indeed, most of the western analysis has focused on a short-sighted representation of the reasons behind the moves so that the comprehension of one of the most important moves in the Arabic countries has been veiled by some false deeply rooted perceptions. Recalled as a « youth spring » by most western analysts, the idea that the events were only connected to the question of a battle against elitism, poverty and local despotic authorities spread so far to delude any other lecture of this part of history. [...]

[...] As an example, the question of Arab unity has always been opposed to the one of a world in pieces and mostly presented as an ambition, a goal. The first political aspirations for unification on the basis of a supposed common Arab identity can be dated from the end of the 19th century. Although these aspirations were not integrated opposed to the existence of the Ottoman Empire, the Young Turks came to power by removing the Arab element from the elites, which revealed identity reflections within this gigantic space. [...]