The Arab Autumn

摘要

It is autumn now in the Arab Spring. The protests that began last December when a Tunisian street vendor set himself afire have toppled three of the Arab world's seemingly eternal strongmen and show few signs of abating. In Western hearts, the Arab Spring has excited admiration but also envy. Commentators have drawn labored and myopic comparisons with Occupy Wall Street, or the Tea Party. Only in America could we imagine a link between the passing spasms of our electoral politics and the greatest cultural upheaval of the young century, the demand for freedom and democracy by an entire people of whom experts said for decades that authoritarianism was a natural way of life.