ABSTRACT
We start with some terminological tidying up. Why is it called ‘Arab Spring’? Is it because of a possible analogy with the 1848 Springtime of Nations in Europe that started in Sicily (Italy), spread to France and then to the Austro Hungarian Empire and the German Confederation, with ripples reaching as far as Switzerland, Belgium and Britain? As the historian A. J. P. Taylor put it, 1848 was a moment when ‘history reached a turning point and failed to turn’.1 The European upheaval began in Palermo, Sicily, in January 1848 and was put down before the end of the year. The 1848 revolution finally led to establishment of autocratic governments headed by Brandenburg in Prussia, Schwarzenberg in Austria and Louis Napoleon in France. One wonders whether those who coined the term ‘Arab Spring’ did so expecting it to be ephemeral, with the Arab world returning to its previous state of autocracy, undisturbed by any serious democratic challenges. The failure of the revolution in 1848 inaugurated fifty years of conservative rule in Europe, though 1848 did make a big difference in the long run.
