By Joseph Bahout

From a macro-historical point of view, the Arab revolutions represent among the most tremendous changes in the structures of the contemporary Middle East. So far, the transformations have touched three levels at least: that of society and social forces; that of the state and political forces; and that of the regional system, its place in the international system, and the implications for the latter.
 
In societies perceived as crippled by political passivity, a sudden and unexpected fever has seized the “street” and seemingly will not waiver. What some would call “Tahrirocracy” – rule through the squares – is a phenomenon all new governments must reckon with from now on. In parallel to a growing lack of absolute power and control by the state and security apparatuses, individuals and social movements have acquired increased initiative and leverage, inventing original mobilization tactics and techniques.
 
To that end, the spectrum of possibilities offered by social media has been used and mastered. By relying on cyberspace, leaderless protest movements have introduced the multiplying factor of networks. Positioned somewhere between aging oligarchies of rulers clinging to power and tightly knit Islamist organizations, it was this recipe that allowed a forgotten social segment of liberal youth to emerge and reassert its presence on the political scene.
 
If the old Arab state model is now in agony, the shape of the new ones claiming to replace it has yet to be drawn. What is undeniable in the Middle East is the gradual demise of an entire mode of legitimacy, one born in the 1950s and 1960s – a legitimacy that relied on the ancient discourse of radical and exclusive Arab nationalism, on verbal steadfastness and struggle against imperialism and Western pro-Israeli sentiment, on a blend of centralized socialism, corporatism and crony-capitalism, and on a power structure captured and monopolized by putschist militaries and their epigones.
 
If the alternative contours of the new Arab state are vague, the death of this legitimacy partially explains why regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen and potentially Syria were brought down first and most violently, while monarchies in diverse forms have been relatively (but for how long?) spared by the wave.
 
Contenders for post-revolutionary power are yet to be defined, both in ideological terms and with regard to political practice. Political Islam will be a major source of inspiration. But here, contradictions are already in place: Muslim Brotherhood-type forces will plead for a blend of economic liberalism, social ultraconservatism and political pragmatism, but they will be challenged from the right by Salafist competitors and from the left by liberal-progressives.
 
What is quite certain in the meantime is that post-revolutionary states and societies will be, for a while at least, more attentive to domestic issues than to external problems. In this respect it was interesting to try to listen, beneath the past year’s roar of the Arab street, to what was said in terms of posture toward the world, and toward the West more specifically. If one can find a common denominator among the differentiated revolts and upheavals sweeping the region from the Maghreb to the Arab Gulf, one word subsumes it all: “Dignity,” or “Karama.”
 
Though simplistically spelled out, the Karama slogan chanted in the Arab street had to do with a range of themes, stemming from individual rights to peoples’ demand to master their collective fate and to reclaim their role and relevance internationally. If Arab revolutions reversed one concept, it was the influence and potency of the will of external powers on regional dynamics. While it may be premature to confirm this, it was no coincidence the Arab revolutionary sequence inaugurated, among other dynamics, a shift in the international equilibrium and laid the premise of a return to a sort of cold war climate.
 
Let no one be fooled: what is labeled “Arab revolution” will be a long-term sequence of protracted changes and transformations, most of which are still unpredictable. Before the dust settles, chaos will remain a structural feature in the region. Far from being a linear process, this will be a bumpy road where progress is often matched by regression. That is why, for analysts and observers of the region, what has happened so far should be taken as more than a simple setback. Rather, it is a historical event that must induce a deep revision of our conceptual paradigms and the invention of new analytical tools.
 
Joseph Bahout teaches Middle East politics at Science-Po Paris, and is a senior researcher at the Academie Diplomatique Internationale. This commentary first appeared at bitterlemons-international.org, an online newsletter.