Guarding a revolution is harder than achieving it

When the Arab Spring kicked off in Tunisia and then spread to Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria and Bahrain, the mass uprisings were successful in deposing four rulers — Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia in 2011, Muammar Gaddafi of Libya in 2011, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt in 2011, and Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen in 2012.

However, post-revolution nation-building and political reformation proved a more difficult task for the citizens of the free nations.

Egypt, for instance, held successful parliamentary and presidential elections after Hosni Mubarak was ousted from power. But that left a power vacuum with no clear leadership. 

"As it transpired, there was no unified leadership or clear strategy for any of the uprisings… The only movements that were even remotely ready to put themselves forward and which already had a sufficiently broad power base were the Islamist ones, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood," Lamis Andoni, an analyst and commentator on Middle Eastern and Palestinian affairs, wrote in an opinion piece for Al-Jazeera in 2015.

The Iranian Revolution had promised liberation for a diverse range of people, including workers, women, nationally oppressed minorities, poets, artists, students, the unemployed, shopkeepers, and religious leaders. After they collectively overthrew the US-backed Pahlavi monarchy, revolutionary workers established "shuras" (workers' councils) which were democratic assemblies similar to those seen in other great revolutions, from Russia in 1917 to Chile just six years earlier. However, by the end of 1979, these shuras had been transformed into Islamic Associations. And by the end of 1980, conditions worsened for the oppressed, particularly for women and national minorities such as the Kurds

The choice then seemed to be between the old regime and the Brotherhood, dampening enthusiasm for the revolutions and exposing the deep differences between the various forces of the uprisings, she added.

And this fear provided the old regimes with the opportunity to launch their counter revolutions.

In Egypt, the campaign against the Brotherhood succeeded in demonising the movement and its elected president, Mohamed Morsi, thus paving the way for the military coup in July 2013.

Events in Egypt were dividing the Arab world into secularists and Islamists, creating a rift between pro and anti-Brotherhood factions. This highlighted the dangerous lack of a strong political culture and a commitment to pluralism and social justice within the Arab opposition.

In Tunisia, after a tumultuous spell of democracy, things changed for the worse in July 2021 when President Kais Saied froze parliament and sacked the government in a dramatic move.

Since then, the country has seen an intense crackdown on opposition leaders, critics and activists.

While freedom of speech and media were critical gains for Tunisians after the Arab Spring, activists and journalists now say those freedoms are threatened under Saied's rule.

Amnesty International said in mid-July that Tunisian authorities had "stepped up their crackdown on the political opposition".

Speaking to Al-Jazeera, Maha Azzam, head of the Egyptian revolutionary council, said last year, "The Arab Spring was round one. It was an intifada if you like. It was an uprising, it was an incomplete revolution, but there will be other cycles like with other revolutions." 

In Yemen and Syria, the popular uprisings devolved into civil wars. 

"The movement [in Yemen] has been hijacked by three elite factions vying for control of the government," wrote Letta Tayler, former associate director of Crisis and Conflict Division at HRW, in a September 2011 article for Foreign Affairs. 

"Yemen's pro-democracy protests became overshadowed by a power play among the three top contenders to run the country: General Ali Muhsin al-Ahmar, a renegade army commander who was once the president's confidant; Hamid al-Ahmar (no relation), a billionaire entrepreneur from the prominent Hashid tribe; and Saleh's eldest son, Ahmed, who leads the elite Republican Guard," she added.

Today, the country is in shambles, having made several "worst" lists, among them the world's worst humanitarian crises, worst hunger crises, and largest displacement crises. 

As for Syria, the civil war has been a largely frozen conflict, with the country now being divided into areas controlled by the government of President Bashar Assad, various opposition groups and Syrian Kurdish forces.

Going further back in history, the 1979 revolution in Iran, perhaps serves as the best warning of a popular movement gone awry. 

After the revolution, Iran went from being an oppressive dictatorship to, by some accounts, an even more oppressive autocracy under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The Iranian Revolution had promised liberation for a diverse range of people, including workers, women, nationally oppressed minorities, poets, artists, students, the unemployed, shopkeepers, and religious leaders. After they collectively overthrew the US-backed Pahlavi monarchy, revolutionary workers established "shuras" (workers' councils) which were democratic assemblies similar to those seen in other great revolutions, from Russia in 1917 to Chile just six years earlier.

However, by the end of 1979, these shuras had been transformed into Islamic Associations. And by the end of 1980, conditions worsened for the oppressed, particularly for women and national minorities such as the Kurds. 

Khomeini's Islamic Republican Party became the new enforcers of oppression.

Looking past the Middle East and even further into the past, the Russian and Cuban revolutions present us with examples of how leaders of uprisings can betray their own revolutions. Castro's oppression and Stalin's purges pose a warning to all.

History has its fair share of daring accounts where popular uprisings led to autocrats being toppled, jailed, exiled, and in more extreme cases, executed. 

But wade past the celebrations, martyrdoms and calls for democratic reforms and you will find that there have also been instances where political parties, extremists, or state actors later went on to hijack the revolution from the masses. 

In many cases, the more extreme elements in a state let moderates do the heavy lifting — protests, strikes, marches, sit-ins, blogs, public speeches, getting shot at — to win the support of the masses. Then, when the old guard has been removed from power, and the new leaders are still trying to regroup and resolve their differences, the opportunists take over.

As Bangladesh looks forward to a post-revolutionary future, those who led and participated in the movement must also be on the lookout. Many netizens have already voiced fears of the return of Tariq Rahman, and the resurgence of BNP and Jamaat. Some have welcomed these parties that have been repressed in the past 15 years. Others still look to establish an Islamic state. 

Going forward, unity among all those who participated in the revolution is a must to protect its ideals.