‘We Want a Nation’
Ten years on, it’s easy to view the Arab uprisings only as a failure. Democracy remains elusive in the Middle East, dictators are further entrenched, and wars have devastated entire countries. But amid the despair and fear, a new cohort of protesters and activists has taken to the streets since 2019, in places such as Iraq, Sudan, and Lebanon. This new generation has learned a key lesson from their predecessors: A revolution can help bring down a regime, but it cannot build a state. They are getting organized, learning about politics and electoral laws, and planning for the state they want to build—one that serves citizens, not rulers. Most important, they have learned from the setbacks of 2011 that what lies ahead is a long slog, not a quick jog to victory in one election.
Yet in addition to all the usual challenges that activists and dissidents face worldwide, one is emerging as a major obstacle for those in the Arab world: They’re being hunted down one after the other, shot on the street or in, while others only make . Across the Arab world and all the way to , a rising generation of promising new leaders and their mentors, all of whom have a role to play in building the future of their countries, is being decimated—and no one knows how to stop this wholesale, methodical silencing.
