Structured Response #4

Social movements and the various governments of states differ extensively across the MENA region; different versions of government often mean different forms of social movements and therefore distinctive obstacles that each movement has to face. Relating to the reading on Nasser's tactics on destroying opposition and gaining support from the Egyptian populace, a centralized government like Nasser's Egypt may indeed attempt to create a "social contract" where the ruling administration/leader gives a disproportionate amount of benefits and distribution to a majority of the population and in return gain the people's support. Nasser's administration, while doing this, also banned much of the Egyptian opposition, jailed them, and greatly suppressed them. Because Nasser had already created the so called "social contract," it seems that much of the populace turned a blind eye to the fact that free speech had been limited in their country. On top of this form of censorship and oppression, organizations like independent student unions were outlawed while the state picked and chose school faculty, enforcing this with the state police. 

How might a social movement overcome this kind of quasi authoritarian obstacle? Grassroots organization, non-violent "civil" protests, and social entrepreneurship are the best options against an oppressive authoritarian-like government. Violence only gets rid of legitimacy in a social movement; for example, the Palestinian Authority after using violence against the State of Israel in the 2nd Intifada lost much of it's viability in the international stage of being suited to be the government of the Palestinian people. Also, when the Syrian opposition movement and other Syrian social movements after the Arab Spring hastily began to use violence against Assad's murderous regime, some of its credibility wasted away as much of the Syrian military that may have been contemplating desertion was practically forced to attack the opposition back. Furthermore, the Syrian social movements began to splinter and a single unified message against Assad cracked into pieces. The violent protests led to a bloody civil war with many different parties involved.

On the other hand, when using grassroots non-violence tactics, the Egyptian Arab Spring activists maintained a certain credibility and the situation did not end in a war as Syria did. Instead, much of the Egyptian military sided with the social movements which resulted in the subsequent stepping down of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. Obviously, the military will not always side with an opposition social movement, however non-violent protest seem to get further in their aspirations; for instance, in the case of the Palestinians, a recent hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails resulted in an "easing of their conditions" (article on this can be found here: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/05/2012514153120630951.html).

All in all, there is probably no formula to making a social movement succeed when there is an oppressive government. However, there is always a right time and place to initiate a call for change, and that call for change needs to be non violent unless significant action (such as violence) is absolutely necessary.