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null Dr. Steven Cook: Whatever Happened to the Arab Spring?

Date: October 11, 2017 to October 11, 2017
Time: 1200-1300
Location: Glasgow Hall, RM 322

More than half a decade after people across the Middle East poured into the streets to demand change, hopes for democracy in the region have all but disappeared in a maelstrom of violence and renewed state repression. In his talk, Dr. Steven A. Cook, the author of False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East and Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, will explain how those moments of empowerment, freedom, and dignity that began in places like Tunisia’s Sidi Bouzid and Egypt’s Tahrir Square turned out differently than most observers expected. According to Dr. Cook in False Dawn, “Looking back, it all seems dream-like. . . . Egypt’s Facebookers and bloggers, Mohammed al-Bouazizi, Khaled Said, Tahrir Square, brave Libyan fighters advancing on Tripoli, the Girl in the Blue Bra, and Gezi Park’s girl in the red dress are of a recent but seemingly distant past—a gauzy sequence of determination, defiance, hope, and activism that has not been extinguished as much as eclipsed by political uncertainty, instability, and at times unspeakable violence.” 

For Dr. Cook’s bio, click here

 

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