Dr. Fatima El-Issawi: Economic pressure and problems weren’t silenced by the threat of corona, despite the fact that in Tunisia and Lebanon we saw governments responding to the threat Francesco Cavatorta: Even in the countries that have tried to consolidate their democracy, like Tunisia, a lot of the political discussions are taking place outside political parties LONDON: Protests that erupted across the region last year are likely to continue despite the coronavirus pandemic due to the severity of economic and political crises, Middle East expert and author Dr. Fatima El-Issawi said on Thursday at a webinar hosted by the Council for Arab-British Understanding. “We can see that the protests in Lebanon are back. They’re trying to adapt to the situation of coronavirus, but in some pockets where poverty is very high, what we hear from people talking to the media is, ‘Actually we don’t care about corona because we don’t have enough money to buy a mask, but also we’re more afraid of poverty (than the virus)’,” she said. “I think in most of the other places as well, economic pressure and problems weren’t totally silenced by the threat of corona, despite the fact that in Tunisia and Lebanon we saw the government responding to the threat … in much more efficient ways than in more democratic and wealthier countries.” El-Issawi and co-author Francesco Cavatorta were presenting the findings from their book “The Unfinished Arab Spring: Micro-Dynamics of Revolts between Change and Continuity.” El-Issawi said: “As opposed to seeing these (protest) movements in a limited time event, we considered them as a process that brought many changes that are still in the making in Arab societies and modified the relationship between citizens and power, even with the return of authoritarian rule and the explosion of violence in the region.” The book aims to adopt an original, analytical approach to explaining the various dynamics taking place due to the Arab Spring. “Protest is the new politics,” said Cavatorta, director of the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur l’Afrique et le Moyen Orient (CIRAM) at Laval University in Quebec. “The vast majority of the activism taking place is … outside institutions. Even in the countries that have tried to consolidate their democracy, like Tunisia, a lot of the political discussions are taking place outside political parties, and tend to take place in wider society under a form of protest. This is a trend we’re seeing across the region,” he added. “I think the implications that have taken place are maybe only now beginning to be kind of teased out, and we can sort of see the long-term consequences of what has happened. One defining issue that connects the last 10 years of protest in the region has to do with socioeconomic conditions.”