Despite concerns and warnings of “hunger explosions” in several Arab countries occurring as a consequence or lead up to revolutionary outbursts, the possibility of their realization seems unlikely. Taking into consideration of factors including but not limited to, the opportunism of political powers supporting revolutionary action, a fear of regional chaos, negative historical collective memory, disparities between calls for protests and conditions on the ground, greater security grip in certain areas, support for armed domestic conflict economics, presence of unofficial parallel economies and a lack of alternatives for incumbent regimes these hunger revolutions face serious opposition.
A “hunger revolution” refers to a broad uprising against the government triggered by the poor, marginalized and uneducated persons, who are occasionally linked to political opposition forces or traditional religious forces, to protest the lack of, or price hikes of, food. Providing food is a key mechanism for social control. If the government is not responsive to the demands of protesters and ignores the backlash of economic conditions, confrontations with security forces will increase, creating a cycle of violence which will quickly become the spark for broader protests. According to many global studies, not all of the hungry protest, and many of those participating in hunger revolutions are not actually hungry.
Public policies:
Protests against economic and social marginalization become protracted revolutions and result in waves of public anger. When the government heavily burdens segments of society that are incapable of coping with the weight, it is known as “public policies” or “food policies” in international literature.
While governments may have a role in food supply economics because of lower subsidies, growing corruption in public food programs and weak monitoring of food markets, members of society also play a role as speculative hoarders.
Disparate cases:
Over the past two years, there have been several indicators to reflect the concerns of the elite and public opinions in several Arab countries regarding hunger revolutions, including:
1. Calls on the Internet: There were calls on social media urging Egyptians to take to the streets on November 11th 2016 to take part in a “revolt of the wretched”. It remains unclear who is sponsoring these protests, although it is likely the protests stand to benefit the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and the Coalition Supporting Legitimacy.
Yemeni activists launched a Twitter campaign called “I’m coming” in October 2016 to protest the Houthi’s starvation policy, and urged all Yemenis in the capital of Sanaa to take to the streets and shatter the barrier of fear. Several Yemeni media outlets published an alleged statement from these activists declaring, “Instead of starving to death at home, we must all, young and old, participate in this protest. We will not wait any longer. Declare this loudly with cries of rage.”
2. Predictions by the opposition: Sadek Al-Mahdi, the leader of the Nationalist Umma Party in Sudan, told a gathering of peers at a Ramadan iftar in his party’s headquarters in Um Durman, that a hunger revolution was imminent in Sudan. “There are signs a revolution of the hungry is on its way to Sudan,” Al-Mahdi said via telephone from Cairo on June 28th 2016, “and the birth of a new political system by the end of the year.” This, he believes, requires coordination between his party and the political and youth forces in order to establish a political system based on a just peace and democratic transformation.
3. Warnings by members of the legislative assemblies: Zeinab Al-Basri, an Iraqi MP, warned in a statement on January 15th 2016, that a “hunger revolution” would erupt against the government. “The government does not take into consideration the living difficulties facing most Iraqis,” she said. “Bakers are threatening to raise the price of bread, which threatens half of the Iraqi people with starvation because of flour shortages. Bread is a red line and a mainstay for the Iraqi people, half of whom are now at, or below, the poverty line.”
Meanwhile, Ehab Al-Omda, an Egyptian MP, warned of a “revolution of the hungry” in Upper Egypt during budget discussions on June 27th 2016, because of a lack of services and no budget allocations for investing in the south, reflecting uneven development in various provinces. Parliament Speaker Ali Abdel-Al and some MPs objected, saying public utilities are a problem across the country, not just in Upper Egypt, which implies an existing bias based on geography.
4. Predictions of civil activists. Hussein Al-Abassi, head of Tunisia’s labor union, told Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed newspaper on April 27th 2015, that it is likely a “hunger revolt” will take place because of endemic living difficulties, the demands of workers being ignored and continued corruption. It is required that the government halt and revise price hikes, especially for basic goods. “Economic conditions indicate an imminent social explosion and social chaos we will not be able to contain if it erupts,” he said. “Hunger knows no God, and we cannot stop anyone from going on strike if their economic and social conditions continue.”
This could explain why, in statements on national television on October 1st 2016, Tunisia’s labor union rejected the government’s intention to raise salaries until 2019.
5. Hunger indices and report: The Global Hunger Index issued by the International Food Policy Research Institute in October 2016, shows that many Arab countries such as Yemen, Djibouti, Mauritania and Iraq, suffer from malnutrition, low growth and child mortality rates.
Many obstacles:
The above reasons do not negate the factors that could impede the eruption of hunger revolutions in the Arab world, including:
1. Opportunism of political forces supporting revolutionary action: This applies to the MB’s support of igniting what is known as the “11/11 revolution” in Egypt. The MB does not have the trust of civil forces or the sympathy of public since June 30th 2013, since they historically tend to cooperate with a political bloc or party coalition but quickly overturn any alliance for purely pragmatic reasons. This was very apparent after the January 25th 2011, revolution.
The MB struck an alliance with civil parties and youth movements to overthrow former President Hosni Mubarak’s regime, and partnered with the “democratic alliance” to win the majority of seats in parliament’s upper and lower houses in 2011 and 2012. It continued its alliance with civil forces to support its presidential nominee Mohamed Morsi in the second round of the election. Later, the group sought to monopolize power and exclude its allies by putting the “Brotherhood” stamp on state institutions and adopting a policy of “dominance and not sharing”. This explains why large sectors of the Egyptian public rejected the return of the MB to the public domain.
The MB did not call for demonstrations to protest price hikes, or to achieve social gains for the poor, or oppose privatization policies, or the floating of the local currency during Mubarak’s era. This undermines its credibility and impact in elite circles and among the public. Some literature suggests the deciding factor in the failure of the call for protests on 11/11 is the MB characteristic of it. It appears as if the group is trying to take advantage of the repercussions of the economic reform program on certain social sectors in an attempt to forward its own agenda.
Vortex of chaos:
2. Fears of regional chaos scenarios: Most citizens in reasonably stable countries fear calls for hunger revolutions because of the unknown direction they might take. For example, the destructive chaotic conditions in Libya, Yemen, Syria and Iraq after revolutionary movements became armed conflicts between domestic forces supported by regional and international powers. There are no signs these conflicts will be resolved, and are in fact becoming more complicated.
Many Arab citizens fear changes in their current situation. They believe it is more important to maintain the status quo than risk further deterioration.
Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi told the chief editors of national newspapers on October 15th 2016, that “the Egyptian people understand there are attempts to push Egypt into a vortex of ruin, and they insist they will not enter that vortex.”
3. Negative historic collective memory: The revolutionary winds that swept across the Arab world in 2011 did not reach Algeria, even though there were some limited protests and preludes. This can be explained by Algeria’s collective memory, which lived through ten years of domestic turmoil during a time known as the “black ten”. Some literature described “the Algerian exception” in the Arab Spring. Despite some similarities between Algeria and Arab revolution countries, the outcome was different which means there is a “revolutionary mode” that did not lead to a “revolutionary outcome” in Algeria.
Protests in some Algerian cities triggered by price hikes and austerity measures applied by the government in early 2016 did not catch on, even though they began in Tizi Ouzou and spread to Setif and Batna, then to the tribal regions. However these subsided after confrontations with anti-riot forces and did not reach other cities because of worries the country would return to instability. People were also hesitant to protest given the government’s promises to curb the impact of the economic crisis on Algerians. The crisis included climbing prices and taxes for those with low incomes as a result of oil prices dropping, and revolutions in neighboring countries eliminating jobs and income.
Algeria’s difficult and bitter experience with Islamists power in the 1990s and its subsequent civil war which killed over 200,000 Algerians in 15 years, with countless more missing and displaced, is enough to impede any possible hunger revolution. Citizens fear returning to the violence and counter-violence of the 1990s. The majority of Algerians are living in a period of “convalescence” which means the majority choose to maintain the status quo out of fear of the unknown.
Contradictory ideas:
4. The paradox between calls for protest and conditions on the ground: Many Arab countries do not have the supposed shortages of basic goods such as bread and rice, which have sparked violent protests in other countries. For example, in Egypt there were no longer lines for bread or butane gas, and Armed Forces food trucks were on the streets to combat high prices and ease the anxiety of citizens.
Societies spend more on food in countries where warnings of hunger revolutions were well founded. According to some unofficial websites, quoting Western and Arab sources on 2016 statistics, Algeria topped the list of Arab countries in terms of food spending, at 47.3% of the annual family income. Egypt followed at 43.6%, Morocco at 40.5%, Jordan at 40.4% and Tunisia at 35.5%.
It is notable that although revolutions usually start in fragile areas, Upper Egypt did not erupt during the January revolution, nor did south Tunisia in the Jasmine revolution, or marginalized areas in Libya.
Militia violence:
5. Tightening the grip of security forces by province: This applies to Syria, where Assad’s regime is seeking to stamp out any protests in areas under its control or its militia allies, especially as the prices of fuel, communications and basic goods double. Analysis predicts “regional hunger revolutions” in provinces such as Al-Suwayda due to rising prices, a lack of jobs, and the regime forcing youth to join its associate militias in order to get paid.
Thus, a strong security grip impedes a revolution against the regime’s collaborators in the province, especially given its gradual success in regaining control of areas it has lost since 2012. This is linked to Russia’s multi-dimensional intervention since September 30th 2015. Meanwhile, the impact of the ongoing war in some Syrian regions and provinces still poses a serious threat to various areas under regime control whose residents do not want to repeat the tragic events of Riqa, Madaya and Aleppo.
Some armed militias, specifically the Libyan Dawn, confronted what Libyan media described as “hunger revolution” protests on the streets of Tripoli in February and March 2016, after hundreds of bakeries closed in the capital amid flour shortages. As noted in an article by Libya’s former Information and Culture Minister Omar Hassan Al-Queweri, in a published piece in Al-Ahram Al-Masa’ie on February 14th 2016, security forces shot into the crowds to disperse demonstrations demanding bread. This was not the first time that angry protests erupted. There were similar protests in 2015.
6. Support for armed domestic conflict economics: Areas under Syrian regime control are resisting angry protests from acquiring a revolutionary flavor, because they understand the pressure on the regime and the need to support it in the face of armed opposition forces. This was clear after Bashar Al-Assad issued a decree on June 18th 2016, entitled “livelihood compensation for civilian, military, retired and annual contract workers”. The decree was followed two days later by adjustments in the price of gas and butane. Residents in areas under regime control support war economics which has Assad’s regime to remain steadfast for six year after revenues from taxes, border fees and tariffs fell, and after losing control of its oil wells to the Islamic State (ISIS). Syria also benefits from financial and military assistance from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Shadow economics:
7. The existence of unofficial “parallel economies”: Sometimes these economies are more important than the government’s social security network. Although residents in several Arab countries are plagued by high prices and low living standards due to low income, they have an alternative parallel income from other work. This helps overcome latent tensions in societies with low wages for those working in bureaucratic agencies or even private companies.
Absent alternative:
8. The absence of alternatives to incumbent regimes: The Arab revolutions overthrew symbols of ruling regimes, but they were not able to create alternative systems to formulate economic and social policies that meet the needs of ordinary citizens. Citizens mostly realize that the start of a revolution is not like its end. They have their own paths and intrinsic complications. It seems like a maze that citizens do not want to finish or return to. There is despair over change in some Arab countries especially since the “maze of transition” in the post-Arab revolutionary phase makes it unlikely there will be more revolutions.
Possible redress:
In conclusion, although these factors could prevent hunger revolutions from erupting in some Arab countries, this is no excuse for governments not admitting to difficult economic and social conditions, and correcting their policies in response. It is possible to change direction to avoid mayhem. This is dependent on gradual steps that show societies that governments have learnt their lesson, especially in predicting popular uprisings that academic studies and intelligence agencies have failed to predict. “We are not clairvoyant,” as James Clapper, director of US National Intelligence, put it during a congressional hearing.
