The spark of the Arab spring ignited four years back in the Middle
East and North Africa besides creating indefinite chaos and uncertainty buried
the penchant for good science. Unleashing of the pent up frustration triggered
a wave of uprising resulting in toppling of regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria,
Libya and Yemen. The new governments in these regions are now volatile and the
situation of the scientists have taken a different trajectory altogether. Current
Issue of Nature chronicled the profiles of scientists in Tunisia, Egypt and Syria
to fathom the damage caused by the demonstrations and revolts held under the
banner of Arab Spring.
Of all these nations Tunisia is back on its heels as its bold civil society have fought
tooth and nail to restore complete democracy. The nation had long tradition of
extending great support to education and research. It was one of the best performers
in terms of scientific output than any other Arab nations other than Saudi
Arabia before the revolution. Government mandated 1% of GDP towards education
and research. But the repressive regimes stifled the academic freedom as all
the appointments in the university were controlled by the government.
Scientific institutions were not autonomous and their policies and strategies
were strictly scrutinised by the government. Hence research related to
sensitive issues especially in social sciences suffered a death blow. The bureaucrats
used to block the linkages between the universities and industries. But the situation
began to change after the democratic government was reinstated. Parliament
passed a bill which guaranteed free speech, freedom of expression, religious
freedom and equality between sexes. With the new reforms the scientific society
is quite optimistic about the future of the country. It will still take some
time for the new changes to permeate into the system and yield perceptible
results in higher education and scientific innovations. The recent incident of assassinations
of foreign tourists in Bardo National Museum in Tunis by radical extremists has
raised few doubts about complete restoration of peace and stability in the
country. But Scientists are very pragmatic as political influence and nepotism
has almost reduced. Tunisia perhaps is the only country which has stabilised
itself after four years of the revolution.
Egypt: With the toppling of authoritarian regime of
Hosni Mubarak in 2011 Egyptian scientists working abroad saw a ray of hope and
returned to their native land. The new government promised to double funding
for science in 2012 but due to lack of objective vision nearly 80% of the funds
were left unused. Following a coup democratically elected leader Mohammed Morsi
was replaced by Abdel Fattah Sisi in 2013. All the gains made in 2012 followed
by the uprisings of students and researchers were reversed by the new regime.
The government started taking final call on the appointments but thankfully new
constitution passed in 2014 allotted 1% of GDP for scientific research.
Researchers believe that majority of it would be spend in the form of salaries
and other allowances leaving little scope for building new infrastructure. Due
to severe restrictions on the movement of the scientific material across the
borders the procurement of needed supplies and chemicals for laboratories has
become an arduous and time-consuming process. Most scientists complain that
this has been major deterrent for carrying out productive research. Above all
researchers in Egypt feel that the mindset of people must changes to have
greater scientific output.
Syria: While the situation in Tunisia and
Egypt has relatively stabilised the hopes of revival of Syria are steadily
deteriorating. What has started as a restive movement against lack of freedom
of expression turned into a civil war with joining of more factions leaving a little
hope of restoration of peace. During the past four years some amount of education
and research activities were carried out by a committed bunch of scientists and
researchers who refused to budge from their responsibilities and felt obligated
towards the future generation of the country. Life in Syria started becoming
more difficult. With lack of security, access to water or fuel and skyrocketing
of prices scores of the scientists have moved out of Syria. Since the regime
has passed a resolution drafting all men to army, people are left with options
of either taking up arms or fled Syria (in other words either to kill or get
killed). The International Centre for Agriculture Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA)
struggled to function till 2012 and as international researchers started
leaving Syria even the centre moved to Lebanon. Researchers who are working in
Syria say that working conditions have become extremely difficult and
subsequently the quality of research was affected. In some places students and
faculty have to tread through danger zones to attend Universities. With ISIS
taking control over eastern Syria, schools and Universities in those regions
were closed and people are forced to flee.
The Arab Spring indeed sparked a massive revolution but
unfortunately some countries are doused by the very fire of renaissance while
some of them are trying to get back to normalcy.
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