Another great piece from Mouin Rabbani
During the Spring of the so-called Arab Spring, the euphoria that characterized the Winter of 2010/2011 has increasingly given way to more somber attitudes associated with Winter. For those who were expecting a linear progression towards freedom, in which vain autocrats and sclerotic regimes would fall with growing ease and rapidity, despondency is an appropriate response to the increasing ferocity with which ruling elites seek to remain in power.
[He then changes tone considerably in what is largely an optimistic essay.]
http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/1722/the-year-of-the-citizen
