From the Arab Spring to the Belarus Awakening and the ongoing Iranian protest Women, Life, Freedom, female-centered imagery and social media are battlegrounds of resistance and oppression.
Tunisian journalists protest in front of the Prime Minister’s office in the capital Tunis on February 16, 2023, in defence of freedom of expression and against the persecution of journalists.
Fethi Belaid/AFP
Iranian women have often used images of actions such as singing and dancing unveiled to show what freedom means to them and to protest the Islamic Republic’s gender oppression.
Members of the Muslim Brotherhood protest at a rally in 2013.
Carsten Koall/Getty Images
It started with the deaths of ten people in a locked-down apartment, but is not a widespread demonstration of unrest across CHina.
Demonstrators protest in Tunisia’s capital Tunis in 2021 against President Kais Saied’s steps to tighten his grip on power.
Fethi Belaid/AFP via Getty Images
Tunisia’s democratic backslide demonstrates how autocrats can use constitutional cover to entrench authoritarianism.
A protest in Johannesburg against the lack of service delivery or basic necessities such as access to water and electricity.
Photo by Marco Longari / AFP via Getty images
The country is still a very different political space. It’s a noisy democracy with a free media, lots of dissenting voices, and insulting the government doesn’t carry any overt sanction.
Former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe greets supporters massed at his party headquarters shortly before his ouster in 2017.
Jekesai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images
The events of the past decade in the Middle East have upended the states in the region. What will the future hold?
In 2014, the Islamic State group could draw crowds of supporters, like these in Mosul, Iraq. But actual fighting recruits have been harder to come by.
AP Photo
Charles Kurzman, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
A second plot was planned on 9/11, but there were too few terrorists to carry it off. Twenty years later, al-Qaida and its offshoot the Islamic State group still have trouble attracting recruits.
Tunisian president Kais Saied has dismissed the prime minister and taken power.
EPA-EFE/Presidency of Tunisia handout
History tells us that the stability of a country’s security forces is key to the success or failure of a popular uprising.
Under tight security, Libyans mark the 10th anniversary of their 2011 uprising that led to the overthrow and killing of longtime ruler Moammar Gadhafi in Martyrs Square, Tripoli, Libya.
(AP Photo/Hazem Ahmed)
Ten years after the Arab Spring, hope has given way to turmoil as Libyans have watched duelling governments and armed groups fight over the country’s oil riches. Is a new chance for peace afoot?
In Libya, the sense of jubilation after the revolt that brought down Muammar Gadaffi did not last long.
ZOHRA BENSEMRA/Alamy/Reuters
Despite moments of hope, worries about the present and fears that the future may be even worse have been rising for decades. What can geopolitics teach us about the global impact of fear?