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18 tumultuous days of nonstop media coverage

The various responses by religious leaders to the events of the Arab Spring suggest three distinct issues facing the role of religion and politics (particularly, the possibility of a more democratic politics) in the Arab World. First, the lack of institutional independence from strong regimes continues to undermine scholars' legitimacy. It is hard to believe, for example, that Qaradawi's stance regarding Bahrain was not influenced by the Gulf Cooperation Council's anti-Iran policies. This failure to be consistent, meanwhile, undermines his status as a moral voice in these times of uncertainty. Second, among traditional scholars, there remains a profound failure to understand the nature of the modern state and how it differs from the personal rule that characterized pre-modern states. Third, traditionalist scholars continue to view politics as something exogenous to the religious life, as if it were something that can safely be ignored without doing any damage to one's life as a Muslim.

Qaradawi's reputation for moral courage in the face of Arab dictators, however, suffered a significant blow as a result of his refusal to condemn the actions of the Bahraini and Saudi governments in violently suppressing the peaceful protests in Manama's Pearl Square. His attempts to distinguish the Bahraini protests on the ground that they were sectarian in character rather than national hardly seemed at the time plausible; in light of subsequent events, they are even less so.

Some have attempted to make the Arab spring ‘unknowable’ as a socio-political phenomenon, all the better to obscure the intentions of its subjects and justify counterrevolution. But the reality is that its aims of establishing freedom and democracy in a region run by decades-old systems of tyranny exists beyond its popularly accepted timeline

In almost every national situation where counterrevolution has triumphed, it has been allowed to do so without any hindrance by the democratic West – in fact, in many cases it’s with direct or indirect support from it

There was never any true support for democracy from those who pretended to be its bastions and patrons, all while powerful foreign anti-democratic forces, such as Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, mobilised viciously on the side of counterrevolution to crush nascent democracy

plenty of commentators are drawing direct comparisons between the current events and the collapse of the eastern bloc. This approach performs an ideological function, in that it discursively integrates the current upheaval into a pre-existing approved ideological narrative – the dictatorships of the Middle East are merely the latest in a long line of tyrannies to have been undermined by the relentless march of progress and liberal democracy. Thus these upheavals represent further confirmation of the moral and organisational superiority of the western order.

The dynamic of change in countries such as Egypt is much more radical. In Marxist terms, the "political revolution" (reorganisation of the political institutions and changes among the leading state personnel) threatens to carry over into a "social revolution" (a more far-reaching reconfiguration of social relations and of the economic system). This can be seen in the way the focus of struggle, post-Mubarak, has shifted from Tahrir Square to the political-economic space of factories as workers organise strikes, articulate demands that are both political and economic, and start to challenge the power of Egypt's "little Mubaraks" – the country's economic elites. The revolution is deepening and taking on a definite class dynamic.

the pressures which are driving the revolts in north Africa are just as much systemic, economic ones as they are to do with political repression in Arab states

The Arab Spring revolutions may have their moments of self-doubt or seem stalled at times, but they are authentic expressions for change and, to use an overused phrase, on the right side of history

Its nerves showed in July 2010, when King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa split his Ministry of Culture and Information into two unequal parts. The incumbent minister, an Al Khalifa woman, kept responsibility for culture and tourism. The more telling and urgent action concerned the information portfolio. In a public statement, King Hamad declared that Bahrain had become the target of "planned media provocations, particularly from Iran, to which the Bahraini media has not been able to respond as it must." He then decreed the creation of an Information Affairs Authority (IAA) to meet the Kingdom's "immense" political challenges. The man the king picked to lead the new authority is Sheikh Fawaz bin Mohammed Al Khalifa. As IAA chief, Sheikh Fawaz enjoys ministerial rank and is effectively Bahrain's Minister of Information, although only unofficial media use that Orwellian title.

Sheikh Fawaz is courteous, unquestionably loyal, and, at base, unimaginative. He is also relentlessly competitive

Tone-Lōc's Funky Cold Medina was a favorite

The idea of revolution has arrived, among the minority of youths with access to social media but also among the masses via the poor man’s Facebook: FM radio. And their geriatric presidents and prime ministers are nervous.

The Henry Jackson Society, the London-based foreign-policy think tank where I work, has spent the last several weeks investigating the Syrian opposition and talking to key figures in six major cities in upheaval. The evidence suggests that this revolution is the most liberal and Western-friendly of any of the Arab Spring uprisings. That it's also the least supported by the West is a tragedy.

The six oppositionists we spoke to in Syria all regarded the revolution as a confessionally and tribally unified endeavor. The sectarianism, they said, was wholly on Assad's side. Even Kurds have marched under the Syrian flag, something unthinkable in years past. Indeed, May 27 was nicknamed "Azadi Friday" for a Kurdish word meaning freedom, underscoring the solidarity that exists between Syrian Arabs and a long-oppressed tribal minority. The oppositionist in Hama, Syria's fourth-largest city, assured us that Christians had joined in Friday prayers at the Great Mosque in that city. "Druze, Sunni, Alawite and Kurd—we will never stop," echoed our source in Homs, in western Syria.

Signed by 150 oppositionists both inside Syria and in exile, the statement echoes the demands of the coordinating committees but also addresses how to transition Syria from a totalitarian dictatorship to a pluralist democracy. It's explicitly based on the Eastern European, Latin American, and South African models

it is more difficult to protect freedom from the proponents of freedom themselves than from the enemies

promises to be the first free and fair election of the Arab Spring

Through it all, many observers say, Tunisia appears to have stayed on track — especially in comparison with the muddle after the season’s second Arab revolution, in Egypt, where the interim military government is still ironing out a complicated multistage plan that could delay full civilian control until 2014