CIAO DATE: 09/2012
May 2012
Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre
Since December 2010, the speed, suddenness and scope of events in North Africa and the Middle East have taken everyone by surprise. They nevertheless had to happen. Given the universality of human nature – differences between a European and an Arab are ultimately of minor importance – the processes that began in Europe in the seventeenth century and spread throughout the world would have inevitably reached the Arab countries.
Resource link: Demographic challenges and opportunities ahead in Middle East and North Africa: "Arab Spring" or "Islamic winter"? [PDF] - 338K