Jihadism in the Aftermath of Arab Revolutions: An Outcome of the “Failed State”?

Abstract

Jihadism in the Arab world is not recent. It has a history, specifically oriented in each country. In Egypt and many Arab countries, the Six-Day War, the failure of the Arab coalition against the Israeli army in June 1967, and the death of Nasser in September 1970 were the swan song of the pan-Arabism and the beginning of the radical version of Islam as a new type of legitimizing ideology and action to fight against Israel, the West, and the inept and corrupt governments that had caused the military disaster. During the Sadat reign that ended up in September 1981 by his assassination by radical Islamist officers, a new type of economic policy, namely the Infitah, the Opening, was implemented that denied state subsidies to large parts of the population, much in the same vein as in many other Arab countries. In Tunisia, these policies increased the class gap between the poor and the rich and concentrated the economic power among the hands of an elite that had close connections to the family of President Ben Ali, widening as well the chasm between the southern and internal regions and the northern and coastal ones where tourism gave an impetus to the economic development.