Oriente Medio y Norte de África
Middle East and North Africa
Yemeni rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Tawakkol Karman shouts slogans as a policeman watches during an anti-government demonstration in Sana’a, Yemen, 15 February 2011.
© REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
For the peoples and states of the Middle East and North Africa, 2011 was a truly momentous year. It was a year of unprecedented popular uprisings and tumult, a year in which the pent-up pressures, demands and protests of a rising generation swept aside a succession of veteran rulers who, almost until they fell, had appeared virtually unassailable. Others, at the year’s end, were still clinging to power but only through the most ruthless means, their futures hanging in the balance. The region as a whole was then still reeling amid the continuing tremors and aftershocks of the political and social earthquake that exploded in the first months of the year. Although much remained uncertain, the events of 2011 appeared likely to be every bit as significant for the peoples of the region as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet empire had been for the peoples of Europe and Central Asia.