Arab Spring
The Arab Spring (Arabic: الربيع العربي, ar-rabīˁ al-ˁarabī) was a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests (both non-violent and violent), riots, and civil wars in the Arab world that began on 18 December 2010 in Tunisia with the Tunisian Revolution, and spread throughout the countries of the Arab League and its surroundings. While the wave of initial revolutions and protests faded by mid-2012, some started to refer to the succeeding and still ongoing large-scale discourse conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa as the Arab Winter. The most radical discourse from Arab Spring into the still ongoing civil wars took place in Syria as early as the second half of 2011.
By the end of February 2012, rulers had been forced from power in Tunisia,Egypt,Libya, and Yemen; civil uprisings had erupted in Bahrain and Syria; major protests had broken out in Algeria,Iraq,Jordan,Kuwait,Morocco, and Sudan; and minor protests had occurred in Mauritania,Oman,Saudi Arabia,Djibouti,Western Sahara, and Palestine. Weapons and Tuareg fighters returning from the Libyan Civil War stoked a simmering conflict in Mali which has been described as 'fallout' from the Arab Spring in North Africa.