Tunisia Revolt- Rebirth of Arab Nationalism and Democratic Middle East?

In the recent weeks, the Middle East and Northern Africa have been alive with news of protests and unrest. The toppling of the president for life, IE dictator, in Tunisia by the unrest should make the world pay more attention to what is happening over in that region. Tunisia is not the only country that has unrest with mass protests. The Arab world has not been this much in turmoil politically since Arab Nationalism movement after World War II.

The Arab Nationalism movement tried to bring together the Arab countries of the Middle East and North Africa into an united Arab state, like an United States of America or the European Union. In the end of the 1960s, the movement fell apart after the War of 1967 with Israel and has never regained a foothold since then.

Tunisia was a surprise to the world because it was unexpected since many had not been paying attention to this country's events with what their neighbors were doing. The world was focused on what was happening in neighboring Sudan, especially in the south part of the country since they were voting on independence from the rest of the country. Former US President Jimmy Carter and his wife were in Southern Sudan to witness the election, which gave the war torn region many had known for genocide, Darfur, its freedom from those that caused so much pain and suffering. To many, it was an amazing event since it went off without too much trouble and actually happened before something could stop it.

Since first hearing about the unrest and events in Tunisia, there are have been similiar reports of unrest and mass protests all over the Arab world. There has been news of large protests Algeria and Libya, which both neighbor Tunisia and have dictorial rulers. There are still more reports of unrest and protests in Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, and Yemen, which are expressed in this news story:

Thousands of protesters in Yemen demonstrated Sunday in Sanaa, demanding the country's autocratic president step down, observers said.

The demonstrations were seen as an effect of the "Tunisian wind" sweeping through Arab regimes since the successful revolution in that country earlier this month, Britain's The Telegraph newspaper reported.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2011/01/23/Tunisian-wind-sweeps-into-Yemen/UPI-22361295810762/#ixzz1BzCywi1q

Maybe the two most intriguing Arab nations that have reports of similar protests and unrest are Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which were taught to be some of the most stable nations in the region. The fact that those two powerful kingdoms, especially in the Middle East are starting to be affect too is very telling how strong the unrest in the region is currently. It is especially surprising this information out of Saudi Arabia since they control the media and usually don't let too much of their news outside of their kingdom.

A couple of the nations are trying to placate the unrest and protests with promises of more services, higher salaries, and some places even subsidiaries on goods.  One reason for the unrest is from very high employment in these countrys. While another major reason is high food prices and shortages, which is why some countries are trying to offer what they are offering.

One also has to remember what this unrest might effect: oil prices. A majority of the world's oil is produced in this region and if the unrest spreads, how high will oil prices skyrocket to for the rest of the world?

In the end, the question that needs to be answered is this really a mass movement or just a common cause. And one has to wonder how far this will go and what, if any, other nations will fall and if more democratic governments will take root to replace those more authoritarian regimes that were there previously.