Syrian revolutionaries have gained knowledge from the Arab Spring. (Fairchild 1).
The Arab Spring was an uprising against restrictive governments in the Middle East. The only protests to result in regime change were in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. They are all located in Arab Northern Africa. The region had been a hotspot for civilian hatred to corrupt governments. The spark that ultimately caused all of the revolutions was a street vendor in the Tunisian capital, Tunis. He decided that government restrictions on his fruit-selling business were so hindering that he went on to kill himself. Tunisians rose up against the government who had put in place legislation that restricted the livelihoods of the people. This was the first nation to be part of the Arab Spring. The people used social media to organize. The leader of Tunisia, Ali, was overthrown due to widespread protests that showed that he was not liked by the people. Knowing that protests could work to get regime change, other nations, such as Egypt and Libya, rose up against their oppressive governments (Feuilherade 1). The people of Egypt and Libya that wanted change were subject to harsh treatment from the government, much more severe than what the Tunisian protesters encountered. The social networking sites, which by that point had been a major tool in the protests, were a target of the government's technological capabilities. In both cases, the leaders of Egypt and Libya, Mubarak and Gaddafi, respectively, knew the influence which the Internet had on the movements. In the regime's minds, these sources of discontent and reports to the outside world of human rights violations needed to be silenced. Instead of stopping the uprising, it only fueled the fire. The governmental mishandling of its powers led to greater distrust. In Egypt, Mubarak was forced out of power after killing almost a thousand civilians in order to try to remain in power.
