"The Arab Spring" has been replaced by the "Arab Winter" over the past years, director of the Oriental Studies Institute of Azerbaijan's National Academy of Sciences, Govhar Bakhshaliyeva, said in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza, commenting on changes in the life of countries of the Middle East in the 21st century.
Speaking about the problems of today's Arab world, she noted that there's a strong polarization in the society. "Rich families send their children to Europe so that they could get better education. They integrate into European culture, some even remain there forever. At the same time, majority of the population receives religious education. As a result, when democratic elections are held in a particular Arab country, Muslim parties get the power, as it happened, for example, in Egypt, where 'Muslim Brotherhood' won. Such trends bring society back to the Middle Ages," she said.
The experience of recent years showed that this happens even when Muslim party calls itself a party of reforms. "For example, 'Muslim Brotherhood' came to power using good, very civilized slogans, which is why people voted for them, but then, in just one year, they changed the Constitution so that the country almost turned from secular to Islamic state. I believe that right now these countries can develop only under pragmatic rulers like Hosni Mubarak, Saddam Hussein or Bashar Assad," she stressed.
"By the way, Egypt was lucky compared to the others, because secular representatives of military circles retained their influence - they realized where Mohamed Mursi leads the country and overthrew him, returning military regime, which existed for almost 50 years," she said.
"Unfortunately, the 'Arab Spring has apparently turned into the 'Arab Winter' - initial hopes have not come true, and life once again showed that these countries should be led by strong authoritarian personalities," she added.
"I really hope that nothing like the 'Arab spring' will happen with Iran, including because Azerbaijan has a large border with this country, there are a lot of ethnic Azerbaijanis living in Iran. In any case, military actions in Iran don't promise anything good," she concluded.
