View source for Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam

{{Short description|Political slogan used during the Arab Spring}}
{{italic title}}
[[File:People demand removal of the regime Tahrir.JPG|thumb|English version of the slogan at a rally in [[Tahrir Square]].]]
[[File:Anti-government protest in Assi square of Hama.ogg|right|thumb|Hundreds of thousands of anti-Assad protesters parade and shout "Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam" slogans in the Assi square, during the [[Siege of Hama (2011)|Siege of Hama]] on 22 July 2011]]
'''''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|Ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ an-niẓām}}''''' ({{langx|ar|الشعب يريد إسقاط النظام|lit=the people want to bring down the regime}}, {{IPA|ar|æʃˈʃaʕb juˈriːd ʔɪsˈqɑːtˤ ænniˈðˤɑːm|pron}}) is a political slogan associated with the [[Arab Spring]].<ref>{{cite web |work=[[Al Jazeera English]] |url=http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2011/04/20114483425914466.html |title=The Arab Awakening|date=4 April 2011|access-date=13 April 2011| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110412104811/http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2011/04/20114483425914466.html| archive-date= 12 April 2011 | url-status= live}}</ref><ref name="hur">{{cite web |work=[[Hürriyet]] |url=http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/mob_n.php?n=the-regime-is-overthrown-what-now-2011-02-15 |title=The regime is overthrown, what now?|last=Ertuna |first=Can |date=15 February 2011|access-date=13 April 2011}}</ref> The slogan first emerged during the [[Tunisian Revolution]].<ref name="rk"/> The chant echoed at [[Avenue Habib Bourguiba]] in [[Tunis]] for weeks.<ref name="hur"/> The slogan also became used frequently during the [[2011 Egyptian revolution]].<ref>{{cite web|work=[[The Spectator]] |url=http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6664168/exclusive-on-the-streets-of-cairo.thtml |title=EXCLUSIVE: On the streets of Cairo |last=Beach |first=Alastair |date=1 February 2011 |access-date=13 April 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110308170702/http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6664168/exclusive-on-the-streets-of-cairo.thtml |archive-date=March 8, 2011 }}</ref><ref>{{cite news |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/latest-updates-on-day-11-of-egypt-protests/ |title=Updates on Day 11 of Egypt Protests |last=Mackey |first=Robert |date=4 February 2011|access-date=13 April 2011| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110503084944/http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/latest-updates-on-day-11-of-egypt-protests/| archive-date= 3 May 2011 | url-status= live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/world/middleeast/01square.html?_r=1 |title=In Crowd's Euphoria, No Clear Leadership Emerges |last=Shadid |first=Anthony |date=31 January 2011|access-date=13 April 2011| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20111124083529/http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/01/world/middleeast/01square.html?_r=1| archive-date=November 24, 2011| url-status= live}}</ref><ref name="gu">{{cite web |work=Gulf News |url=http://gulfnews.com/mobile/opinions/columnists/18-days-that-shook-egypt-1.768758 |title=18 Days That Shook Egypt |last=Safty |first=Adel |date=28 February 2011|access-date=13 April 2011}}</ref> It was the most frequent slogan, both in [[graffiti]] and in chants in rallies, during the revolution in Egypt.<ref>{{cite web |work=[[Asia Times]] |url=http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB02Ak03.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110203185729/http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MB02Ak03.html |url-status=unfit |archive-date=3 February 2011 |title=The Brotherhood Factor |last=Escobar |first=Pepe |date=2 February 2011|access-date=13 April 2011}}</ref>
The chant was raised at the protests in [[Bahrain]].<ref name="gu"/><ref>{{cite news |work=[[Financial Times]]|url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9624c2ec-38d5-11e0-b0f6-00144feabdc0.html |title=Bahrain Protestors Take Over Key Junction|date=15 February 2011 |access-date=13 April 2011}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |publisher=BBC|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/world-middle-east-12535681 |title=Bahrain Unrest: Thousands join anti-government protest |date=22 February 2011|access-date=13 April 2011}}</ref> ''Ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam'' has been used frequently in protests across [[Yemen]].<ref>{{cite web|work=National Yemen|url=http://nationalyemen.com/2011/02/26/sa%E2%80%99ada-rallies-repeat-the-people-want-the-fall-of-the-regime/|title=Sa'ada Rallies Repeat "The people want the fall of the regime"|year=2011|access-date=13 April 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110303105951/http://nationalyemen.com/2011/02/26/sa%E2%80%99ada-rallies-repeat-the-people-want-the-fall-of-the-regime/|archive-date=3 March 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |publisher=[[Yahoo! News]] |url=http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/8864549/yemen-protesters-flee-armed-government-loyalists/ |title=Yemen protesters flee armed government loyalists |last1=Ghobari |first1=Mohammed |last2=Abdullah |first2=Khaled |agency=[[Reuters]] |date=17 February 2011 |access-date=13 April 2011 |archive-date=7 July 2011 |archive-url=http://web.archive.bibalex.org/web/20110707162833/http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/8864549/yemen-protesters-flee-armed-government-loyalists/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> The slogan was used in rallies across [[Libya]] at the beginning of the 2011 revolt.<ref>{{cite web |last=El Gharbi |first=Jalel |url=http://www.babelmed.net/Countries/Mediterranean/the_fall.php?c=6413&m=9&l=en |title=The fall of Qaddafi's throne |date=21 February 2011 |access-date=13 April 2011 |publisher=[[Babelmed]] |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120404022908/http://www.babelmed.net/Countries/Mediterranean/the_fall.php?c=6413&m=9&l=en |archive-date=2012-04-04 |url-status=dead }}</ref> In March 2011, a group of youths under the age of 15 were arrested in [[Dera'a]] in southern [[Syria]], after having sprayed ''ejak el door ya doctor'' graffiti, translating to "it is your turn doctor [referring to Al-Assad's regime]. Their arrests [[Syrian civil war|sparked the uprising in Syria]].<ref>{{cite news |publisher=BBC |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12794882 |title=Middle East Unrest: Silence broken in Syria |last=Sinjab |first=Lina |date=19 March 2011|access-date=13 April 2011| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110324151439/http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12794882| archive-date= 24 March 2011 | url-status= live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/todays_paper/A%20Section/2011-03-25/A/1/18.0.1974792299_epaper.html |title=After deadly crackdown, a test of wills looms in Syria |last=Fadel |first=Leila |date=25 March 2011|access-date=13 April 2011}}{{dead link|date=June 2021|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}</ref> The slogan was also used frequently in [[Sudan]] throughout the [[2011–2013 Sudanese protests|protests]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=52995|title=.:Middle East Online::Protests widen, and grow: Sudanese want to overthrow regime:.|website=www.middle-east-online.com|access-date=16 April 2018}}</ref>
In [[Jordan]], a youth group named "24 March" used the slogan ''ash-shaʻb yurīd islah an-niẓām'' ("the people want to reform the system").<ref>{{cite web |last=Sadiki |first=Larbi |url=http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/02/2012225104354937565.html |title=En passant in Jordan: The king's dilemma |date=29 February 2012|access-date=1 March 2011 |publisher=[[Al-Jazeera English]]}}</ref> However, the slogan later changed to ''ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam'' in November 2012, when the government imposed a hike in the price of fuel.<ref>{{cite news | title = Jordan protesters call for "downfall of the regime" | date = 2012-11-16 | url = https://www.reuters.com/article/us-jordan-protest-idUSBRE8AF0LK20121116 | work = Reuters | access-date = 2012-11-17}}</ref>
In [[Lebanon]], the slogan has been used in protests against that country's [[National Pact|sectarian political system]].<ref>{{cite web |publisher=[[Australian Broadcasting Corporation]]|url=http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/07/3156644.htm |title=Beirut Protesters Demand End to Sectarianism |last=Barker |first=Anne |date=7 March 2011 |access-date=13 April 2011}}</ref> In the Lebanese protests, ''an-nizam'' ("the regime") did not refer to the sectarian political order as such, but rather the government.<ref>{{cite web |work=[[The National (Abu Dhabi)|The National]] |url=http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/middle-east/no-sects-please-were-lebanese-say-campaigners-for-secular-state |title=No sects, please, we're Lebanese, say campaigners for secular state |last=Constantine |first=Zoe |date=9 March 2011 |access-date=13 April 2011}}</ref> In [[State of Palestine|Palestine]], a variation of the slogan, ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|Ash-shaʻb yurīd inhāʼ al-inqisām}}'' ({{lang|ar|الشعب يريد إنهاء الانقسام}}, "the people want the division to end"), emerged in protests calling for the two main factions [[Fatah]] and [[Hamas]] to settle their differences.<ref>{{cite web |work=[[The Jerusalem Post]]|url=http://www.jpost.com/MiddleEast/Article.aspx?id=212276 |title=Palestinians Demand: 'We want to end the division' |last=Abu Toameh |first=Khaled |date=15 March 2011|access-date=13 April 2011}}</ref> A parody of the slogan has been used by [[Bashar al-Assad]]'s supporters in Syria as ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|ash-shaʻb yurīd Bashār al-Asad}}'' ({{Langx|ar|الشعب يريد بشار الاسد|lit=the people want Bashar al-Assad}}).<ref>{{cite web|title=حشد مليوني في قلب العاصمة دمشق يهتف بصوت واحد: الشعب يريد بشار الأسد|url=http://www.alintiqad.com/essaydetails.php?eid=48487&cid=76|work=al-Intiqad|access-date=2011-11-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120425125935/http://www.alintiqad.com/essaydetails.php?eid=48487&cid=76|archive-date=2012-04-25|url-status=dead}}</ref> Another parody of the slogan has been used by [[King Hamad]]'s loyalists in Bahrain as ''{{transliteration|ar|ALA|ash-shaʻb yurīd isqāṭ al-Wifāq}}'' ({{Langx|ar|الشعب يريد إسقاط الوفاق|lit=the people want to bring down Al-Wefaq}}), referring to the main opposition party of Bahrain, [[Al-Wefaq]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Feb-22/164239-bahrain-sunnis-warn-government-over-dialogue-at-rally.ashx#axzz1nwuxNAKc|title=Bahrain Sunnis warn government over dialogue at rally|date=22 February 2012|website=dailystar.com.lb|access-date=16 April 2018}}</ref>
==Variants==
Syrian Islamists have appropriated the slogan for their own purposes, altering it to “The People want the declaration of Jihad” ({{Langx|ar|الشعب يريد إعلان الجهاد|translit=ash-sha’ab yurīd i’lān al-Jihād}}), as well as "The Ummah wants an Islamic Caliphate" ({{Langx|ar|الامة تريد خلافة إسلامية|translit=al-Ummah turīd khilāfah islāmiyyah}}).<ref>{{cite news|title=What do the people want? Dissection of the Arab Spring slogan |date=2012-03-02 |url=http://subyraman.com/what-do-the-people-want-dissection-of-the-arab-spring-slogan/ |work=Tabeer |access-date=2012-03-03 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130801074847/http://subyraman.com/what-do-the-people-want-dissection-of-the-arab-spring-slogan/ |archive-date=August 1, 2013 }}</ref>
In post-Mubarak Egypt, given the fact that the military government only partially met the demands of the revolutionaries, with the dreaded state of emergency remaining in place, some protesters started using a somewhat different version of the slogan: ''The people want to bring down the field marshal'', referring to Field Marshal [[Mohamed Tantawi]], the Chairman of the [[Supreme Council of the Armed Forces]].<ref>{{cite news |title=Scorecard: Egypt's army and the revolution |author=Evan Hill |url=http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/2011629124848564932.html |newspaper=[[Al-Jazeera English]] |date=30 June 2011 |access-date=6 July 2011| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110702185507/http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/06/2011629124848564932.html| archive-date= 2 July 2011 | url-status= live}}</ref>
During the [[2011 Israeli social justice protests]], the slogan "The people want social justice" was used, chanted in [[Hebrew]] to the same cadence as ''ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam''.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Karon |first1=Tony |title=Massive Protests Raise the Question: Should Israel be More European or American? |url=https://world.time.com/2011/08/10/massive-protests-raise-the-question-should-israeli-society-be-more-european-or-american/ |magazine=Time |access-date=11 March 2023 |date=10 August 2011}}</ref>
==Context==
Uriel Abulof, professor of politics at [[Tel-Aviv University]] and a senior research fellow at [[Princeton University]], commented:
{{Blockquote|Virtually all English renditions of the uprising's call missed its singular, key letter: "The people want''s'' to bring down the regime." This seeming semantics marks a sea-change in political ethics. For in the two long centuries since Napoleon landed in Alexandria, the moral foundation of modern politics -- popular sovereignty -- has been absent from the Arab Middle East. The Arab people became the object for colonizers, dictators and imams, with their call to submission and arms. Never a subject for thought and action, the people lacked political agency, powerless to forge a collective moral self, let alone a nation to demand self-determination: the right to tell right from wrong in the public sphere.
Whether Arab popular uprisings will eventually transform political systems – thus nominally qualified as real revolutions – remains to be seen. But one revolution is real and clear: the people (شعب, sha'ab) was born – a collective, rather than a collection, of individuals, a whole greater than the sum of its parts. The uprising's slogan was not simply, as one might have expected, "down with the regime." It is precisely because the demonstrates felt that the existence of such a people, let alone one in possession of agency, is far from obvious, that they added, in a resolute speech-act – an act created by speech – "the people wants."<ref>{{cite news |last=Abulof |first=Uriel |url=https://www.huffingtonpost.com/uriel-abulof/what-is-the-arab-third-es_b_832628.html/ |title=What Is the Arab Third Estate? |date=3 October 2011 |access-date=29 September 2013 |work=Huffington Post}}</ref>}}
Benoît Challand, teaching Middle Eastern politics at the [[University of Bologna]], commented on the slogan in the following way:
{{Blockquote|The rendering of autonomy in Arabic illustrates my point as the term is translated as ''tasayyir daati'' {{sic}} – that is the "self-impulse,"  or "self-drive." And indeed, once the initial spark was lit, it was as if the Tunisian people moved as a whole, into spontaneous protests. Egyptian, Libyan, and Yemeni people called for the fall of their respective regime. The slogan "ash-sha’b yourid isqat al-nithaam" [the people want the fall of the regime], appearing across the region, captures this social cohesion (the people) and the unity in the project.<ref>{{cite web |last=Challand |first=Benoit |url=http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2011/03/the-counter-power-of-civil-society-in-the-middle-east-2/ |title=The Counter-Power of Civil Society in the Middle East |work=Deliberately Considered |date=2 March 2011|access-date=13 April 2011}}</ref>}}
[[Rashid Khalidi]], the Edward Said professor of Arab studies at [[Columbia University]] and the editor of the ''[[Journal of Palestine Studies]]'', commented in the following manner:
{{Blockquote|It will largely be determined in these streets, as well as in the internet cafes, and in the union halls, newspaper offices, women's groups and private homes of millions of young Arabs who have served notice as publicly as possible that they will no longer tolerate being treated with the contempt and disrespect their governments have shown them for their entire lives. They have put us all on notice with their slogan: "The people want the fall of the regime." They are not only referring to their corrupt governments; they also mean the old regime that has prevailed for decades in the entire Arab world, from the Atlantic to the Gulf.<ref name="rk">{{cite web |last=Khalidi |first=Rashid |url=http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/02/24/reflections_on_the_revolutions_in_tunisia_and_egypt |title=Reflections on the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt|date=24 February 2011|access-date=13 April 2011 |publisher=The Middle East Channel| archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110506194740/http://mideast.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/02/24/reflections_on_the_revolutions_in_tunisia_and_egypt| archive-date= 6 May 2011 | url-status= live}}</ref>}}
==See also==
* [[El pueblo unido jamás será vencido]]
* [[Arab Spring]]
* [[2023 Gaza economic protests]], during which protestors used the slogan against the ruling [[Hamas]] government<ref name="Monitor">{{cite news |last1=Adam |first1=Ali |title=Despite Hamas' crackdown, Gaza protests continue in rare defiance |url=https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/08/despite-hamas-crackdown-gaza-protests-continue-rare-defiance |access-date=9 November 2023 |work=[[Al-Monitor]] |date=2023-08-06}}</ref>
==References==
{{Reflist|2}}
==External links==
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tskWhWtl6I News footage of Egyptian protestors using the slogan]
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxZ7fz3O5AY Ash-sha'ab yurid isqat an-nizam], Bahraini song
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYyNSmKwC6s Ash-sha'ab lubnani yurid isqat an-nizam at-ta'ifi], Lebanese song
*[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nRp15MMEPc Video from rally in Benghazi]
{{Arab Spring}}
[[Category:Political catchphrases]]
[[Category:Arab Spring]]
[[Category:Arabic words and phrases]]