North African Optimism

Babylon & Beyond passes on some poll results:

"The feeling among pollsters in the gulf Arab countries contrasted sharply with respondents in other parts of the Middle East, especially North Africans, who expressed far more optimism, according to the study.

"Seventy percent of North Africans polled said they felt that they were about to enter 'a new era in the Arab world.'

"Again, optimism was highest in North Africa, the area where the uprisings began, on the question of whether the 'current movement' will make the Arab world a more democratic place. Eighty-five percent of respondents there said they believed that Arab countries would be democratic states in five years."

This confirms a sense I've had that North Africa is really the area where change is likely to be most successful, and that looking back we may remember 2011 as the year of the "North African Spring," counting Egypt in its continental home for this purpose.