The Arab Spring (Arabic: الثورات العربية‎ al-Thawrāt al-ʻArabiyyah; literally the Arabic Rebellions or the Arab Revolutions) is a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests occurring in the Arab world that began on 18 December 2010. To date, rulers have been forced from power in Tunisia,Egypt,Libya, and Yemen; civil uprisings have erupted in Bahrain and Syria; major protests have broken out in Algeria,Iraq,Jordan,Kuwait, and Morocco; and minor protests have occurred in Lebanon,Mauritania, Oman,Saudi Arabia,Sudan, and Western Sahara, as well as clashes at the borders of Israel in May 2011 and protests by the Arab minority in Iranian Khuzestan. Weapons from the Libyan civil war stoked a simmering rebellion in Mali, and the consequent Malian coup d'état has been described as "fallout". The sectarian clashes in Lebanon were described as a direct result of the Syrian uprising and hence the regional Arab Spring.

The protests have shared techniques of mostly civil resistance in sustained campaigns involving strikes, demonstrations, marches, and rallies, as well as the use of social media to organize, communicate, and raise awareness in the face of state attempts at repression and Internet censorship.

Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and a major figure of analytic philosophy. His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.

Ideologically identifying with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy and contemporary capitalism, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His media criticism has included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall. Chomsky is the author of over 100 books. He is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.

Benjamin R. Barber (born August 2, 1939) is an American political theorist and author perhaps best known for his 1996 bestseller, Jihad vs. McWorld.

Barber held the positions of Gershon and Carol Kekst Professor of Civil Society and Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Policy, and he is Walt Whitman Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University; he is currently president and director of the Interdependence Movement and the NGO "CivWorld" at Demos, and its annual Interdependence Day event on September 12. He is a distinguished senior fellow at Demos. As a political theorist, Barber argues for a renewed focus on civil society and engaged citizenship as tools for building effective democracy, particularly in the post-Cold War world. His current work focuses on global democratic governance and the relationship between the arts and democracy. Benjamin Barber has been a Senior Fellow at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy since 2005. He was an outside adviser to President Bill Clinton, a foreign policy adviser to Howard Dean's 2004 Presidential campaign and continues to counsel political leaders in America and abroad.

Dalia Mogahed (born 1974) is an American Muslim scholar of Egyptian origin. She is the Executive Director of the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, a non-partisan research center that provides data and analysis to reflect the views of Muslims all over the world. She was selected as an advisor by U.S. President Barack Obama on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Dalia was born in Cairo, Egypt and immigrated to the United States at the age of 4. She received her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering with a minor in Arabic from the University of Wisconsin and subsequently received her MBA from the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. Upon graduation, Mogahed joined Procter & Gamble as a marketing products researcher.

Dalia Mogahed chairs the Gallup Center for Muslim Studies, which conducts research and statistics on Muslims throughout the world. She was selected as an advisor by U.S. President Barack Obama on the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.