The "Arab Spring" Has Sprung
   Yesterday, President Obama gave his much-anticipated "Arab spring"
   the "Arab spring," considering that the Tunisian protests that got the
   Of course, the "Arab spring" doesn't actually have to correspond to
   spring is understood metaphorically and not literally. The obvious
   model for Arab spring is the Prague spring of 1968, when Czechoslovakia
   invaded. But even before 1968, spring and springtime have had a long
   As Michael Quinion notes on his World Wide Words site, Arab spring and
   Prague spring have a much earlier precursor: the European revolutions
   of 1848, which historians dubbed springtime of the peoples or spring of
   French printemps des peuples. From 1848 to 1968 to 2011, the social
   movements given the spring label have shared a hope for liberalization
   springtime first. The political philosopher Ludwig Börne used the term
   People's Spring-time." When revolution struck Germany and other nearby
   they called the 'Völkerfrühling' â the People's Springtime." Other
   writers translated the expression as "The Spring of Nations."
   spring label was Russia's Liberal reform of 1904, a forerunner to the
   that "the second half of 1904, known as 'Spring,' was marked by a
   spring notes that along with the Prague spring of 1968, there has been
   a Polish spring of 1956 (and again in 1982), and even a Seoul spring in
   political springtime well before the Tunisian demonstrations of last
   than to ventilate the region with an Arab spring." But just two years
   later an "Arab spring" seemed like more than a pipe dream, with
   presidential elections in Egypt, "may well usher in an Arab spring of
   Arab spring to become a tangible reality in Egypt and elsewhere.
   These springtime labels all owe their rhetorical power to a master