After many of years chaffing under the yoke of an oppressive regime, the downtrodden people of a backwards nation were empowered by social media and Western technology to rise up and demand the most basic of human desires: democracy.

If the West ever wanted to tell itself a feel good story, this reading of the events of the Arab Spring would be it. Of course, the above fairytale is nothing more than a neoliberal wet dream — the actual events in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, and the rest of the Middle East are far more complex and much less pro-West than American news channels would have us believe. In fact, there is a hidden side to the events of last year's Arab Spring that nobody wants out in the open…

Gallery by Eric Sampson.