Just two days after the overthrow of President Ben Ali in Tunisia, videos are circulating of disturbances in neighbouring Libya. Needless to say, this is causing a good deal of excitement on Twitter.

Colonel Gaddafi has been in power for almost 42 years, compared with a mere 23 for Ben Ali. In his second-to-last speech as president, Ben Ali referred to Gaddafi as "my dear brother" and thanked him for support. In a speech reported by the official Libyan news agency on Saturday, Gaddafi reciprocated:

"I am very pained by what is happening in Tunisia ... Tunisia now lives in fear ... What is this for? To change Zine al-Abidine? Hasn't he told you he would step down after three years? Be patient for three years ..."

Almanara, a Libyan opposition website which appears to have Islamist leanings, has posted three videos of protesters in the city of al-Bayda. There are also a few more on YouTube and al-Jazeera has a report in Arabic.

The facts are still rather unclear, but Almanara says the demonstrators clashed with security forces, threw stones at a government building and set fire to one of its offices. The protesters were demanding "decent housing and dignified life", according to the website. Provision of housing appears to be the main issue and there are reports of people taking over apartments and squatting in them.

Will it develop into anything bigger? A month ago, I would have said the likelihood of that was zero. Post-Tunisia, though, it's difficult to be quite so sure..

We can expect to see many more incidents like this over the coming months in various Arab countries. Inspired by the Tunisian uprising, people are going to be more assertive about their grievances and start probing, to see how far they can push the authorities. In the light of Tunisia we can also expect a tendency, each time disturbances happen, to suggest (or hope) that they are the start of some new Arab revolution. The reality, though, is that almost all of them will quickly fizzle out or get crushed. But one day – who knows when? – another of them will grow wings and bring down a regime.

Contrary to what many people imagine, protests and even large-scale riots are not uncommon in the Arab countries. They occur mostly in marginalised regions or among marginalised sections of the population and, normally, they pose no great threat to the regime.

Last month – one day before the trouble started in Tunisia – there was a Sunni-versus-Shia riot in the Saudi city of Medina. Eight hundred people are said to have taken part; windows were smashed and dozens of cars damaged or destroyed. Outside the kingdom, hardly anyone noticed.

Earlier this month, Maan in Jordan witnessed several days of 
disturbances which were attributed to a labour dispute and/or inter-tribal violence.

In Yemen, meanwhile, the regime faces almost permanent armed rebellion from one quarter or another – though it somehow survives.

The tricky part is judging the significance of such protests when they occur. One test is whether they are outside the norm for the country concerned: ten dead in a tribal battle with the Yemeni army would be no big deal, but the same thing in Oman, next door, would be hugely significant.

Applying the "Tunisia test", the following are also useful pointers for distinguishing minor from major protests:

1. Disturbances sustained for more than a few days.

2. Disturbances steadily growing in strength and spreading to other areas, especially those areas not traditionally regarded as marginalised.

3. Focus of protests shifting strongly from the original grievances to a more generalised critique of the regime.

4. Regime starting to show signs of inability to reassert control.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 16 Jan 2011