Tunisia Still Has Democracy!

 

TUNISIA

Hope’s Anniversary

On Dec. 17, 2010, fruit and vegetable vendor Tarek el-Tayeb Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in the central non-descript town of Sidi Bouzid after police seized his produce cart.

It was the kind of petty harassment that many Tunisians dealt with every single day.

But this time, the needless oppression of a young destitute street vendor sent a wave of disgust among Tunisians struggling amid widespread corruption, poverty, government incompetence and petty bullying.

It was one last affront in a series of small assaults on dignity and it ignited a revolution.

Tunisians hit the streets in mass. And in a month, they forced Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country after ruling it for 23 years. And they celebrated their new-found freedoms – in squares, on the radio, in coffee houses, in newspapers and in parliament. “We can say what we want!” went the common and joyful refrain a decade ago.

Arabs around the region took notice. One by one, Libyans, Bahrainis, Egyptians, Syrians and Yemenis began hitting the streets in protest in what became the “Arab Spring.” And dictators in power for decades like Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi followed Ben Ali out the door.

In the decade since, many countries involved in this mass movement have seen military coups, civil wars and a backlash among authoritarian leaders in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and elsewhere in the MENA region, wrote the Washington Post earlier this year in a book review of Harvard University Law Professor Noah Feldman’s “The Arab Winter: A Tragedy.”

Tunisia is the exception – and it is exceptional: On the decennial anniversary of its revolution, it is the sole country of the Arab Spring to have retained democracy.

That doesn’t mean everything has gone smoothly.

Today in Tunisia, the dominant narrative of the Arab Spring includes broken dreams, dashed ideals and wistful memories of activists blindly marching into the future.

Some curse Bouazizi’s act, as a Guardian story detailed.

“We won a little freedom,” Aisha Quraishi, 60, who struggles to make ends meet near the desert city of Kairouan, says of Ben Ali’s overthrow. “Under him, we couldn’t speak. But does this affect my life? I want freedom and dignity. Can’t I have both?”

The Tunisian economy is still struggling and failing to provide jobs or an adequate income. The coronavirus is challenging the government and healthcare system, the Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Corruption is still a huge problem while politics is a messy and bitter affair, marked by gridlock, polarization and disarray, noted Voice of America. And that’s after Tunisians kicked out their ruling elite, choosing an outsider with little experience as president last year.

“People thought that Ben Ali’s departure would fix things but that will take 20, 30 years,” lawyer Houeida Anouar told Agence France-Presse. “I’m not sure that within my lifetime, I’ll see a Tunisia with a political scene worthy of the name – but I’m optimistic.”

The moderate Muslim nation has not been immune to radicalism either – Tunisia is still a major exporter of jihadists who fight with the Islamic State in Iraq and elsewhere. The Interpreter, a publication of the Australia-based Lowy Institute, a think tank, traced the origins of terrorist attacks in France to Tunisian militants. The piece speculated that disappointment with the results of the Arab Spring might be driving some young Tunisians to violence. Others say the problem is that for young, educated Tunisians, there are few opportunities.

Still, Tunisia can celebrate its victories, and they are not small.

For example, Tunisia’s constitution written soon after the revolution has “perhaps the most progressive constitutional article regarding equal gender representation in the world,” says Duncan Pickard, a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center.

It promises full rights for women and minorities, something even the celebrated US constitution doesn’t explicitly do.

And in 2014, the Islamist party, Ennahda, and others stepped down in the face of political instability and societal turmoil in favor of a caretaker technocratic government. In other words, politicians put the country first over their own interests, an act rare in any long-established democracy.

Before Saudi agents murdered him in Istanbul in 2018, Saudi journalist and dissident Jamal Khashoggi delivered a speech where he said the Arab Spring showed that democracy was consistent with Islam – and Arab, North African and Middle Eastern culture.

He held Tunisia up as a special example.

“People are losing hope in democracy because of the failure of the Arab Spring revolts – they’re afraid of ending up like Syria,” he said. “(But) news channels that are supportive of freedom and political change in the Middle East should spend a considerable amount of time covering even municipal elections in Tunisia. Every Saudi, every Egyptian and every Syrian should see what the Tunisians are enjoying.”

Revolutions are a sprint. The change they can ignite is a long marathon, full of disillusion, impatience and frustration. It is run on the legs of hope.