In Tunisia, a People March Towards Freedom
It started with a young unemployed man with a university degree in computer science setting himself on fire. Twenty-six-year-old Mohammad Bouazizi was one of more than ten million Tunisians suffering under the dictatorship of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. He had ruled the country for 23 years.
In Tunisia, where corruption is rampant, freedom of speech is curtailed, and, most importantly, unemployment is a staggering 13.3%, Bouazizi had little hope. After the food cart that he hauled around to support his family was forcibly removed from the streets by the police, Bouazizi couldn’t take the shame and humiliation anymore. On December 17, in front of the governor’s office in central Tunisia’s Sidi Bouzid province, he drenched himself in gasoline and lit himself on fire.
Even though Bouazizi survived, word of his suicide attempt gripped a nation tired of authoritarian rule. The people of Tunisia, who had lived under dictatorships for decades, decided enough was enough. Riots began in Sidi Bouzid on December 18. The demands? More jobs and cuts in food prices.
In a country with no hope, these riots forced hope. In the coming days and weeks, protests would slowly spread to the rest of the country as more and more people joined hands in denouncing the dictatorship’s rule.
Throughout Christmas and over the past few days, the government clamped down on the protesters in a manner reminiscent of Iran in 2008 — brutally massacring dissidents, jailing opposition activists, and cutting off internet services in order to slow down the protesters’ march. (The number of dead is in the dozens, depending on which source you believe.)
They failed.
Protesters grew stronger in the face of repression. In the past few days, the capital, Tunis, witnessed some of the largest protests against a Middle East dictator in living memory — outside of Iran, of course. When the unemployed Bouazizi, who was struggling for his life, finally died on January 4, the rage hit a new high.
On Thursday, the government finally seemed to recognize it had begun to lose control. Ben Ali, who had previously claimed that the protesters were nothing but terrorists, appeared on national TV and admitted that he had been wrong. He promised that he would not seek re-election in 2014, dismissing the government and ordering the security forces not to shoot protesters. He also announced new elections in six months.
This only emboldened the protesters further. On Friday, thousands amassed in the capital in front of the Ministry of Interior. While protesters were removed forcibly, several were killed and many others were injured. President Ben Ali had enough. First, a curfew was announced and crowds of more than three people were banned.
Then, sensing that it was too late, President Ben Ali hopped a plane and fled the country — to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
This is not necessarily good news.
The Islamic radicals are waiting in the wings.
I am wondering why you call Tunisia an Arab country. While it was occupied, colonised and Arabised by the Arabs, most countries in North Africa, and especially Algeria and Morocco, are Amazigh (Berber) countries.
The Amazigh probably represent as many as 80% of the population in Morocco and Algeria, more than 60% in Tunisia and Libya and 2% in Egypt, altogether some 50 million people.
Not all Amazigh in the Berber heartland look favourably upon Islam and the Arabisation forced upon them. In the last years there has been a revival of Amazigh culture and identity.
And there you have another unknown in the mix.
You are being incredibly naive – look next door at the Islamofascist power in Algeria and you can see that Berbers (who speak Arabic these days) are prone to the same moral depravity and intelectual stupidity as the Arabs.
Tunisia is an Arab country by virtue of its membership in the Arab League, the fact that Arabic is its official language and by its deep historical and cultural ties with the rest of the world. Furthermore, while there is SOME Berber cultural revival, it is akin to St. Patty’s Day celebrations by Irish-Americans.
Just because you wear green and get drunk doesn’t make you un-American and fully Irish.
And the reason I am not pessimistic is because Tunisia has been largely saved from the resurgent Islamic movements that gripped Algeria.
“And the reason I am not pessimistic is because Tunisia has been largely saved from the resurgent Islamic movements that gripped Algeria.”
Because the now former secular dictator suppressed it. Wherever that secular suppression stops in the Muslim world – Iran, Algeria, Turkey, Gaza – the people willing put the Islamonazis in power. Tunisia will be no different.
Mark my words.
I agree with you, the most likely scenario is that an Islamist government will take power.
Well said. This is a jihadist takeover no different from the 1979 revolution in Iraq, or the attempted (but defeated) revolution in Algeria.
Tunisia will become a radical Islamist country, where up until now it has been a largely secular country where there was a pretty clear separation between mosque and state.
Josh writes, “And the reason I am not pessimistic is because Tunisia has been largely saved from the resurgent Islamic movements that gripped Algeria.”
That does not mean that one isn’t in the wings ready to appear at the “right” moment such as this one.
As Bilgeman writes, these people are the same as the people of other Arabic speaking nations that were not originally Arab and Moslem but were “Arabized” and “Islamized” by the Arab conquest of the 9th Century. I hope that the level of education that these young people have received has made them less amenable to either Islamic or arab nationalist radicalism, but the record does not leave room for optomism.
What’s to celebrate? The Tunisians will put brutal, America-hating, Jew-killing Islamonazis in power like the rest of their morally depraved Arab brethren.
The hate I can live with (proud to be an American); once they start killing Americans it’s time for action.
Tunisia is their country. If they desire a revolution and their freedom (whatever that means), I’m all for it.
To follow your train of thought, the Soviet Union should never have been fought. Once it fell all the crap started.
…this quote lifted from Tim Ackerman expresses my sentiments exactly. ….”once they start killing Americans it’s time for action.”
But,let’s stay the hell out of North Africa…haven’t we got enough on our plate…more than enough? O.K., O.K., nobody’s mentioned our local involvement so far, but let’s just keep that in mind.
I can only add that I, too, was surprised the read all of those “Arabic” comments about Tunisia. I’ve never been there to see things with my own eyes, but I doubt that a mere few hundred years of Islamic occupation of the proud Berber tribesmen will have more than superficially veneered those fierce Berbers.
Being a History buff, I always harp on centuries of time; most of the newspaper and Internet stuff one sees is calibrated in years, or decades at most. That’s why I insist that America’s mere one hundred years of international influence do not qualify us to be “State Department Experts” on other, more concentrated, and complicated cultures.
We’re been pretty good with Trade since the days of the Baltimore Clipper ships. Let’s leave it at that.
When it comes to on-the-ground combat, let’s restrict ourselves to defense of our own shores. We’ve got carriers, drones, and a pretty good way with “special forces”……let’s stay OUT of Africa.
Here, hear.
“Tunisia is their country. If they desire a revolution and their freedom (whatever that means), I’m all for it. ”
Like it or not, not every nation or people are capable of carrying out a Democratic revolution competently, and they elect dictators. This popular/democratic revolution producted Islamonazis running Tehran and Algiers, Hezbollah running Lebanon, Hamas running Gaza, and Islamonazi-wannabes running Turkey.
And while the Islamic world is guilty of this in particular, it is not limited to them – just look at Russia and some other former USSR republics.
My expectations are not very high regarding Tunisia, but they’ve their right to try to get rid of a tyrant. Should they choose to elect another to lord them over, too bad – life sucks.
I’m not sure it was better for Americans to get rid of the USSR or Saddam or get our boys and girls killed in Afghanistan. The same applies to Iran.
We definitely ought to take care of business only when Americans’ interests require intervention.
I hope the Jasmine Revolution works out for the people of Tunisia.
“If they desire a revolution and their freedom (whatever that means), I’m all for it. ”
to quote some banners seen regularly at jihadist protest marches in Europe: “we don’t want freedom, we want Islam”.
Islam literally means “submission”, slavery to the will of Allah, total abandoning of freedom to those interpreting the Q’uran for you (because it’s incomprehensible for anyone who’s not a scholar of ancient Arabic, a field of study deliberately suppressed) and providing you with a verbal (or heavily edited written “translation” (aka interpretation) stating exactly what they want you to do.
Eric,
I rather choose to live in hope. And if and when the Tunisians have an actual democratic election, you will see how many votes Islamists – if any spring up in Tunisia between now and then – will get.
Josh, are you in fact suggesting that the Muslim Arabs of Tunisia are less Muslim and less Arab than those in Gaza? Where is the hope and change in Gaza; of course, the Zionist bogeyman at the door helps make any reasonable voices silent. Then again, the thoroughly anti-Jewish PLO, which uses Islamic logic and justifications for its persistent policy of eradicating Israel, was just too liberal for Gaza. More to the point, the Hamas, having established itself as a dictatorship would not, in Arab style, tolerate any ‘dissent’ – in the form of the internationally recognized government-in-waiting of the Pals.
There are many differences between Michael Ledeen and Michael Totten, but both continue to believe in the inevitably of decent governments in the Arab and Muslim world. Both seem to believe that Islam is just a wrapping, ill-fitting, around the essential positive aspirations of their people. I think Ledeen (and you) may prove to be partly right in the case of Iran. In the case of the Arabs, the story will turn out differently, it seems.
To me, Iraq is an artificial proof of the Bush theories on the unquenched desire of Arabs for democracy. The US gave Iraq a democracy, which is tenuous in every respect. The Iraqis did not give it to themselves. For all its troubles, I would place more hope in Lebanon than in a place like Tunisia, but perhaps Tunisia is ‘Mediterranean’ enough – and not-Arab-enough – to justify your optimism.
You mean like the worthless suit, we have in the White House?
I’ve been saying for years that instead of immigrating to the West, Third World countries need to show some moral backbone that takes into account the reality that if you want to have a nice country to live in, you may have to bleed, suffer and even die to accomplish it. I think that it is Facebook that will be the means to organize discontent; it’s not only radicals that can use the web.
This could have huge ramifications for the middle east, especially in Egypt where people are tired of almost 30 years of emergency rule. The issue there is already delicate as people are afraid the 82 yr. old Mubarak’s son will be installed as a dynasty and the Muslim Brotherhood is always waiting in the wings to take advantage of any weakness. I have felt a civil war here was not out of the question and people in Egypt are changing their Facebook pages to that of the Tunisian flag.
There is a huge difference between most rebellions we have seen in sub-Saharan Africa where people have indeed picked up rifles and turned out to be mere pirates in every instance and a grass roots movement that can bring about genuine reform from within. As the American Revolution spread to Europe and thence to other nations like a plague against royalty and the divine rights of kings, hopefully any movement in the middle east will realize that the key to the whole thing will be to take religion out of the equation and relegate it to the mosques where it belongs.
A tall task in culture’s that have sharia which impinges so much on daily life. Yahoo’s middle eastern page based out of Jordan, which is having it’s own street protests over food prices had this:
“Dozens of Egyptian activists opposed to President Hosni Mubarak’s three-decade regime danced outside the Tunisian Embassy in Cairo, chanting ‘Ben Ali, tell Mubarak a plane is waiting for him too!’”
It remains to be seen what kind of patience any grass roots movement will have for a revolution such as occurred on Iran which left the people in the same chair they had just vacated.
A “revolution” in Egypt would almost certainly turn out to be a disaster. Egypticans aren’t like they’re protrayed in movies. They aren’t building great monuments like pyramids. They’ve turned into hardcore islamists. The muslim brotherhood is headquartered in Egypt and has absolutely massive support there. The muslim brotherhood created hamas and al qaeda and want to take over the entire world with sharia law. If they takeover Egypt, it would be horrible. And I don’t really see anyone stopping it. It’s going to happen. We in the West need to wake up to who we’re dealing with and strat acting accordingly. They’re our sworn enemies and always will be.
“For the first time, an Arab country has seen a dictator run for his life because the people assembled to shout at the top of their lungs that enough is enough.”
The Tea Party is growing.
Lucky for them they’re not expressing their dislike of the tyrant in the US. Here they’d be labeled as right-wing extremist by the anti-liberty extremists.
This must be scaring the crap out of the other tyrants in that part of the world.
I’ve always loved Jasmine.
….please explain….”I’ve always loved Jasmine.”
These mysterious appendages at the bottom of some posts always zip waaay over my head….even that spikey point up on top of my Mohawk haircut fails to snag ‘em….please explain “jasmin”?…as in tea…?….or maybe a mysterious woman behind the last of seven veils?
The Tunisia revolution is called The Jasmine Revolution. Google it.
Cheers,
Tim
Pity this didn’t happen in Iran. Oh, wait a minute, it DID happen in Iran after their elections and Obama was too STUPID to take advantage of it. But, in the end, it’s up to the people to decide what type of government they want. If they really are sick of dictators, they will rebel and change their government. I think this is going to happen (again) soon in Iran, too. Let’s hope this time our “fearless” leader will take advantage of the situation and help the protesters, before they are all killed by the Revolutionary Guards.
Andy, thanks for the added knowledge. I often learn as much from the commentors on the PJM articles as I do from the articles themselves. It is appreciated.
There is more from where that came from http://phoenicia.org/berber.html
“In terms of “blood”, Berbers probably represent as many as 80% of the population in Morocco and Algeria, more than 60% in Tunisia and Libya and 2% in Egypt, altogether some 50 million people.
A proper Berber census has never been taken and the above figures are uncertain. Centuries of cultural “Arabization” has persuaded many Berbers, particularly in the cities, to adopt the Arabic language. The number of people perceiving themselves as Berbers is hence much lower, about half of the figure given above. However, the influx of “proper” Arabs from the East into the Berber area, in connection with the Muslim conquest in the 8th century, is estimated at only 200 000.”
In that case you’ll happy to here about this thing they have now called Google which you can find by Googling it.
Also this site: http://www.pedantry.com
Great article and very very inspiring. I am sure we will have to end up doing this in America to take our country back from this usurping fraud.
While nature abhors a vacuum and no doubt the Islamacist are waiting these riots are being run by a secular population who want more freedom. Only time will tell but I do think this might just make the Arab world and Iran a little nervous.
We are waiting for, women in burkhas, stonings, child marriage, anti American chants, death to the Jews propaganda and suicide bombers with a distinct shortage of everything plus sand and a bumper crop in blood.
Some folks need a dictator just to make things work.
Thus five or ten years down the road there will be a popular islamic dictator elected by the 110% majority of voters.
I agree. These are hungry people fed-up with current leadership. Not Samuel and John Adams demanding there rights as English men. An Islamic population will fall back on misogyny, ignorance and antisemitism once the get leadership that will keep food prices down.
I hope I am wrong.
This is a very glowing and enthusiastic analysis of the reasons behind the riot and the trajectory of it’s aftermath. It reminds me of the gushing analysis which followed those tortured elections in Iraq which largely installed Shiite religious fanatics and terrorist warlords in lieu of Saddam Hussein and his network of Sunni gangsters and terrorists.
I think the best that Muslims can achieve is secular tyranny. When given the chance to cast their vote for “freedom”, Muslims overwhelmingly choose more Islam every time. It may assuage the consciences of idealistic and naive Westerners to project their aspirations onto the Muslim and Arab world and mind, but reality tells us that Western notions of humanity and secular law usually loses big time when pitted against the retrograde currents which grip the cultures of Islam.
That is what happened in Gaza and is happening in Lebanon and Turkey. And despite the purple fingers, Afghanistan and Iraq remain fascist terror states, but now Sharia is enshrined in both States’ constitutions with our insane and stupid connivance. Other absurd Muslim “democracies”, “parliaments”, and “republics” such as Indonesia, Pakistan, et al are sliding toward terrorism, intolerance, sectarian violence, and Jihad. Everywhere Islam is ascendant wherever secular tyrants fail to suppress it. This is not an endorsement of tyranny, but a harsh indictment of Islam, a cancer which destroys civilization and humanity.
Ordinary people are usually very conservative. Let them drink deep from Islam and they will get sick of it eventually. Look at Iran, Islam has lost it’s hold on the peoples spirits.
Mr. Shahryar:
“In Tunisia, a People March Towards Freedom”
Are they now?
I lived in Tunis from 1977-79, (a VERY interesting time to be living in the Muslim World, that).
At that time, most Tunisians I knew seemed to think Muammar Khaddafi was “the Man”, and more than a few expressed a wish that they were Libyan.
You’ll pardon me if I’m not as sanguine about these events as ou appear to be.
Yes, the People overthrew the Shah…hooray, and then along came Khomeini…oops!
Hooray! The King is deposed by Nasser/Khaddafi/Saddam Hussein/pick another despot who betrayed a successful popular insurrection and put in place a despotism far FAR worse than that which was thrown out. It’s not there’s a scarcity of such slime, is it?
Let’s face it, the Muslim World just doesn’t “do” revolutions very well.
I wish Tunisians the absolute best it’s a lovely little country with a lot going for it, but then so was Lebanon back before 1975.
It is to early to tell if the news from Tunisia is good or bad for Tunisia.
In a sense it could be bad news for all of us.
Food riots, what causes them? High food prices.
What is causing food prices to rise? Devaluation of the currency, by the government printing and spending too much money.
What are we doing with our currency? Devaluing it.
Paddy and Bridget, always happy to see us poor oppressed Mac’s and O’s get a little respect for a neochange, asks me to say “Thank you.”
Myself, I am not so sure.
As the agitpropper’s analogy stands, we have
’Tis a compare-and-contrast exercise starring apples and pomegranates, begorrah!
Exponents of Native Management would do better to leave Ireland alone, respect or no. It is rather too clear for neocomfort that ‘we’ Natives won that round, even if was admittedly a very long round, possibly the longest on record, say 1 May 1169 through at least 6 December 1922.
By the time we finally got rid of the Hengist-an’-Horsa crew (mostly), we were for practical purposes quite as Anglophone as they — maybe even more so at the level of belles-lettres, for whatever that may be worth.
One very minor thing it may be worth is to suggest, on the basis of the obviously far more history-based analogy
that probably quite a number of modern Berbers could give their invaders and occupiers lessons on the finer points of Classical Arabic.[*]
¡Happy days! (through affordable healthcare)
____
[*] I doubt the Neocommissariats of Native Management at Tel ’Avîv and Wingnut City need worry about this philological discrepancy too much as a potential source of unrest. I betcha most of the A-rabs of Tunisia are far more interested in polishing their French than in obsolete / obsolescent matters like qasá’id and E-moms and G-hads that are strictly traditional to themselves.
Still, the undeniable A-rab Ascendancy in Tunisia might mean that Berbers must put up with a very inferior grade of French instruction. Somebooby from the Soc. Sci. tribe might look into it.
But Sibawayh knows best.
Yes, the People overthrew the Shah…hooray, and then along came Khomeini…oops!
Please don’t forget Carter’s help in getting an apocalyptic Islamic regime on the road.
By the way an email doing the rounds critical of South Africa’s choice of president basically says it all in many cases.
The danger to the country is not the president but a citizenry capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency. It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of the president than to restore the necessary common sense and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have such a man for their president. The problem is much deeper and far more serious than the president, who is a mere symptom of what ails the country.
South Africa will have a Civil War. The race-bating is starting to heat up.
“Please don’t forget Carter’s help in getting an apocalyptic Islamic regime on the road.”
Perish the thought! Full credit where it’s due to the most “ex-” worthy of our ex-Presidents.
Pore dumb Jimmeh and his foreign policy “Yoo-min Rites” fetish…by no means forget Iran, and let’s also recall Nicaragua…and Afghanistan.
Great legacies the Bubblehead turned Peanut Farmer left us, eh?
“By the way an email doing the rounds critical of South Africa’s choice of president basically says it all in many cases.”
I’ve read that piece, but I read that it was a Czech or Hungarian draft that was commenting upon our “and 40 bong-hits later…” election of the Alleged Hawaiian.
The time line in this article baffles me, reference made to 12-17 then 12-18 then the fire eater dies on 1-4 what year? Then this dictator promises elections in 6 months (from when to when)? Then he skips out & another dictator steps in & things still aren’t as promised, what year? What’s going on there now? Like 2011?
JMH
“Still, the undeniable A-rab Ascendancy in Tunisia might mean that Berbers must put up with a very inferior grade of French instruction.é
though the Tunisian protesters spoke french to the medias, cuz if they’d done it in arab language their message would have been “tightened”
When people chose money over human rights, things get testy when money is in short supply.
Let’s see if the Bourbons in Washington, Brussels, and elsewhere will change course, or will they continue to demonstrate that they have forgotten nothing and they have learned nothing.
Before you go nutz congratulating them on geting rid of an arab dictator, remember the Muslim Brotherhood will install THEIR dictator right afterwards, and he loves tehran. What an accomplishment, huh?
Islam can dress itself up as a democracy or dress itself up as a dictator. It does not make any difference. Islam is their problem and always will be until they get rid of it.
The things that have happened in these times would have happened if communism had prevailed. But the issues would have been far more muddied.
By it’s failure, we have a clearer picture of what is at stake.
Islam is a living proof of what happens to man when he abandons his God.
Inshallah
And that says it all.
Fatalism has ruled the muslim world for 1400 years.
Another case of look out what you wish for, a Moslem Nation in North Africa that was a US ally is now one more headless nation open to mullah rule or a thugacracy like its neighbor Lybia. President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali may have been a thieving sob but for the region he was a moderate ruler. Tunis is not going to become Sringfield no matter who is in charge and we can ill afford to lose allies in this region.
“Ben Ali, who had previously claimed that the protesters were nothing but terrorists”.
Obviously he had studied how Democrats and our media have chosen to deal with the tea party.
I’d hold off celebrating until we know more about it. From my research, the “arab and muslim street” is nucking futs. They’re hardcore islamists usually. And al qaeda and hamas are happy about the overthrow. Not a good sign. If anything, this could be yet another islamofascist revolution.
This unexpected insurrection can only have further decreased the margin of security of all tyrants in the Middle East. That in itself is a good thing. In a situation like this, nobody can predict who the popular leader will be, but exceptional circumstances generally reveal the existence of exceptional people, whom we would never have heard from otherwise. This does not have to go as bad as all the “chromatic” revolutions have gone so far. In fact, if it does not turn as bad as the last one in Lebanon, it’s a positive shift.
Nobody can predict the degree of determination behind a popular movement. A rural society might have a better resilience to crisis than a urban one. Even a military coup has potential for good, because it might carry the only hope against the another inevitably totalitarian regime. This is far from ideal, but it’s arguably better than the status quo. A lot depends on whether there is strong Tunisian national feeling, which is what unites the people of Iraq, against all odds.
Keep in mind that there were all kinds of theories by which the Iraqi nation would have inevitably fragmented after the iron grip was removed, but this prediction did not materialize.
It is sadly shameful that so many are lacking historic facts…of Tunisia…its post independence from France, ie., original constitution and subsequent political and constitutional event timelines. In many respects it mirrors the more recent 50 years of transition in America….a once risen great society only to fall to a government of overreaching abuse and corruption. Save for another day the failures of the American governments foreign relations along the western and northern regions of the African continent of the past several decades.
“It is sadly shameful that so many are lacking historic facts…of Tunisia…”
Why is that? As I said above, Tunisia was/is a nice little country, but no one’s ever going to accord it much weight at all on the world scene,(in fact, it’s not usually accorded much weight on the Maghreb scene), so why do you seem to think that we should all have the name Habib Bourguiba, born in Monastir, the first leader of independent Tunisia after the French pulled out of North Africa in the forefront of our minds?
About the only thing most Americans might be expected to know was that it was the stand-in for the planet Tattooine in the “Star Wars” movies, and extra credit if they recall that the Battle of Kasserine Pass was fought, (and lost) there against Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps.
Are YOU up on the post World War II history of say…Albania? Belize?
I kind of doubt it. That isn’t necessarily shameful either, it’s just not that important to folks,(unless they are Tunisian).
Bilgeman…With all due respect, and at the risk of being arrogant, I’m pretty sure you would not wish to take to task this 81 year old, 32-year U.S. Marine enlisted and officer on the history of WWII and or any military and geo-political history of the world.
“In a country with no hope, these riots forced hope. In the coming days and weeks, protests would slowly spread to the rest of the country as more and more people joined hands in denouncing the dictatorship’s rule.”
This must give all Iranians new hope that their Green movement will succeed in removing the fascist bastards disguised as “holy men” from their lives forever. There’s nothing like a damn revolution by the “peasants” that has more meaning and force.
I hope the imans are pissing their pants and the Iranians are more emboldened to throw off this murderous yoke of Islam.
An old proverb about counting chickens comes to mind.