Tunisia

By Nat Maxfield

On the 17th December 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi, in protest against the confiscation of his wares by government officials and the iron-fisted rule of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, set himself on fire in a crowded marketplace in the centre of Sidi Bouzid, in central Tunisia. While the protests this sparked started in Tunisia, as soon as they spread to the larger countries in the region like Egypt and Libya, the press seemed to forget the revolution within Tunisia and the changes that were happening. So what has happened to the country within which the Arab Spring was born, and has it really managed to throw off the chains of dictatorship and state control in place before the protests?

President Ben Ali, who had controlled Tunisia since 1987 (and was described in Wikileaked cables as ‘highly corrupt’ and ‘not accepting of international or domestic criticism’), was ousted from office and fled to Saudi Arabia (he and his wife were sentenced to 35 years in prison in absentia). The former ruling party, the Rassemblement Constitutionel Démocratique (Constitutional Democratic Party) was disbanded and had its assets seized in March, and the secret police within Tunisia, Ben Ali’s go-to measure for dealing with internal dissent and protest, was abolished. Elections were held on the 23rd October, with the Islamic Ennahda Movement (a moderate conservative Islamist party) winning the largest amount of seats and eventually forming a government in December 2011. Compared to the tragic failure of attempts to move towards democracy in countries like Egypt and Bahrain, Tunisia has, politically it would seem, begun to move down the right track.

However, Tunisia still faces many issues in the months and years to come, mainly due to economic factors. Unemployment in Tunisia, one of the key factors behind the revolution, has risen from 14% to 19%, and in places like Gafsa in Southern Tunisia, it has gone up to 30%, with riots across the region. The government argues that considering $2 billion was lost during the revolution, it will take time to rebuild the Tunisian economy and lower unemployment, although its debt as compared to GDP is 40%, comparatively low compared to the 100% of the US. While these problems are arguably transitory, Tunisia faces a crisis of national identity. While in the days of Ben Ali, secularism was enforced, often violently, Tunisians are now asking themselves what role Islam should take in their new country, with a case over whether to show and distribute the film Persepolis exhibiting these tensions. However, unlike its neighbours, Tunisia seems to have progressed as a nation after its own revolution, as it is well on the way to becoming a fully-fledged democracy, in a way that no other nation in the Arab world is.