The Tragedy of Tunisia
By ROBIN WRIGHT
If ever there were an Arab country you want to work, it’s
Tunisia.
Of the 22 Arab countries, Tunisia is the only one that has
weathered the stormy Arab Spring and ended up with a viable democratic
government. Its Islamist party has consistently worked with secular
counterparts and not made the kind of power plays that doomed Egypt’s Muslim
Brotherhood and its democratic transition. And Tunisia’s three national elections–held at unheated schoolrooms
across the country–between October and December were practically pristine. (I
was an international monitor at the December presidential vote.)
Tunisia is a sliver of North Africa nestled between
disintegrating Libya and the military-backed government of Algeria. It is a
stark contrast to those neighboring geographic giants, and to increasingly
autocratic Egypt further east. Tunisia has represented a slice of hope.
Yet Tunisia has also provided more foreign fighters than any
other country—in absolute numbers and proportionately—to Islamic State and other
militant groups fighting in Syria and Iraq. More than 3,000 had joined by the
end of 2014. Last fall the government said it had prevented an additional 9,000
from leaving the country. Just as alarming, an estimated 500 that have
trained as killers have returned home.
The tragedy of Tunisia, which played out Wednesday in the terrorist attack at a Tunis museum that killed more than 20, is reflected in Sidi
Bouzid.
The poor central city is a long way from the Mediterranean
beaches and white-washed buildings with aqua trim that are more familiar to
tourists. It was in remote Sidi Bouzid that a young fruit vendor set himself on
fire in late 2010 to protest social inequality.Mohammed Bouazizi‘s
grisly death sparked the wave of uprisings in 2011 that became known as the
Arab Spring.
A large stone monument at the site where Mr. Bouazizi
covered himself with paint thinner and lit a match honors his inspiration. It
shows a fruit vendor’s cart pushing over several thrones. On the side, written
in Arabic, English, and French: “For those who yearn to be free.”
Tunisia’s problem is that four years after Mr. Bouazizi’s
self-immolation, flash points remain and many still face profound inequities.
When I went to Sidi Bouzid in 2012, a vendor selling bulbous oranges at the
street corner where Mr. Bouazizi had worked told me, “We have more freedoms
now, but fewer jobs.”
Today, almost a third of Tunisia’s young people are
unemployed. It’s not just the poor: More than 200,000 recent university
graduates can’t find work. “Most of them have been
waiting five, eight, even ten years for a job,” Karim Helali of
Afek (“Horizons”), a progressive party favored by Tunisia’s young, told me in
December.
Mr. Helali was not surprised by the appeal of militant
groups. “Any time these people decide to go to their deaths, it’s because they
don’t accept conditions of life. They believe they are rejected by society,” he
said.
Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of Ennahda, Tunisia’s moderate
Islamist party, told me: “The young are still waiting for
the fruits of the revolution. So the poorest region is still in protest.”
On the eve of Tunisia’s first democratic election, for
parliament, in October, a Pew pollfound that almost 90% of Tunisians
described the economy as bad. More than half said the tumultuous transition had
left Tunisia worse off than it had been under autocratic rule. Support for
democracy had “declined steeply” since the Arab Spring, Pew found.
Three successful elections gave Tunisia a badly needed
boost. Lack of jobs is only one of several issues that have disillusioned
Tunisia’s young and enticed some of them to militancy. The fragile democracy
faces tougher core issues, reflected in the fact that only 32% of eligible
voters participated in the final presidential poll. The lowest turnout was
among the young. And the lowest turnout in any town nationwide was in Sidi
Bouzid.
Clearly, Tunisia has not yet produced enough to believe in.
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