Tunisia Continues on the Brink

A case study for young democracies

BY MONIA MAZIGH

On March 13, the new Tunisian Parliament (The Assembly of the People’s Representatives — Majlis Nuwwab ash-Sha‘b) was opened with foreign and independent journalists barred from observing the session.

Calling it a “Parliament” and the new elected members MPs would be equivalent to accepting the coup, or the autogolpe (selfcoup) as some qualify it, that President Kais Saied carried out on July 25, 2021, and the subsequent forced closure of the previously elected Parliament, the dismissal of Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi, the suspension of the former MPs and the replacement of the 2014 Constitution by one drafted by Saied.

Despite the very low voter turnout during the two rounds of the legislative elections, last December and January, respectively reaching about 11%, the president moved ahead with his autocratic adventure.

It is irrelevant who was elected to this “assembly of the representative of the people,” for they will have no real power in governance. President Saied made sure to suppress any check and balance powers that would, in normal circumstances, ensure the division and balance among the legislative, executive and judicial branches.

Saied’s appointed prime minister, Najla Bouden, who is hardly seen in public, is always shown nodding in agreement with his talk and directives. With an assembly that has no official political parties and with the judicial power, like the judicial council dissolved and its members demonized by the media and the President with several judges dismissed, imprisoned and intimidated to follow Saied’s directives, little if not none, is left to make up a democracy.

Even the elected municipal councils, once considered a great symbolic milestone in implementing democracy from the bottom up, were recently dissolved by presidential decree.

Several weeks before the assembly’s official opening, several prominent political leaders spoke against the coup and formed the National Salvation Front; they were arrested and accused of conspiring against national security. Some of their lawyers spoke about a witch hunt to silence and intimidate these lonely voices who continued to criticize Saied. Along with these arbitrary arrests, some prominent judges were also arrested in circumstances that resemble James Bond movies: something between kidnapping and public humiliation.

The timing of these arrests was a strategic move to “clean” the way from any noise and hurdles, little as they may be, to “sanitize” the political environment and give a false sense of serenity and popular acquiescence.

Immediately after these political arrests, Saied spoke on TV in the presence of his national security advisors and made very controversial and frankly racist remarks about the sub-Saharan migrants living in Tunisia, calling them part of a wider campaign to change the country’s demographic makeup and make it “purely African.” The next day, videos started circulating on social media showing street attacks on black people. Several black Tunisians were shown with their national ID cards stuck on their head, a symbolic way to show their citizenship and avoid being attacked or assaulted. It was reported that the homes of several families were attacked and their belongings burned in the streets. Saied’s racist words revealed the ugly racism espoused by some and fuelled by some media that were trying to “defend” Tunisians as being tolerant and welcoming.

Tunisia, as do several other Muslim-Arab countries, has a long history of anti-black racism. It is a taboo topic and quicky dismissed when documented and confronted. There are no formal educational programs in the school to tackle and eliminate racism.

Ironically, the former Parliament had passed laws to combat anti-black racism. For instance, the 2018 “Elimination of All

Forms of Racial Discrimination” act, which defined and criminalized racial discrimination, was considered an important step forward in defending the rights of the 10-15% of Tunisians who identify as black as well as members of the Sub-Saharan population who are living more and more in Tunisian cities, studying in universities, looking for better economic opportunities and ultimately hoping to reach Europe.

A believer in French philosopher Renaud Camus’ (b.1946) dangerous “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, Saeid has given a de facto green light to hordes of violent Tunisian men to “defend” their demographics from black people who are constantly described as threats and criminals stealing their jobs and food. Unfortunately, racism is a global phenomenon, and Muslim countries aren’t immune to having a president who incites the population to hate and violence against marginalized and vulnerable groups. This is a new low for post-coup Tunisia.

Meanwhile, the economic situation is deteriorating very rapidly. Debt is reaching unprecedented levels. Years of drought, the pandemic, political instability and of course the war in Ukraine remain ongoing and the increasing inflation makes it hard to put food on the table. The president and his circle do nothing but blame the “speculators,” “thieves” and “traitors,” as if tiny

Tunisia’s economic situation isn’t part of a global system. The country’s only option is to pay the high costs associated with these geopolitical and economic changes.

In the past decades, Tunisia always managed to build good diplomatic relationship with countries like the U.S., France or Germany who would send aid or invest so the economic situation would not become dire. Organizations like the IMF, the World Bank or the African Development Bank were always solid partners in perpetuating this economic stability. However, Saied’s racist speech, along with his nationalism and chauvinism mixed with autocratic manners, have created a vacuum around him that is more and more filled with false information, conspiracy theories and lies.

One wonders how Tunisia, praised for its successful Arab Spring revolt and relatively peaceful and smooth democratic transition, could reach such lows and be ruled by a president who is accountable to no one and still naively and simplistically praised and described by a large portion of the population as “M. Clean” or “God-fearing.”

Today’s bleak reality can be attributed to three major factors.

The media and its funding sources. During the Bourguiba and Ben Ali regimes, the government-controlled media constantly praised the president and the country’s governments. Only rare dissenting voices openly criticized the autocrats and their socioeconomic politics.

After 2011 and the emergence of democratic institutions, many old media outlets became mouthpieces of “democratic transition,” but never made any mea culpas or expressed any regret for their previous pro-dictatorship stances and complicity. Later when the Islamist party Ennahda came to power and formed a government, many of these media outlets became “the opposition,” criticizing and opposing every policy advanced by the successive Ennahdaformed governments and automatically demonizing institutions (e.g., Parliament, political parties and city councils). These institutions made many mistakes, but they also did good work — all of which this “opposition” denied.

The non-reform of the country’s education system. After independence, Tunisia’s strong public education system brought successive waves of relatively competent men and women to the marketplace who could run the government’s institutions. However, this same system remained old, sclerotic and in serious need of reform. The strong French influence remaining in the system made it, by today international standards, underdeveloped and unable to embrace the world’s rapid changes. Skills like critical thinking, historical and political knowledge, and media analysis aren’t taught, for the emphasis remains on filling students’ brains with boring knowledge they can regurgitate to pass their exams. Seeing Tunisians questioning neither the media nor the president and his allies and just accepting their conspiracy theories is a blatant failure of the education system in the past decades.

Today the same media is mostly pro-dictator, except for a few journalists who are criticizing the president and his politics. As there is no strong independent media, such individuals are branded as “traitors” and “foreign agents.”

Various seriously wrong decisions. While it had a parliamentary majority or was in coalition with other parties, Ennahda paved the road for revenge. During the last decades, Ennahda and some of its influential leaders constantly sought to avoid real accountability. Worse, they even signed an agreement with the late former president Beji Caid Essebssi (d. 2019) to extend political immunity to those past government members who had implemented and practiced the politics of fear and torture. Basically, all such people were given a free pass, except for some of the family members associated with the corrupt Ben Ali, his in-laws and close circle. Democracy isn’t about free elections; it’s about personal accountability and the rule of law. Today, Ennahda is paying the price for trying to play it “safe” and “nice” with the former agents of the dictatorship — a naive approach and one full of political miscalculations.

The Tunisian revolution has been lost. Let’s hope this is only a temporary setback. Tunisia is lost from the radar of countries like the U.S. or France, who are concerned with the rising powers of Russia and China. Their silence signifies that dictatorship can pay off, especially when it keeps migrants away from Europe and Islamists out of the democratic arena. ih

Monia Mazigh, PhD, an academic, author and human rights activist, is an adjunct professor at Carleton University (Ontario). She has published “Hope and Despair: My Struggle to Free My Husband, Maher Arar” (2008) and three novels, “Mirrors and Mirages” (2015), “Hope Has Two Daughters” (2017) and “Farida” (2020), which won the 2021 Ottawa Book Award prize for French-language fiction. She is currently working on a collection of essays about gendered Islamophobia.