Tunisian Turmoil – People’s Power Works
STREET protests evicted the 23-year-old government of Ben Ali in Tunisia and are continuing as the people demand fundamental changes in the way their government treats them. It is left for scholars to situate this manner of change, but the fact remains that people’s power still works much to the fright of oppressive governments.
Tunisia, once one of the most stable of Africa’s northern countries, began a steady descent after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi last December 17, in the regional city of Sidi Bouzid. Bouazizi, a street fruit seller, set himself ablaze to protest his maltreatment at the hands of the police who seized his cart. He died in hospital on January 4.
From minor protests over the incident, crowds started gathering in other parts of the country demanding jobs, lower prices for food, better living conditions and the departure of a repressive government. Sites on the internet kept reporting the incidents that both local and foreign media largely ignored.
Some have attributed the protest to the leaks in the internet (wikileak) about corruption of the Ben Ali government. Heavy censorship, constant monitoring of websites and government control of the media were the norm. Discussion of corruption or criticisms of the government were taboo. The new media cannot take away the credit that is due to the will of Tunisians to ask for change.
The government that failed on January 14 had manipulated the constitution to remain in office since 1991. Ali promised to step down in 2014.
A state of emergency and threats to shoot gathering of more than three people, did not stop the streets filling with hundreds of thousands of rioters. Lawyers, teachers, students and later policemen and firemen joined the protests. Ben Ali fled to Malta, then Saudi Arabia.
Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi, an ally of the former president acted briefly as president. Tunisia’s Constitutional Court asked Ghannouchi to hand over to parliamentary speaker Fouad Mebazaa. A constitutional reform is in progress. The opposition wants elections delayed and asks that it should be under international supervision.
Tunisians make the point that they are not Arabs. They refer to themselves as Berbers with a distinct Tunisian dialect of Arabic. However, religion and cultural links cast Tunisia in the Arab fold. The revolution in Tunisia has spawned protests in Egypt, Sudan, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Syria – all Arab countries whose people claim they are similarly oppressed. There are fears too that undemocratic regimes in those places could come under attacks.
Ali, in circumspection, will realise the importance of the people. Dictators do not. His secret police, hunting the opposition, cutting down Islamists and the wholesale support of France and the United States, could not keep him in office forever. Unarmed, educated youth protesting their condition ousted him. Unemployment, the economy, corruption and the repressions of his regime caused his woes, these were the unanticipated opposition.
The Tunisian turmoil is possible in places governments set themselves against the people. Such governments need no further warnings than the riotous scenes all over Tunisia.
