Reconsidering Tunisia: Revolutionary and Post Revolutionary Politics, Society, and Religion
Panel 205, 2018 Annual Meeting
On Sunday, November 18 at 8:30 am
Panel Description
Reconsidering Tunisia: Revolutionary and Post Revolutionary Politics, Society, and Religion
Widespread perceptions of Tunisia's 2011 revolution and its aftermath consider the country to be a "success", certainly in comparison to other revolutions across the region. That assertion, however valid, ignores many historic and contemporary challenges that overshadow Tunisian politics and society. Tunisia has made impressive strides towards democracy since 2011, but the specter of its authoritarian past remains. The conflict over its religious identity is far from settled. As Tunisia continues to soldier on in its efforts to secure new post revolutionary political and social structures, this panel offers a closer look at events and developments that Tunisia has experienced since the removal of Zayn al-'Abidin Ben 'Ali's authoritarian regime. The panel's nuanced approach to Tunisian politics and society links Tunisia's revolution and post revolutionary developments to many of Tunisia's historical and political paradigms, while raising new questions and themes that break ground for new research. It offers a more sophisticated evaluation of events in a country that remains understudied and often misinterpreted by many, and an opportunity for an advanced conversation about Tunisia in the context of MESA's annual meeting.
The panel's papers offer an array of themes and developments that have influenced Tunisian affairs in recent years. One paper revisits the actual events within the authoritarian regime that led to Ben 'Ali's flight in January 2011. Its argument that Ben 'Ali's abrupt departure to Saudi Arabia was an outcome of an internal coup, and not spurred by a popular uprising raises questions concerning our understanding of the revolution, and explains the resilience of authoritarian tendencies in Tunisia. Another paper addresses the open chasm between secular and religious forces in Tunisian society. That struggle between these ideological groups continues to affect the debate over Tunisia's identity. The paper highlights the emergence of a new conflict between radical Islamists and radical secularists, and discusses the phenomenon of "double extremism" which threatens to complicate Tunisian efforts to offer a model of coexistence between these groups. Moving to another facet of contemporary Tunisia, an additional paper focuses on the growing disenchantment within Tunisian with institutional politics and rising nationwide protests. This study offers alternative readings of Tunisia's transition, and highlights the roots of the growing political mobilizations.
The panel's theme offers, in our opinion, an opportunity to reconsider many prevailing notions about Tunisia, which may be applicable to other settings.
Disciplines
History
Political Science
Participants
Dr. Daniel Zisenwine
-- Organizer, Discussant, Chair
Using data from the Arab Barometer (3 rounds) and the Arab Transformations Project, the paper analyses the attitude towards democracy of ordinary citizens to explore issues surrounding the consolidation of democratic institutions. Seven years after the revolution, Tunisia has achieved considerable institutional success in line with the expectations of transition to democracy. However, dissatisfaction in the country is widespread, notably when it comes to socio-economic issues. in addition, trust in politicians and political parties is extremely low. The paper attempts to explain how individuals have perceived post-revolutionary changes. The analysis contributes to the wider debate on democracy in the arab world.
This paper examines how protesters engaging in episodes of contentious politics around natural resources mobilize, innovate, and demobilize. It looks in detail at one wave of protest in the southern Tunisian governorate of Tataouine, which took place in the first half of 2017 against a backdrop of disenchantment with institutional politics and rising nationwide protest. Contentious politics like this is not self-evident. But paying close attention to how protests develop and evolve offers valuable alternative readings of a transition away from authoritarianism and reaches beyond a common focus on political elites.
The paper draws on a close study of the 'Kamour' sit-in in southern Tunisia, which were the largest protests since the uprisings of 2010-11 and among the most successful in their claim-making. It shows how protests develop beyond goals of material self-interest to pursue new moral visions about the relationship between the citizenry and national resources even in a comparatively oil-poor state. It charts the incremental and improvisational transformation of a protest movement from short stoppages and sit-ins to widespread road blocks targeting particular vehicles to strategic direct action against the weak points in petroleum distribution networks. This is a repertoire of organization and action influenced by protest experiences beyond local and national boundaries.
In its methodological approach this work draws on a protest event analysis of the Kamour demonstrations over a period of six months, generated from media reports, including an online archive of a local radio station, Radio Tataouine. It is also based on fieldwork in Tunisia, including qualitative interviews with several dozen protesters, from the Kamour protest wave and from other demonstrations across Tunisia.
This paper demonstrates how interplay and negotiations with state actors can mobilize rather than contain protests. It shows how protesters consciously avoided the involvement of traditional political actors, like parties and trade unions. It argues that protests which put most economic pressure on the state are most likely to succeed in making claims. And it exposes the superficiality of state-constructed notions of reformism and consensus, which in Tunisia have historically operated as techniques of regime control.
The paradox of fundamentalism: Tunisia’s two extremisms
As Charles Taylor brilliantly highlighted in A Secular Age, the phenomenon of secularization presents a twofold enigma: firstly, is secularization a Western specificity? And secondly, can secularization be considered an extremism? (Taylor, 2007).
It seems interesting to address these two questions since we can observe that extremism today comes from the secular-right-wing, the populist trends, and religious sects, indiscriminately. How can we make distinctions and find analogies?
As John Keane highlights, the Western-born-concept of secularism became “an insult” to many Muslims. In fact, the twenty-first-century view of Muslim societies has led to the belief that the latter is hopelessly opposed to the Secular, building on a stereotyped division between a secular, modernized West versus a religious and backward Islamic world. “Secular Europeans - supposedly open to the world and open to openness itself - normally harbored anti-Muslim prejudices” (Keane, 2000).
Scholars shed light on the US paradox, according to which one of the so-called most secular countries, is not that secular. In fact, lobbies’ influence on US politics (especially evangelical Christians) and American rhetoric appear strongly steeped in religion (Bernstein and Jakobsen, 2010). By observing Tunisia, we can find deep social divisions on the “secular issue” across the Muslim world as well. On the one hand, a strong religious conscience permeates society; on the other hand, strong secular values detach the Tunisian élite from the rest of the country. As the Ennahda member Abdelkrim Harouni said in a recent conference in Québec, Tunisia nowadays faces the phenomenon of double extremism, the clash between radical Islamists and radical seculars. Building on fieldwork carried out in the country and survey data the paper attempts to measure whether the secular and religious fundamentalisms actually exists in daily practices and institutional politics.
The analysis of the two Tunisian extremisms is an attempt to read two ‘fundamentalisms in a new light’.
