Whither Tunisia’s “Jasmine Revolution”?

NEW YORK – As I try to grasp the full meaning of the Tunisian Revolution and gauge its future, I am looking at my desk, where I have spread two issues of The New York Times, both featuring Tunisia on their front pages. The two issues are dated 23 years apart.

The first is a yellowish, wrinkled copy from November 7, 1987. The article beneath the headline, “A Coup is Reported in Tunisia,” reported the fall of Habib Bourguiba, the aging founder of modern Tunisia and a hero of its independence. He had been ousted in the dead of night in a bloodless coup staged by his prime minister, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

In the days that followed, tens of thousands gathered in downtown Tunis to celebrate their deliverance from years of stagnation and uncertainty, caused by Bourguiba’s worsening senility. Ben Ali, the new president, was a hero to most and, in the first years of his rule, deservedly so.

The second front page is from Saturday, January 15, 2011. The headline once again: “President of Tunisia Flees, Capitulating to Protesters.”

This time, however, the report is less clear, less reassuring. Who were the protesters? What motivated them? Where will they drive the country? With Tunisia regarded by most Western analysts as “Arab” and “Islamic,” would there be a “domino effect” in the Middle East?

Looking for answers, I scrutinize the large picture to the left of the headline. A sea of people fills the beautiful, late nineteenth-century Habib Bourguiba Avenue. Some local estimates put the number of protesters on January 14 at between 50,000-60,000.

These are typical, Mediterranean faces, mostly male and young – the oldest seem to be in their thirties. They look clean-shaven; even with a magnifying glass I do not detect a single beard among them.

There are also some young women, but no headscarves, veils, or burqas in sight. To my eyes, the event could be taking place in Barcelona, Lyon, or Naples.

The protesters are holding Tunisian flags or signs bearing various symbols and slogans rejecting Ben Ali and the authoritarianism he represented in his late years. Here, too, I cannot find a single reference to Allah, Islam, or the ummah (community of believers).

All this is to say that what will most likely go down in history as the Jasmine Revolution was, to all appearances, a secular revolution.

Cyberspace has been inundated with tweets and Facebook posts since the uprising began. The messages speak of liberty, freedom of expression, good governance, pluralism, democracy, and human rights. Objectives not in line with these aspirations have been criticized and often shunned. Already, Libya’s leader, Muammar al-Gaddafi, and Qatar television preacher Sheikh Qaradawi have been ridiculed for putting an Arab or Islamist spin on events in Tunisia.

The protesters who ended Ben Ali’s regime are the educated sons and daughters of the large, secular middle class that was built over decades by Habib Bourguiba. Prior to his rule, even before the French takeover in 1881, a line of nationalist leaders stretching back to the late eighteenth century looked to Europe and the Enlightenment for solutions to the country’s problems. Tunisian identity was shaped by this specific history.

That does not bode well for a domino effect, as no other Arab country has either a strong middle class or a tradition of modern, secular government. A revolution in any of these countries might easily bring Islamists to power, but this would have little to do with Tunisia’s secular uprising.

It should be acknowledged that Ben Ali strengthened the foundations of Tunisian exceptionalism, furthering gender equality and separation of religion and state. He achieved an enviable rate of economic development for a country starved of natural resources, helped to eradicate poverty, and deepened Tunisia’s ties with Europe through tourism, trade, and cultural relations.

Unfortunately, however, Ben Ali succumbed to the temptations of corruption and repression, described in great detail by the former United States ambassador to Tunisia, Robert F. Godec, in cables released last month by WikiLeaks.

Despite the extensive physical damage and loss of life inflicted on the country by some of Ben-Ali’s die-hard supporters, the tense and dangerous few days that followed the dictator’s fall did not change the course of the revolution. More remarkably, the Tunisian army played the role of a genuinely professional, neutral, loyal republican institution, acting in support of the civilian process.

As a result, security and normalcy appear to be gradually returning. Initially, a provisional government that included members of the opposition was formed, but the opposition leaders soon left in protest at the number of cabinet holdovers from Ben-Ali’s administration. So an inclusive government is still in the offing. Nevertheless, the new government has expressed a solemn commitment to freedom of information and assembly, the release of all political prisoners, and free and internationally supervised presidential and legislative elections within six months.

The revolution in Tunisia was just a matter of time – a popular uprising to end a system that failed to deliver the free society for which the Tunisian public has long been ready. Looking once more at the news of January 15, I feel pride and hope: pride for a country that has shown the world its readiness to establish a genuine, secular democracy, and hope for what is to come.

Mustapha Tlili is a Tunisian writer, New York University research scholar, and founder and director of the NYU Center for Dialogues. His last novel, Un après-midi dans le desert (An Afternoon in the Desert), won him the Comar d’Or, Tunisia’s highest literary award.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2011.
www.project-syndicate.org

The Bourgeois Roots of Tunisia’s Revolution

2011-01-25


PARIS – Tunisia, one of the Arab League’s 22 members, is in the throes of a severe and profound crisis, albeit possibly one with a favorable resolution. It is the smallest North African country, covering 163,000 square kilometers – more or less twice the size of Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg – and containing a population of 10.5 million.

It is also full of charm and moderation in terms of its climate, history, and culture. It once was the pillar of the cultural dynamism and influence of the Roman Republic and Empire. The first African region to be Christianized, it was the land of Saint Augustine and the main source for Catholic evangelism in Africa. Originally mainly Berber, it was conquered by the Arabs, Islamized, and became for centuries a dependency of the Sublime Porte, and therefore Turkish.

It became a French protectorate, not a colony – as in the case of neighboring Algeria – in the nineteenth century. That difference helps explain the relatively greater preservation of Tunisia’s social structures and local traditions.

Upon achieving independence in 1956, Tunisia adopted a French-style republican constitution that established a presidential system of government. The first president, Habib Bourguiba, was the leader of the liberation movement, which emerged victorious much more quickly – and much less violently – than its counterpart in Algeria. A highly Westernized leader, Bourguiba maintained the secular character of the state that he took over from France, as well as many of its economic ties with the West (particularly France, of course), in a much more committed way than Algeria did after it gained independence.

Some rare attempts over the years by Marxist groups to seize power failed. Unlike other African or Middle Eastern countries, Tunisia remained largely a land of free enterprise, allowing for some industrial development. In recent years, it has become Africa’s leading exporter of industrial goods, outperforming even South Africa and Egypt.

In 1987, the aged Bourguiba became too debilitated to continue in office. His interior minister, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, having been named Prime Minister, soon managed to certify Bourguiba as medically unfit and ousted him from the presidency.

The new leader was already noted for having repressed the Islamic movement, a policy he intensified after becoming President. Non-Muslim and secular Tunisian citizens – and a large part of world opinion, notably in France – were grateful. They made excuses for the brutality that lay behind Ben Ali’s policy, endorsing the results without observing and questioning the means by which they were achieved.

But those means ended up leading to the almost total suppression of any freedom of expression in Tunisia: a censored press, imprisonment of journalists, political trials, and arbitrary arrests within all circles of society, not merely those with ties to the Islamic movement. The aim was to suppress any and all forms of democratic opposition.

Ben Ali’s regime ultimately became a pure dictatorship. He and his family built up empires within the local economy, cornering nearly all sectors and making a fortune for themselves.

But the industrialization policy was maintained. A genuine middle class emerged, comparable to Egypt’s, but unlike that in any other Arab country, with the possible exception of Morocco.

And then, as occurred everywhere else, the global economic crisis that began in 2008 constrained growth, fueling social tensions. Since the press and parliament were muzzled, the only way to relieve those tensions was in the streets.

The police shot at the crowd on several occasions, but proved too weak to intimidate the demonstrators. The decisive moment came when the army abstained from suppressing the protests. Once the army’s refusal to support his regime became clear, Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia, after France refused to welcome him into exile.

For a brief moment, there was hope for a national-unity government, in which Ben Ali’s rump cabinet and the opposition would unite to prepare a presidential election. But an infuriated public would have none of it. The only option left was a coalition comprised of old oppositions, which, given the absence of a respected institutional framework, will make a return to stability slow, difficult, and perilous.

So Tunisia is in danger. Islamism could eventually emerge victorious. But it is also possible that Tunisia is experiencing the Arab world’s first-ever “bourgeois” revolution. If so, Tunisia’s uprising could be a game-changing event for the entire region.

Michel Rocard is a former Prime Minister of France and a former leader of the Socialist Party.

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2011.
www.project-syndicate.org

Mubarak's statement didn't go far enough-Fareed Zakaria

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/02/01/zakaria.egypt.us/index.html?hpt=T2

February 2, 2011 -- Updated 1110 GMT (1910 HKT)

New York (CNN) -- Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's announcement Tuesday that he will turn over power to an elected successor in September doesn't go nearly far enough, says analyst Fareed Zakaria.

"Mubarak is going to have to go," Zakaria said in an interview, adding that he will not be able to stay in office for eight more months. "But the manner in which he goes and the nature of the transition is going to be very important. So I hope the United States is using what influence it has to try to make sure that there's a transition that makes sense and doesn't lead to chaos or allowing any one group to capture the political process."

Mubarak's announcement that he would end his 30 years of rule in September came after massive protests in Egypt for the past eight days. But many protesters proclaimed they were unsatisfied with his statement and called for him to leave office immediately.

The author and host of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" spoke to CNN on Thursday. Here is an edited transcript:

CNN: What do you think of the way the administration is handling the crisis in Egypt?

Fareed Zakaria: I think the administration is getting the balance right now, if reports are correct that President Obama has delivered a message to Mubarak that urges him to announce that he will not seek the presidency again. But privately U.S. officials should be further urging that he announce a transition plan immediately. He won't be able to stick around till September.

CNN: So what should happen next?

Zakaria: The best course would be for Mubarak to get ahead of these events and announce a process by which it is clear that he is not going to be president.
I think there is a technical problem that most people have not focused on. Under the Egyptian constitution, if Mubarak resigns, it immediately triggers a new election within 60 days. And in the midst of everything that is going on in Egypt, that is not the ideal solution.

So perhaps what he should do is announce that he's going to resign at a certain point -- but in the interim create a constitutional committee that can amend or rewrite the Egyptian constitution so that all elections, parliamentary or presidential, take place under new rules which will be free and fair, unlike the old rules that were completely stacked in favor of Mubarak and his party.

CNN: What's the potential path to democracy in Egypt?

Zakaria: I think there will have to be a much greater role for public participation, elections and democracy. The more difficult part is: Will there be a transition to constitutionalism, the rule of law and the protection of human rights?
That's always been the tricky part in these kinds of circumstances. You want to make sure that you have protections for minorities, protections for individual rights, independent courts, freedom of press, freedom of association and all those things tend to be the real inner stuffing of democracy. That's why I think having some kind of process and a constitutional order become very important. You know, these sound like technicalities, but at the moment of transition how you deal with these questions has a huge impact on the kind of eventual political system you end up with.

CNN: Why is that so crucial?

Zakaria: If you look at Iraq, it was the decisions made in the first month [after Saddam Hussein's rule ended] that ended up creating the climate for what became a civil war.

We should try as much as we can to help the Egyptians understand that what they want is a transition that ends up producing stable liberal democracy.

The other key is the role of the army. People haven't completely recognized that Egypt is really a military dictatorship, with a civilian at the top. The army is not going to quietly allow for a democratic order that completely takes away all its powers and privilege, so the army will want to have a very strong role in the process, and that is probably inevitable -- and maybe where the United States has much of its influence because we have maintained pretty good contacts with the army.

CNN: Is a strong role for the army compatible with a more democratic Egypt?

Zakaria: It's compatible as long as the army understands it can't be the old system. In Turkey the army effectively ran the country and began to yield power. It's happened in other countries as well. But unless there's a real process put in place you could easily end up with a pseudo democracy like Pakistan where civilians are elected, but the military wields the real power.

CNN: What are the implications of this for the wider Arab world?

Zakaria: The implications of this will be substantial because Egypt is the heart and soul of the Arab world. The two biggest political movements in the Arab world in the past 50 years have been pan-Arabism or Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism, both of them were centered in Egypt -- pan-Arabism with Nasser and Islamic fundamentalism with the Muslim Brotherhood and also al Qaeda, which was largely a marriage of Egyptian brains and Saudi Arabian money.

You can already see the implications in Jordan. I don't think it means there will be a domino effect and you will see regimes all over the Mideast toppling. But I think you will certainly see a greater demand for accountability and reform, and without any question it will rattle regimes like Syria, and Libya. Whether or not they fall will be a case by case situation. Most of these regimes are very tough police states, so it is not really that easy to protest or do things that would undermine the regime. But I think we're entering a new era in the Middle East, and I think it's impossible that things will remain the same in any of those countries.

CNN: Was America blindsided by these events?

Zakaria: I don't think that's true. The Americans for 15 years now have been urging the Mubarak regime to engage in serious political reforms. The reality is that people sometimes exaggerate American influence. And there was in Washington a concern that you did need Egypt to maintain a peaceful border with Israel, to enforce the embargo on Hamas, to fight al Qaeda and other terrorist groups. Now perhaps this led to us not pushing political reform strongly enough. But since the presidency of Bush senior, Washington has been pushing these issues.

The truth is that the Mubarak regime was a very tough unyielding regime that had decided that it was not going to do any political reform. I think that in the face of that, it was difficult to see how we could have had a huge impact.

But the broader point I'd make is that the reason this is happening in Egypt is that they are aware of the wider world, they are aware that the United States was pushing for reform. They see openness in other parts of the world. This is partly a desire of Egypt to catch up with the rest of the world and become like other modern countries.

Arab Revolutions: From Tunisia To Egypt, Is This The Beginning Of A Trend?

The Huffington Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/01/egypt-tunisia-arab-revolution_n_816695.html

Protests continue to sweep Egypt, as the world waits to see if President Hosni Mubarak will be forced from office. Those protesters are not alone. The movement leading the demonstrations in Egypt credited inspiration for their actions to the protesters in Tunisia, and a later protest in Yemen credited the Egyptians. What's going on?

According to Foreign Policy, the successful ouster of autocratic president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali struck a chord with many young, angry Arab populations ready to protest. Writes Ellen Knickmeyer, "The unhappy youth in Tunisia are not alone in the Arab world. On Jan. 25, tens of thousands of young Egyptians took to the pavement in Cairo and other major Egyptian cities in the largest challenge to President Hosni Mubarak's regime in a generation. Other crowds have shaken the streets of Sanaa, Algiers, and Amman."

She also notes, "And rather than the Arab world's usual suspects -- bearded Islamists or jaded leftists -- it is young people, angry at the lack of economic opportunity available to them, who are risking their lives going up against police forces." Why is the Middle Eastern youth so angry? Much of the frustration can be traced to extremely high unemployment rates. As Knickmeyer notes, the unemployment rate for young people in North Africa and the Middle East, who make up sixty percent of the area's population, is four times higher than the average rate in the region.
So why these countries, and not poor nations in general?

CNN's Fareed Zakaria argues that it's not just the joblessness that sparks unrest in these populations; it's the "frustrated expectations" of a group that feels it should be receiving more from society than it has. He notes that far from failing, the Tunisian economy had been growing at five percent a year, and the Egyptian economy "much faster than that." The dictators ruling these countries were unable to accomodate the increasing demands of the nation's youth. As Zakaria puts it, "It is this revolution of rising expectations that often undoes a dictatorship because it is usually unable to handle the growing demands of its citizens."

What are these "growing demands"? Historian Basheer Nafi of the University of London's Birkbeck College told Al Jazeera today, "My feeling is that we are witnessing a second wave of the Arab liberation movement ... In the first wave, the Arabs liberated themselves from colonial powers and foreign domination. I think now, the very heart of the Arab world, the backbone of the Arab world, is leading the move towards freedom and democracy and human rights." There has been a lot of talk about the effect of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media on the revolutions, but one of the largest effects seems to be the anger incurred when these services are denied. In Tunisia, some commentators called it a "WikiLeaks Revolution" because of the unrest stirred by the government blocking the critical leaked cables.

In Egypt, anger has flared over the government's early decisions to block Twitter and Facebook, and to later take the unprecedented step of shutting off the Internet entirely. While social media certainly helped the protestors to organize and communicate, it seems one of their most powerful roles was to serve as a catalyst when they disappeared. As Salman Shaikh of the Brookings Institute points out, "Due to the phenomenal growth of secondary and university-level education, literacy rates among the region's youths have skyrocketed in the past 40 years. The percentage of people living in Arab cities has risen by 50% in the same period." Literate, cosmopolitan people want to communicate. Therefore, argues Shaikh, "Propelled by the young and the digital revolution, citizens will demand nothing less than the right to choose and change their representatives in the future."

The Tunisia riots were set off by a the self-immolation of a 26-year-old man named Mohamed Bouazizi, who killed himself after police seized vegetables he was trying to sell. Michele Penner Angrist, writing in Foreign Affairs, argues that in authoritarian societies, "... people bear an internal cost -- to their sense of autonomy and personal integrity -- of pretending that the status quo is acceptable. And when the cost of pretending becomes intolerably high for a few citizens, sudden and surprising mass protests can erupt." This was the case, she says, with the horrifying suicide of Bouazizi, which other Tunisians felt was too terrible to ignore. After the momentum begins, she writes, "The actions of these few can trigger similar actions by others, who, when they see how many others feel as they do and are willing to show it publicly, join in the opposition. The larger the number of protestors becomes, the more others are willing to join them."

So will these protests continue to spread through the region? It is most likely too soon to tell; after the Tunisian president fled, it was reported that Cairo residents chanted "Mubarak next," but few thought that the massive Egyptian protests would begin so suddenly, and it remains to be seen what the ultimate outcome of the protests will be. However, Marc Lynch in Foreign Policy sees reason for hope. "There are strong reasons to expect most of these regimes to survive, which we shouldn't ignore in a moment of enthusiasm. But we also shouldn't ignore this unmistakable new energy, the revelation of the crumbling foundations of Arab authoritarian regimes, or the continuing surprises which should keep all analysts humble about what might follow," he acknowledges. However, he adds, "The Tunisian example has offered the possibility of success, and models for sustained action by a decentralized network, after a long and dispiriting period of authoritarian retrenchment. Al-Jazeera and the new media have played their role in reshaping political opportunities and narratives, but it is people who have seized those opportunities."

Why Do Jews Succeed

WASHINGTON , DC – In recent decades, economists have been struggling to make use of the concept of human capital, often defined as the abilities, skills, knowledge, and dispositions that make for economic success. Yet those who use the term often assume that to conceptualize a phenomenon is a first step to manipulating it. And, indeed, “human-capital policy” is now much in fashion. But what if many of the abilities and dispositions in question are a product of history, capable of being understood and explained but not readily replicated?

Simon Kuznets, one of the twentieth century’s great economists, was a pioneer of human-capital theory. Not long before he died, Kuznets recommended to a young colleague that one ought study the role of Jews in economic life.

By and large, economists and other social scientists have neglected the history of Jews and capitalism, for reasons that are understandable, though unconvincing. For most economists, the extent to which modern capitalism has been shaped by earlier cultural predispositions is a source of puzzlement at best, if not merely a factor to be dismissed.

Such cultural considerations simply do not fit into the categories in which equation-fixated economists are predisposed to think. When economists examine “human capital,” they prefer measurable criteria such as years of schooling. To the extent that human capital involves character traits and varieties of “know-how” that are transmitted within the realms of the family and the community, rather than by formal education, it becomes both methodologically elusive and difficult to manipulate by public policy.

A look at the historical experience of the Jews shows that while most Jews were mired in poverty at the beginning of the twentieth century, over time they tended to do disproportionately well in societies that allowed them to compete on an equal basis. That was the case first in central and western Europe, and then in the United States.

They did particularly well in commerce. In search of economic niches not already occupied by others, Jews frequently created markets for new products and services. They pioneered new retail institutions, from department stores to box stores.

The fastest growing sectors of the economy since the late nineteenth century have been those loosely classified as “service industries,” often involving the dissemination of information and entertainment – activities in which Jews have been especially prominent, from publishing to vaudeville and from movies to commercial sports. They also tended to do disproportionately well in the learned professions – such as medicine, law, and accounting – that are so central to modern capitalist society.

The fact that Jews were long a minority subject to discrimination is sometimes given as a reason for their tendency to devote themselves to commerce, finance, and the professions. Yet not all minorities long subject to discrimination necessarily succeed under conditions of market competition.

There are a number of ways to account for Jews’ disproportionate achievement. For one thing, Jews had more experience with commerce than most other groups, and the tacit knowledge of buying, selling, and calculating advantage that was passed on in families with ties to business helps explain why Jews tended to be better at it.

Moreover, in much of Europe, Jews had long been excluded from most of the established economy of land ownership, and from many other fields that were reserved for Christians. So they learned to be on the lookout for new opportunities in underserved markets, working as peddlers, for example, or creating new products, or new forms of marketing.

Social networks also played an important role. Jews were spread across many countries, but to some extent shared a common language and a sense of common fate. So they were more aware of distant opportunities, had more international contacts, and were disproportionately active in international trade.

In addition, Jews had a religious culture that promoted universal adult literacy – at least for men – and a culture that respected book learning. Those attitudes and dispositions were transferred from religious texts to secular forms of education. As a result, Jews were highly oriented toward education, and willing to defer current pleasures and income to obtain more of it.

Such factors provide a sense of why attention to the history of Jews under capitalism helps us to understand capitalism more generally. It reminds us that much of success in a capitalist society is based on cultural and historical factors that produce qualities such as innovativeness, willingness to tolerate risk, and willingness to defer gratification through savings and education.

These cultural traits are difficult to quantify, so economists are uncomfortable in dealing with them. They are often passed down within families, so they elude social policies that are based on the notion that equality of opportunity can be created by government action.

Exploring the economic history of the Jews also reminds us that groups that are disproportionately successful are met by different political reactions. Societies long oriented to economic dynamism tend to welcome the economically successful, viewing them as a source of mutual gains.

But cultures that tend to resent the economically successful – either as an affront to equality, or on the implicit assumption that the economic gains of some must be at the expense of others – tend to be more hostile toward Jews and given to conspiratorial theories to explain their economic success. Most societies lie somewhere along a spectrum between these two poles.

Some social scientists are wary of calling attention to the reality of disproportionate Jewish economic success for fear of arousing anti-Semitism, or contributing to conspiratorial theories about Jewish economic dominance. No doubt, conspiratorial minds will always find fodder for their obsessions. But the fact that the history of Jews and capitalism calls current social-scientific wisdom and method into question is all the more reason to explore the topic.

Jerry Z. Muller is Professor of History at the Catholic University of America, Washington D.C., and author, most recently, of Capitalism and the Jews (Princeton University Press).