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Next Question for Tunisia: The Role of Islam in Politics
Subsequent Question for Tunisia: The Role of Islam in Politics
By THOMAS FULLER
TUNIS - The Tunisian revolution that overthrew decades of authoritarian rule has entered a delicate new phase in current days more than the role of Islam in politics. Tensions mounted here final week when military helicopters and security forces were referred to as in to carry out an unusual mission: protecting the city’s brothels from a mob of zealots.
Police officers dispersed a group of rock-throwing protesters who streamed into a warren of alleyways lined with legally sanctioned bordellos shouting, “God is fantastic!” and “No to brothels inside a Muslim nation!”
5 weeks following protesters forced out the country’s dictator, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisians are locked inside a fierce and noisy debate about how far, or even no matter whether, Islamism ought to be infused into the new government.
About 98 % with the population of 10 million is Muslim, but Tunisia’s liberal social policies and Western way of life shatter stereotypes from the Arab planet. Abortion is legal, polygamy is banned and girls generally put on bikinis on the country’s Mediterranean beaches. Wine is openly sold in supermarkets and imbibed at bars across the country.
Women’s groups say they may be concerned that in the cacophonous aftermath from the revolution, conservative forces could tug the nation away from its strict tradition of secularism.
“Nothing is irreversible,” stated Khadija Cherif, a former head of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Ladies, a feminist organization. “We really don’t desire to let down our guard.”
Ms. Cherif was 1 of a large number of Tunisians who marched by means of Tunis, the capital, on Saturday demanding the separation of mosque and state in one of many largest demonstrations since the overthrow of Mr. Ben Ali.
Protesters held up signs saying, “Politics ruins religion and religion ruins politics.”
They were also mourning the killing on Friday of a Polish priest by unknown attackers. That assault was also condemned by the country’s principal Muslim political movement, Ennahdha, or Renaissance, which was banned below Mr. Ben Ali’s dictatorship but is now regrouping.
In interviews within the Tunisian news media, Ennahdha’s leaders have taken pains to praise tolerance and moderation, comparing themselves for the Islamic parties that govern Turkey and Malaysia.
“We know we have an basically fragile economy that is really open toward the outside planet, for the point of becoming totally dependent on it,” Hamadi Jebali, the party’s secretary common, stated in an interview with the Tunisian magazine Réalités. “We have no interest whatsoever in throwing every thing away right now or tomorrow.”
The celebration, which is allied with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, says it opposes the imposition of Islamic law in Tunisia.
But some Tunisians say they remain unconvinced.
Raja Mansour, a bank employee in Tunis, mentioned it was too early to tell how the Islamist motion would evolve.
“We really don’t know if they may be a genuine threat or not,” she mentioned. “But the best defense is usually to attack.” By this she meant that secularists need to assert themselves, she said.
Ennahdha is one of the couple of organized movements inside a extremely fractured political landscape. The caretaker government that has managed the nation since Mr. Ben Ali was ousted is fragile and weak, with no clear leadership emerging from the revolution.
The unanimity with the protest movement against Mr. Ben Ali in January, the uprising that set off demonstrations across the Arab world, has given that evolved into numerous every day protests by competing groups, a advancement that many Tunisians discover unsettling.
“Freedom is really a great, wonderful adventure, but it’s not without dangers,” mentioned Fathi Ben Haj Yathia, an author and former political prisoner. “There are numerous unknowns.”
One of many biggest demonstrations considering that Mr. Ben Ali fled took spot on Sunday in Tunis, exactly where a number of thousand protesters marched towards the prime minister’s workplace to demand the caretaker government’s resignation. They accused it of possessing links to Mr. Ben Ali’s government.
Tunisians are debating the long term of their country on the streets. Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the broad thoroughfare in central Tunis named right after the country’s first president, resembles a Roman forum on weekends, packed with men and women of all ages excitedly discussing politics.
The freewheeling and somewhat chaotic atmosphere across the country has been accompanied by a breakdown in security that continues to be particularly unsettling for girls. Using the extensive security apparatus from the old government decimated, leaving the police force in disarray, several ladies now say they are afraid to walk outside alone at evening.
Achouri Thouraya, a 29-year-old graphic artist, says she has mixed feelings toward the revolution.
She shared inside the joy with the overthrow of what she described as Mr. Ben Ali’s kleptocratic government. But she also says she believes that the government’s crackdown on any Muslim groups it thought to be extremist, a draconian police program that included monitoring those who prayed frequently, helped shield the rights of women.
“We had the freedom to live our lives like females in Europe,” she said.
But now Ms. Thouraya said she was a “little scared.”
She added, “We really don’t know who is going to be president and what attitudes he will have toward girls.”
Mounir Troudi, a jazz musician, disagrees. He has no adore for the former Ben Ali government, but mentioned he believed that Tunisia would stay a land of beer and bikinis.
“This is really a maritime nation,” Mr. Troudi mentioned. “We are sailors, and we’ve constantly been open for the outside world. I’ve self-confidence in the Tunisian individuals. It’s not a nation of fanatics.”
