Next Question for Tunisia: The Role of Islam in Politics
Next 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 recent days over the role of Islam in politics. Tensions mounted right here last week when military helicopters and security forces were named 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 great!” and “No to brothels in a Muslim country!”
Five weeks following protesters forced out the country’s dictator, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisians are locked in 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 life-style shatter stereotypes of the Arab world. Abortion is legal, polygamy is banned and females commonly 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 are 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,” said Khadija Cherif, a former head from the Tunisian Association of Democratic Females, a feminist organization. “We really don’t want to let down our guard.”
Ms. Cherif was one 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 the largest demonstrations because the overthrow of Mr. Ben Ali.
Protesters held up signs saying, “Politics ruins religion and religion ruins politics.”
They have been also mourning the killing on Friday of a Polish priest by unknown attackers. That assault was also condemned by the country’s main Muslim political movement, Ennahdha, or Renaissance, which was banned below Mr. Ben Ali’s dictatorship but is now regrouping.
In interviews inside the Tunisian news media, Ennahdha’s leaders have taken pains to praise tolerance and moderation, comparing themselves to the Islamic parties that govern Turkey and Malaysia.
“We know we have an basically fragile economy that’s very open toward the outside globe, to the point of being totally dependent on it,” Hamadi Jebali, the party’s secretary basic, said in an interview with all the Tunisian magazine Réalités. “We have no interest whatsoever in throwing every little thing away today 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 stay unconvinced.
Raja Mansour, a bank employee in Tunis, stated it was too early to tell how the Islamist movement would evolve.
“We do not know if they may be a actual threat or not,” she mentioned. “But the very best defense is always to attack.” By this she meant that secularists should assert themselves, she mentioned.
Ennahdha is one of the couple of organized movements inside a extremely fractured political landscape. The caretaker government that has managed the country since Mr. Ben Ali was ousted is fragile and weak, with no clear leadership emerging from the revolution.
The unanimity from the protest motion against Mr. Ben Ali in January, the uprising that set off demonstrations across the Arab planet, has given that evolved into numerous daily protests by competing groups, a improvement that numerous Tunisians uncover unsettling.
“Freedom can be a excellent, wonderful adventure, but it’s not without dangers,” said Fathi Ben Haj Yathia, an author and former political prisoner. “There are numerous unknowns.”
Among the biggest demonstrations since Mr. Ben Ali fled took location 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 having hyperlinks to Mr. Ben Ali’s government.
Tunisians are debating the long term of their nation on the streets. Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the broad thoroughfare in central Tunis named soon after the country’s first president, resembles a Roman forum on weekends, packed with folks of all ages excitedly discussing politics.
The freewheeling and somewhat chaotic atmosphere across the nation has been accompanied by a breakdown in security that continues to be especially unsettling for ladies. With all the substantial security apparatus with the old government decimated, leaving the police force in disarray, many girls now say they are afraid to walk outside alone at night.
Achouri Thouraya, a 29-year-old graphic artist, says she has mixed feelings toward the revolution.
She shared inside the joy of 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 plan that included monitoring those who prayed on a regular basis, helped defend the rights of girls.
“We had the freedom to reside our lives like girls in Europe,” she mentioned.
But now Ms. Thouraya mentioned she was a “little scared.”
She added, “We do not know who will likely be president and what attitudes he may have toward ladies.”
Mounir Troudi, a jazz musician, disagrees. He has no appreciate for the former Ben Ali government, but mentioned he believed that Tunisia would stay a land of beer and bikinis.
“This is a maritime nation,” Mr. Troudi stated. “We are sailors, and we’ve always been open to the outside world. I’ve confidence in the Tunisian men and women. It’s not a nation of fanatics.”
