20 january 2011 article on Tunisia

International News

Ali Baba gone, but what about the 40 thieves?

The flight of Tunisia’s longtime president leaves the small country he ruled and robbed in upheaval. Its Arab neighbours wonder whether it’s the start of a trend 

 TUNISIA now lives in fear,” Libya’s ruler, Muammar Qaddafi, told his people. “Families could be raided and slaughtered in their bedrooms and the citizens in the street killed as if it was the Bolshevik or the American revolution.”

As protests persisted across Tunisia, its president for the past 23 years, Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, fled to Saudi Arabia, leaving his prime minister to try to cobble together a unity government including several former members of the opposition. It was unclear whether this would help restore calm. Several nominees refused to join the new government unless Mr Ben Ali’s party was completely swept from power. Officials said 78 people had been killed in street violence in the past few weeks; the opposition said the true figure was several times higher.

Razik Razak article to this topic

Based on this article its clear that there is a state of confusion and question in the mind of Tunisian cizitens as where this issues will move to. It cannot quite be termed a revolution, at least yet. The main instruments of control for the past 50 years, the police and the ever-ruling RCD party (a French abbreviation of Constitutional Democratic Rally) are battered and wobbly but still standing. What can be said about this is that they face no strong opposition yet the government have failed to give a state of rest to the country and it doesnt help that 78 people had been killed. This would only result in more anger in the countries people.

Everyone knows what started it: the self-immolation on December 17th of a despairing, jobless youth named Muhammad Bouazizi in the main square of Sidi Bouzid, a town in Tunisia’s hardscrabble interior. Yet there is a fierce dispute about what has sustained the revolt, encouraging furious protesters to the streets of prosperous coastal cities, galvanising near-moribund trade unions and opposition groups into action, and bringing about the dramatic scuttle into exile on January 14th of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, president for the past 23 years. And nobody is sure what Tunisia’s troubles will lead to: a transition to multiparty democracy, a military coup or a prolonged period of turmoil.

There is another way in which Tunisia’s experience could prove subtly inspiring. “The one constant in revolutions is the primordial role played by the army,” said Jean Tulard, a French historian of revolutions, in an interview in Le Monde. So far Tunisia’s army, kept small to forestall coup attempts, has won kudos for holding the fort, and not playing politics. Yet it is the army which is believed to have persuaded Mr Ben Ali to leave. Perhaps a few generals elsewhere in the Arab world are thinking that they, too, might better serve their countries by doing something similar.