Subsequent 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 right here last week when military helicopters and security forces have been 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 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 must be infused into the new government.
About 98 % with the population of ten million is Muslim, but Tunisia’s liberal social policies and Western way of life shatter stereotypes of the Arab world. Abortion is legal, polygamy is banned and women commonly wear 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’re concerned that inside the cacophonous aftermath with 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 Women, a feminist organization. “We really don’t want to let down our guard.”
Ms. Cherif was 1 of a large number of Tunisians who marched by way of Tunis, the capital, on Saturday demanding the separation of mosque and state in one of the biggest demonstrations since the overthrow of Mr. Ben Ali.
Protesters held up signs saying, “Politics ruins religion and religion ruins politics.”
They had been 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 beneath 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 for the Islamic parties that govern Turkey and Malaysia.
“We know we have an basically fragile economy that is very open toward the outside planet, towards the point of getting totally dependent on it,” Hamadi Jebali, the party’s secretary basic, mentioned in an interview with the Tunisian magazine Réalités. “We have no interest whatsoever in throwing anything away nowadays 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 inform how the Islamist movement would evolve.
“We do not know if they’re a genuine threat or not,” she said. “But the most beneficial 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 in a extremely fractured political landscape. The caretaker government that has managed the nation given that Mr. Ben Ali was ousted is fragile and weak, with no clear leadership emerging from the revolution.
The unanimity of the protest motion against Mr. Ben Ali in January, the uprising that set off demonstrations across the Arab world, has considering that evolved into many everyday protests by competing groups, a advancement that many Tunisians find unsettling.
“Freedom can be a wonderful, great adventure, but it’s not without having dangers,” stated Fathi Ben Haj Yathia, an author and former political prisoner. “There are many unknowns.”
Among the biggest demonstrations considering that Mr. Ben Ali fled took place on Sunday in Tunis, where numerous thousand protesters marched to the prime minister’s office to demand the caretaker government’s resignation. They accused it of acquiring hyperlinks to Mr. Ben Ali’s government.
Tunisians are debating the future of their nation on the streets. Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the broad thoroughfare in central Tunis named right after the country’s very 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 specifically unsettling for ladies. With all the substantial security apparatus with the old government decimated, leaving the police force in disarray, several women now say they may be 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 in the joy from 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 deemed extremist, a draconian police plan that included monitoring those who prayed on a regular basis, helped safeguard the rights of ladies.
“We had the freedom to reside our lives like females in Europe,” she mentioned.
But now Ms. Thouraya said she was a “little scared.”
She added, “We don’t know who will probably be president and what attitudes he will have toward girls.”
Mounir Troudi, a jazz musician, disagrees. He has no love for the former Ben Ali government, but stated he believed that Tunisia would remain a land of beer and bikinis.
“This is a maritime nation,” Mr. Troudi stated. “We are sailors, and we’ve always been open for the outside globe. I’ve confidence in the Tunisian individuals. It’s not a nation of fanatics.”
