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Tunisia - working class revolt

heartwarming personal account on the Guardian site:

Our main street has been renamed "Martyr Mohamed Bouazizi", instead of "7Novembre"- the day on which ZABA (Zine Abidine Ben Ali) achieved his coup ousting the former president Habib Bourguiba in 1987. Even the new Nfidha airport changed its name, not officially yet, but the people with their banners and buckets of paint are renaming the boulevards all over Tunisia.

Still in the thick of the revolt, I can't really see the whole
picture: it was, and still is- a mixture of:

+liberal slogans for citizenship rights, democracy and freedom

+leftist spirit with trade unionists, unemployed and impoverished
people calling for wealth redistribution and workers' rights

+68 France as my students, many of them wrapped in Che Guevara flags,
criticized the educational system and that is THEIR turn to change
society and culture. They ve started making films, documentaries,
plays...

+at the same time, many images are a reminiscence of the Palestinian
Intifada: Martyrs, hurling stones, burning tyres, singing Marcel
Khalife's and Julia Boutros's songs... very 1980s that is.

We haven't finished yet. We are all speaking out and criticizing. As a Tunisian journalist said: under Ben Ali we used to complain from constipation, now it's freedom of speech diarrhea. But, that's a bit healthy I think.
A good sign against any regression -dictatorial, religious or jingoistic- is a real free press. The minister of culture on TV yesterday, the UNESCO scholar Ezzedine Bach Chaouech, urged journalists to be the watchdogs and bulwarks of this uprising. A journalist answered he'd immolate himself if anyone or any party would confiscate what we have done. I think many will be ready to do it.
Every institution should be under scrutiny, corrupt CEOs are being sacked by their own employees, Interior Ministry high-ranked officials were fired -46 of them... Many changes but we are still asking for more.
Click to expand...
 
Gaddafi was NOT HAPPY when his mate was ousted. Here's what he said:
This Internet, which any demented person, any drunk can get drunk and write in, do you believe it? The Internet is like a vacuum cleaner, it can suck anything. Any useless person; any liar; any drunkard; anyone under the influence; anyone high on drugs; can talk on the Internet, and you read what he writes and you believe it. This is talk which is for free. Shall we become the victims of "Facebook" and "Kleenex" and "YouTube"! Shall we become victims to tools they created so that they can laugh at our moods? We decide our destiny, based on facts and our needs. Besides, this is not the era of blood, of smoke, of burning, of knives and axes; this is the era of the people, and supposedly the era of democracy. Everything is by election and referendum, ie, through the people's direct authority, which is the people's direct democracy, and not through rumours, and Facebook, and YouTube, and the Kleenex and the cables of American Ambassadors. This world wide web Internet is laughing at us and damaging our countries; it is tearing up our clothes; and killing our children for it.
Click to expand...
Evidently,he's seen Dwyer's posts :hmm::D
 
Well Gaddafi should know, did anyone read his english-language website some years ago, before his regime came in from the cold? It was loaded with batshit crazy conspiracy stuff.
 
Via the Guardian:

4.48pm – Tunisia: The former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali is in a coma in Saudi hospital following a stroke two days ago, a source close to him has confirmed to French agencies.
Click to expand...
 
Some suspect this is a ploy to avoid possible extradition, not that I think the Saudis would be likely to approve such requests.
 
I guess your people rising up against you, pretty much confirms that you're a big cunt. and for deluded power mad dictators, it's probably a dent in their ego so large, they get an anurism :D
 
elbows said:
Some suspect this is a ploy to avoid possible extradition, not that I think the Saudis would be likely to approve such requests.
Click to expand...

That's quite some ploy.

I have this image of Ben Ali, Mubarak and Ariel Sharon in a row, with a line of empty beds...
 
elbows said:
Via the Guardian:
4.48pm – Tunisia: The former Tunisian president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali is in a coma in Saudi hospital following a stroke two days ago, a source close to him has confirmed to French agencies.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

nelson-muntz.gif
 
AlJazeera have been showing a vault that was hidden behind a bookcase at the presidential palace, it was crammed with large bundles of euros, diamonds and gold jewellery.
 
Via the BBC:

1954: The protests sweeping through the Arab world appear likely to claim their first European political scalp on the weekend. French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie is going to quit in the coming days over her handling of the Tunisia crisis, according to AFP.

1956: Ms Alliot-Marie admitted her family had business dealings with allies of Tunisian strongman Mr Ben Ali. And according to AFP, just days before the fall of the regime, she shocked Tunisian democrats by suggesting that France could train the country's hated police force to better enable it to control the popular uprising.
 
3 people killed in fresh protests in Tunis. Round 2 is on.

Three people have been killed in clashes between hundreds of demonstrators and security forces in the Tunisian capital, authorities say.

Police used tear gas, batons and live ammunition to disperse demonstrators outside the interior ministry in Tunis.

Police and masked men in civilian clothes, armed with sticks, moved through streets looking for protesters.

The protest comes a day after police cleared huge crowds from the streets demanding the prime minister resign.

That was the biggest rally since President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fled after weeks of unrest.
Click to expand...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12588004
 
Tunisian PM resigns following the deaths yesterday. The Tunisian revolution continues.

Sky is reporting from the Tunisian Libyan border where they report that it is ordinary people who are helping refugees at the borders with no sign of government involvement.

Three cheers for the Tunisian's they show the way again
 
elbows said:
Via the BBC:

1954: The protests sweeping through the Arab world appear likely to claim their first European political scalp on the weekend. French Foreign Minister Michele Alliot-Marie is going to quit in the coming days over her handling of the Tunisia crisis, according to AFP.

1956: Ms Alliot-Marie admitted her family had business dealings with allies of Tunisian strongman Mr Ben Ali. And according to AFP, just days before the fall of the regime, she shocked Tunisian democrats by suggesting that France could train the country's hated police force to better enable it to control the popular uprising.
Click to expand...

Sarkozy has just announced his mini-reshuffle without any mention of her.

"post-colonialisation EVERYONE - NOT JUST US - maintained diplomatic and trading relations with these (dictators) as a bulwark against extremism... but the peoples of these countries have chosen to be free and we need to support them .." ... (my inadequate interpretation)

New Foreign minister Alain Juppé.

In December 2004, Juppé was convicted of mishandling public funds. His political career was subsequently suspended until he was re-elected as Mayor of Bordeaux in October 2006. He served briefly as Minister of State for Ecology and Sustainable Development in 2007, but resigned in June 2007 after failing in his bid to be re-elected in the 2007 legislative election.
Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alain_Juppé
 
There have been attempts by them to put their stamp on certain areas but they've been met with determined and large marches in favour of secularism/anti-coercion.
 
Maybe its true, but I stopped reading once I reached the part where the author said:

Eighty per cent of the population belonged to the middle class. And the education system — allocated more funding than the army — ranked 17th globally in terms of quality. The veil was banned in public institutions, polygamy was outlawed, mosques were shuttered outside prayer times, and men needed permission from the local police to grow a beard.
Click to expand...

Oh how simply wonderful Tunisia was before the uprising, praise their beard laws.
 
frogwoman said:
Is all that supposed to be a good thing>?
Click to expand...

According to the author or me?

The piece had some sense in it but it veered off alarmingly at points, I was getting annoyed when I first read it by the way the beard law was tacked on the end of other stuff that was good/demonstrated the secular nature of the old regime. I since went back and read the rest of the piece. No time to comment further on it right now though.
 
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