Tunisia - working class revolt

[elbows]

The old ruling party got officially dissolved the other day too.

 

[butchersapron]

Very informative piece from MERIP

The Reawakening of Nahda in Tunisia

But a crawl it is. Many of those now in the square are not protesters but migrant workers returned from Libya, ragged and disheveled, a smattering of the 70,000 Tunisians made idle by the war across the southeastern border. One woman picking her teeth is fresh out of Misrata, the primary Libyan battleground of April. She got no help from the Tunisian embassy in Tripoli, she says, but the Tunisian army gave her and her family food at the border. “The Libyan soldiers asked us where we were from,” she says. “‘Tunisia,’ we said. ‘So you’re the ones who started this revolution business.’ Then they took our money and beat us up.”

The returnees from Libya call upon the government to “integrate” them into the economy. But it is a demand beyond the ability of any Tunisian government, interim or otherwise, to fulfill. Unemployment is said to be around 14 percent nationally. The figure is approximate and, in any case, masks huge regional and generational discrepancies. In the coastal cities, the rate of joblessness may be as low as 7 percent, while in the interior it may reach as high as 30 percent. Among Tunisians under 30, including some 400,000 university graduates, the rate is 26 percent. By common assent, this class and age cohort is the one that led the revolution that brought down Ben Ali. Now, in the hundreds, the jobless youth smoke in cafés or loiter in the lanes of Tunis’ old city, still fired up but with nothing to do.

 

[Divisive Cotton]

The Tunisian general election is coming up on October 23

 

[elbows]

A couple of articles about the forthcoming election:

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/2011/10/20111089246280661.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/10/20111017114745619449.html

The first article mentions a gender quota which is stunning in its scope, wow.

The National Council for the Protection of the Revolution, a body created to help oversee the transition process, made gender parity an obligation for electoral lists in April. This step, aimed at addressing the perceived risk that women could be sidelined in the fledgling democracy, ensures that 50 per cent of candidates fielded by every party must be female.
The lists must alternate between genders (man-woman-man or woman-man-woman), meaning Tunisia's gender quota is more ambitious than any other country in the Arab world - and globally.

 

[elbows]

Guardian election piece:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/19/tunisia-elections-revolution-future

 

[butchersapron]

Actually - no...

 

[teqniq]

My mom never voted before. Had a hard time trying to stop her tears She made my day!#TnElec http://twitpic.com/74j2gr

According to a number of reports, Rached Ghannouchi, the head of the al-Nahda party, tried to cut in line at a polling station and was told by all present to wait for his turn.

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Tunisia-Election

 

[butchersapron]

Should be more soon:
Al-Nahda claims victory in Tunisia poll

Moderate Islamist party says it has won more than 30 per cent of seats as PDP concedes it will be in opposition.

The moderate Islamist party al-Nahda has claimed that it has won more than 30 per cent of seats in Tunisia's 217-member consitutent assembly, following the country's historic election.

"The first confirmed results show that al-Nahda has obtained first place nationally and in most districts," the party's campaign manager, Abelhamid Jlassi, said at a news conference, citing al-Nahda's own election observers' reports.

The party's claim came ahead of an announcement by the country's independent election commission, in which it was to offcially declare partial results.

The leaders of two leftist parties, the Congress Party for the Republic (CPR) and Ettakol, said they were fighting for second place, while the leader of the centre-left Progressive Democratic Party (PDP) conceded defeat on Monday evening.

 

[teqniq]

This is great as well, please watch the vid.

http://www.arabist.net/blog/2011/10/24/ben-ali-in-la-goulette.html

 

[Riklet]

Ha, nice vid.

So the new assembly is dominated by the centre-right Al-Nahda now, proposing economic liberalism and mild islamism as the main focus points of social change buttt... Considering the economic and social issues which initially caused the uprising, highly doubt such a government will have the desire to work towards any real restructuring of social relations through addressing the high food prices, dodgy investment, unemployment and other factors of neo-liberal economic policies.

Still, very high turn out in the election, saw a figure of about 90% being flashed about? No sign of people tuning out from political interest and what not. So the struggle continues eh.. next few months should be interesting.

 

[phildwyer]

So the new assembly is dominated by the centre-right Al-Nahda

CIA stooges who will use Turkey as a model to placate the proletariat with religion, to distract them from economic neo-liberalism. A model for the region no doubt.

 

[elbows]

Trouble:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/10/2011102810143529175.html

After election results were announced on Thursday, hundreds of people marched on the Sidi Bouzid headquarters of Ennahdha, burning tyres and pelting security forces with stones.
Tunisian security forces reportedly responded by firing into the air to try to disperse the angry crowd, witnesses say.
Protests spread to nearby Menzel Bouzayane where more than 1,000 people demonstrated, union official Mohamed Fadhel said. In Meknassy, 50km from Sidi Bouzid, demonstrators set fire to Ennahdha's party office, Fadhel said.
The Ennahdha party leader accused forces linked to the country's ousted president of fanning the violence, and called for "calm and the preservation of public property".
Al Jazeera's Nazanine Moshiri, reporting from Tunis, said security forces had been largely absent before intervening on Friday, after election-related protests erupted overnight.

"Protesters have basically been on the rampage, burning down the mayor's office, also setting fire to a court and attempting to get into the headquarters," she said.
"There have been some arrests and teargas has been fired."
The interior ministry has announced that a curfew will be imposed from 7pm (18:00 GMT) on Friday to 5am (04:00 GMT) on Saturday morning in Sidi Bouzid.
The town was the cradle of the uprising that drove Ben Ali from power in January.

Local vegetable seller Mohamed Bouazizi set fire to himself in December, in an act of protest against officialdom which
unleashed the revolts around the Arab world.
After the elections, supporters of a party popular in Sidi Bouzid were angered that it had been eliminated from the ballot over allegations of campaign finance violations.
Aridha Chaabia, or the Petition for Justice and Development, was placed fourth in the voting, but election officials cancelled several of its seats over alleged campaign finance violations.

 

[1%er]

Should be more soon:
Al-Nahda claims victory in Tunisia poll

The article starts with the phrase "moderate Islamist", is that not an oxymoron?

I am not sure from reading the article what they mean by "moderate Islamist".

Do they mean they are moderate politically or do they mean they are moderate when compared to other Islamist parties.

For a political party to be considered Islamist they must have certain religious/political philosophies, not least:
That Islam should guide social, political and personal life
That the ideology that guides society must conform to the Islamic sharia
They want a cultural differentiation from the Western world and reconnection of the per-colonial symbolic Islamic world
The active assertion and promotion of beliefs, prescriptions, laws or policies that are held to be Islamic in character

I know of no political party that is considered Islamist, that doesn't have the above as a basis for their policies. I believe Hizb al-Nahda are considered "moderate" solely because they advocated democracy, unlike many other Islamist.

Hizb al-Nahda or the Renaissanca Party as they are also called, were inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood and place Islamic sharia at the top of their agenda.

It begs the question, how much freedom has really been won by the people of Tunisia?

 

[elbows]

It begs the question, how much freedom has really been won by the people of Tunisia?

Plenty has been won. Whether it lasts and can be taken further is the question.

Given the list system used to ensure some balance in the chamber, and that there are plenty of secular people with some power in Tunisia, I don't think its all doom and gloom just because, surprise surprise, a country where Islam is popular has lots of people voting for an Islamist party.

As for your other concerns, its perfectly possible to talk of moderate Islam because there is plenty of variation when it comes down to detail. Even with religions where certain aspects are supposedly set in stone, there is wiggle room due to a variety of different interpretations that can be put on things. For example there is a lot of variety when it comes to Sharia law, how far its punishments go and to what extent it dominates the legal system of a country.

 

[butchersapron]

The article starts with the phrase "moderate Islamist", is that not an oxymoron?

I am not sure from reading the article what they mean by "moderate Islamist".

Do they mean they are moderate politically or do they mean they are moderate when compared to other Islamist parties.

For a political party to be considered Islamist they must have certain political philosophies, not least:
That Islam should guide social, political and personal life
That the ideology that guides society must conform to the Islamic sharia
They want a cultural differentiation from the Western world and reconnection of the per-colonial symbolic Islamic world
The active assertion and promotion of beliefs, prescriptions, laws or policies that are held to be Islamic in character

I know of no political party that is considered Islamist, that doesn't have the above as a basis for their policies. I believe Hizb al-Nahda are considered "moderate" solely because they advocated democracy, unlike many other Islamist.

Hizb al-Nahda or the Renaissanca Party as they are also called, were inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood and place Islamic sharia at the top of their agenda.

No they don't. Those characteristics are ones derived from various islamist groups in various contexts at different times. What they aren't is a full definition of what islamism must entail in each and every situation. The al-nahda party argues that its moderate politics can only be democratically adopted though representative elections and cultural institutions for example, for equal rights for women and so on. They also decided not to define themselves as islamist but as arab nationalists with a islamic frame of reference. Is that moderate islamism? Is it democratic extremism? The co-option of political islam by bourgeois democracy? Are they an Islamic rather than islamist party?

 

[1%er]

No they don't. Those characteristics are ones derived from various islamist groups in various contexts at different times. What they aren't is a full definition of what islamism must entail in each and every situation. The al-nahda party argues that its moderate politics can only be democratically adopted though representative elections and cultural institutions for example, for equal rights for women and so on. They also decided not to define themselves as islamist but as arab nationalists with a islamic frame of reference. Is that moderate islamism? Is it democratic extremism? The co-option of political islam by bourgeois democracy? Are they an Islamic rather than islamist party?

It is the article you quoted above they claimed they are moderate Islamist

So would you consider them more like Malaysian and Indonesian then Iranian in their politics?

 

[elbows]

So would you consider them more like Malaysian and Indonesian then Iranian in their politics?

One reason that the Iranian regime is a very poor model for predicting what would happen elsewhere, is that they are Shia. There are only a handful of Shia-majority countries.

I'm sure there are many other factors too but this one is glaring and easy to explain in few words.

 

[butchersapron]

So would you consider them more like Malaysian and Indonesian then Iranian in their politics?

I don't really know enough about the former parties to say really. I'd put them nearer to the turkish parties if pushed.

 

[1%er]

I don't really know enough about the former parties to say really. I'd put them nearer to the turkish parties if pushed.

I am a little confussed (you may not have seen my edit above).

It is the article you quoted above they claimed they are moderate Islamist

My whole post is based on that article

 

[butchersapron]

The journalist claims that they're moderate islamist, not the party. (and i was posting it for info purposes, not to make a point about the possibility or not of moderate islamism)

 

[1%er]

The journalist claims that they're moderate islamist, not the party. (and i was posting it for info purposes, not to make a point about the possibility or not of moderate islamism)

Yes that was my point, I started my post like this "The article starts with the phrase "moderate Islamist", is that not an oxymoron?" and then went on to explain what I believe are the minimum political philosophies of an Islamist party.

 

[elbows]

Well its not an oxymoron, and we don't need a terribly in-depth knowledge of the subtleties of different Islamic parties to be able to say that. Anything beyond the most crude and stereotyped war-on-terror view of Islam should be enough to inform us that the term moderate islamist is not an oxymoron.

 

[butchersapron]

Yes that was my point, I started my post like this "The article starts with the phrase "moderate Islamist", is that not an oxymoron?" and then went on to explain what I believe are the minimum political philosophies of an Islamist party.

I know, and i replied to you and your points. You then said that they (the party) claimed they're moderate islamists in the article when they didn't. Now you're confusing me.

 

[1%er]

One reason that the Iranian regime is a very poor model for predicting what would happen elsewhere, is that they are Shia. There are only a handful of Shia-majority countries.

I'm sure there are many other factors too but this one is glaring and easy to explain in few words.

Sorry I wasn't ignoring you

Do you believe that Hizb al-Nahda do not want to introduce Islamic sharia law?

 

[elbows]

Well its not an oxymoron, and we don't need a terribly in-depth knowledge of the subtleties of different Islamic parties to be able to say that. Anything beyond the most crude and stereotyped war-on-terror view of Islam should be enough to inform us that the term moderate islamist is not an oxymoron.

And by this I mean that even if our own beliefs about politics & religion do not allow us to see any party based on religion as moderate compared to our own personal preferences, the term moderate islamist is in relation to other islamic parties. Some are more extreme, so others can therefore be classified as more moderate.

 

[1%er]

I know, and i replied to you and your points. You then said that they (the party) claimed they're moderate islamists in the article when they didn't. Now you're confusing me.

Sorry can you quote the part of my text you are referring to as i can't see it?

Edit to say

It is the article you quoted above they claimed they are moderate Islamist

If it is this I am referring to the authors of the article not the party

 

[elbows]

I also tend to believe that a large factor that is likely to keep Tunisia from going down a path of the more extreme, intrusive and intolerant full spectrum Islamism, is that a good chunk of the coastal sophisticates that form a powerful part of Tunisias economy & society are secular in certain areas which matter to politics and islam, and a pragmatic approach by islamist parties will take account of this.

 

[butchersapron]

Sorry can you quote the part of my text you are referring to as i can't see it?

I am a little confussed (you may not have seen my edit above).

It is the article you quoted above they claimed they are moderate Islamist

My whole post is based on that article

Is this what you mean? Otherwise i'm at a loss as to what you're asking me for.

 

[1%er]

Is this what you mean? Otherwise i'm at a loss as to what you're asking me for.

Sorry I again have edited a post above that explains what I mean. On reflection I should have written "It is the article you quoted above they claimed (that should read the author/s claimed) they (Hizb al-Nahda) are moderate Islamist.

Sorry,I was not clear

 

[1%er]

The point of my original post was this.

The article you posted describes Hizb al-Nahda as a moderate Islamist party, if that is the case and clearly the author believes it to be so, what freedoms have been won if you except the list I posted of political philosophies that make a party Islamist?

You clearly don't agree with the premiss in the article you posted and now i am clear about that, I thought you posted the article because you agreed with its content.