Magister Equitum wrote:Here are some older articles on Democracy in Egypt...

I invite you to post them in the thread I've started about Egypt, so this one can remain about Tunisia. Hardly a necessity but since the countries are quite different...

Regarding Tunisia: outlawed leader of Islamists returns

Rashid Al-Ghannushi is most definitely an interesting character. Wikipedia has only a short article about him. It says:

Rashid Al-Ghannushi represents a progressive strain in Islamic reformism, and continuously stresses the need for innovation against social injustice. He underscores the importance of local culture, and an Islamist movement based in the needs of Tunisians and not in "the obscure theories of Sayyid Qutb". He has sided with worker's rights, unionism, and women's education and rights, though those rights are based in Islam and not Western liberal feminism.

I note that this is attributed to an article that appeared in Middle East Report, which seems to me to have a very distinct far-left outlook. I really do hope that we're not going to see a situation where a nasty Islamist becomes a darling of the left due to an overlap of 20% in beliefs while a blind eye is turned to the other 80%. I'm not saying this is happening or will, just that I hope it will not. I'm not even saying Ghannushi is nasty, though it seems at least remotely possible.

Despite that last bit about his respect for women's rights, we find in a report from CSMonitor quoting AFP:

Concern about Ghannouchi's then-pending return sparked protests by Tunisian women Saturday, reports Agence France-Presse. Hundreds of women, including "actresses, university lecturers, and human rights campaigners," took to the streets in Tunis to show their resolve to maintain the well-established rights of women in the country. "We want to send an important message to the Islamists, especially those from the Ennahdha movement -- that we are not ready to pull back on or abandon our rights," said Sabah Mahmoudi, a university lecturer, told AFP.

Wikipedia also has a short article about Ghannouchi's Renaissance Party, and in it we learn:

Although traditionally shaped by the thinking of Sayyid Qutb and Maududi, starting in the 1980s [the party] began to be described as moderate Islamist. They advocated democracy and a "Tunisian" form of Islamism which recognized political pluralism. They also discussed a "dialogue" with the West. Nevertheless the party supports liberalism and does not believe in an essentially Islamic constitution. Critics charge that one of their main leaders, named Rashid Al-Ghannushi, had a history of violence yet in courts he was accused by the ruling party of organizing a non authorized political party. Others say he supports any form multi-party democracy that offers a minimum of freedom for his party and followers.

Confusing, eh? It's just possible that a good clue to Ghannouchi's true stance was hidden within that first AP report. It quotes him as saying: "Why do people want to compare me to (Osama) Bin Laden or Khomeini, when I am closer to Erdogan?" Turkey's Recip Erdogan is another interesting character. It's still unclear exactly where he wants to take Turkey, but there's no doubt he's a lot less secular than his predecessors. Note that Ghannouchi isn't saying he's more liberal than Erdogan, just closer to Erdogan than either bin Laden or Khomeini. That leaves plenty of space for him to be very nasty indeed.

If I were a radical Islamist and in Ghannouchi's position I'd be non-controversial and lend my support to "any form [of] multi-party democracy that offers a minimum of freedom for [my] party and followers." Then I'd forge some surreptitious ties to Iran and try to follow Hizbullah's path to power in Lebanon.

danivon wrote:It's not about whether you are being fashionable, it's about the wisdom of such moves. It sounds great to remove a dictator from without. But the experience of Iraq shows that it's not really that easy. Not everyone would be happy to see Western force in their countries, and the Muslim Brotherhood are active in both Egypt and Tunisia. Giving them a ready-made target might not help much.

Min X, when I wrote that, it was Ghanoushi I was thinking of in relation to Tunisia. His daughter writes occasional columns on the Guardian's Comment is Free site.

The ones before the Tunisia crisis are a spectacle indeed. They seem to be based on a kind of Marxist vocabulary, are always critical of the West, and are very coy about her actual beliefs on Islam. I can't think of any that I have agreed with.

As for whether the papa Ghannoushi will get much traction, it's hard to say. Tunisia has been very secular for some time, but that came along with top-down enforcement. His absence for many years has not been marked by much of a movement agitating for him at home. There are more significant opposition groups in Tunisia which are less 'Marxy' and less 'Qutby'.

A bump. Tunisia is holding it's first post-Arab Spring elections this weekend, for a Constituent Assembly that will draw up a new constitution before Parliamentary and Presidential elections next year. The Guardian has a section devoted to it. Two articles that I noted are on the following links:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oc ... ion-future

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oc ... rab-spring

There's a wikipedia page that includes a section on recent polling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunisian_C ... tion,_2011

Ennahda, or Nahda (or ‘Renaissance’) are leading the polls, but appear unlikely to get a majority on their own right. This is the party of Rashid Ghanoushi (to whom I have referred before) and it has come from the Muslim Brotherhood tradition, although it claims to be more moderate now. I think that they may also be less pro-market capitalism than they are currently claiming to be. Basically, they are saying that they are the equivalent of the European centre-right ‘Christian Democrats’, but just Muslim.

The Progressive Democrats (PDP) appear to be centre-left and secularist, as do the Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberties (FDTL) and the Congress for the Republic (CPR). Between them they may be able to provide an opposition to Nahda, or perhaps even the basis for a coalition government, although the fact that there are three parties with similar platforms suggests that there are some disagreements between them. Ettajdid is a more moderate inheritor of the Tunisian Communist Party. There’s also the Tunisian Workers Communist Party which is apparently Hoxhaist. To what extent the far left may work with the centre-left I’m not sure – they were part of the Spring protests and previous anti-government movements, but the transition from being a collection of banned groups working to remove an undemocratic regime to being active participants in a new democracy can bring all kinds of issues to the fore.

There are also various small liberal, centrist, centre-right and nationalist parties, one (The Homeland Party or Al-Watan) is derived from the Ben Ali party that dominated until this year. The others were around before the 2011 protests and had small numbers of Assembly Members. They don’t look particularly popular but they may be better organised than some new parties and they may well hold the balance. How much they are associated with the Ben Ali years will probably determine how each one does.

What is most worrying is that polls have been showing very high levels of apathy, although it has declined in recent weeks. Whether that reflects lack of knowledge, dissatisfaction with the range of views on offer, a lack of trust that this will be a real break from the old regime, or something else, I don’t know.

Still, this is supposed to be a transitional stage – the body being elected will be drawing up the new Constitution in preparation for Parliamentary and Presidential elections sometime next year, although it will also be able to change the government.

One of the intresting things about the advent of democracy is that it appears to have moderated Islamic party views. The current Tunisian President says about his party...

He says Al-Nahda does not want an Islamic state but rather a secular one, in which all faiths and political parties are equal. An Al-Nahda government would not hurt tourism by imposing restrictions on alcohol or bikinis and would not overturn the rights that Tunisian women have long enjoyed, including the right to wear the hijab or not to. He backed the 50 per cent quota for women on party slates for this election.
Earlier this month when hardline Muslims attacked a private TV station in Tunis for showing a documentary they thought was derogatory to Islam, he strongly condemned them.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1072844--siddiqui-democracy-begins-to-tame-islamists

Persepolis is not a documentary. It's an animated film based on a graphic novel by a woman who grew up in late 70s / early 80s Iran. Autobiographical, sure, but not a documentary. I'm dubious about how moderate they are, and their commitment to democracy, having read some of the stuff Raschid Ghannoushi and his daughter have written over the years.

I'm dubious about how moderate they are, and their commitment to democracy, having read some of the stuff Raschid Ghannoushi and his daughter have written over the years.

Written before they were operating in a free democratic society, dependent upon "winning friends and influencing people" to gain empowerment of their ideas?"
Haroon, the author who offers the quote , may be overly optimistic. But then again, he's an intimate of many of the opinion leaders in the Muslim world.