(Photo by Gwenael Piaser via Flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
On December 17th, 2010, shopkeeper Mohamed Bouazizi self-immolated after Tunisian police harassed him for bribes. Bouazizi’s radical act set in motion what people later dubbed the “Arab Spring.” As protests spread across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), people started demanding increased freedoms, improved living conditions, and better-paying jobs. The movement was so strong and effective in Tunisia that, after less than a month, it ousted the 23-year dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
Despite the revolution’s initial success and some Western support, 15 years later, the country is in a similar situation as it was prior to the revolution. A dictator rules a brutal police state, holding token elections. Western media has resorted to tired tropes of Arabs and MENA being incompatible with democracy, and Western officials retain close ties with the dictator to preserve “stability.”
Genuine Western Admiration?
As the Arab Spring began, certain Western leaders welcomed Ben Ali’s departure, with then President Barack Obama “applaud[ing] the courage and dignity of Tunisians and condemn[ing] the government using violence against them.” British Foreign Minister William Hague “condemned the violence and called for free and fair elections.” Western media and other observers enthusiastically praised the revolution and called it a success.
However, France, Tunisia’s former colonizer, reacted in a confusing and contradictory manner, highlighting how Western overtures to “freedom and democracy” are not genuine. The French government originally only called for calm, to then condemn the “disproportionate use of force.” At one point, the French Foreign minister even offered to “help restore order” with French riot troops. French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, said “France [was] keen to see free and fair elections,” only when the writing was so evidently on the wall.
France’s initial reactions and statements regarding the Tunisian revolution showed France’s aggressive stance towards its former colonies and its intent to keep them in its sphere of influence. But France’s reaction merely foreshadowed the West’s eventual attitude towards the revolution and its aims. It preferred to keep a longtime ally in power to maintain Tunisia’s pro-Western stance and to check Gaddafi’s Libya.
Democracy Struggles to be Born
Despite the West’s contradictory sentiments, on October 23rd, 2011, Tunisia held its first elections. After all the votes were tallied, the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party won 41% of the vote and 90 seats in the country’s 217-seat parliament. While Western outlets covered the run-up to the elections positively, the press coverage surrounding the results was muted.
Tunisia’s transition to democracy was bound to be tumultuous. It had emerged from the grips of a 23-year police-state and had yet to remove all remnants of the Ben-Ali regime. Yet, Western media gave the country little grace, continuously invoking Ennahda’s Islamist label. Fox News published an article on the elections titled “Arab Spring Optimism Gives Way to Fear of Islamic Rise.” Voice of America focused on the fact that the winning party was “Islamist,” and emphasized protests and discontent in reaction to the election.
These initial reactions give the impression that Tunisia may not be ready for democracy, reinforcing the age-old trope that democracy is not compatible with the Arab world. The new Prime Minister, Hamadi Jebali, even stated that “[his government] would not stop tourists wearing bikinis on the beaches nor impose Islamic banking” to quell Western fears.
Despite Western doubts, Tunisia enshrined a new constitution through its Constituent Assembly in 2014. The new constitution established a free and equal democracy for all citizens regardless of age, gender, or religion.
The newly formed constitution highlights how post-revolution Tunisia was committed to freedom and democracy, even to a higher degree than certain Western Nations, establishing that MENA and Islam are compatible with democratic principles.
Revolutionary Promise Keeps Faltering
Even though Tunisia’s first election went smoothly, the following years did not. On February 6th, 2013, only two years after the revolution, an unknown assailant assassinated opposition party leader Chokri Belaid. Western governments immediately published boiler-plate statements calling for the Tunisian government “to conduct a fair, transparent and professional investigation.”
Western media tacitly blamed the ruling party for the assassination. But as fundamentalism and terrorism grew in the region, the West shifted its focus from democracy in the MENA region towards security concerns.
As Tunisia’s promising democracy laboured to function, security concerns grew, and non-state terrorist entities such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS started to establish a presence in the country. They eventually carried out a series of terrorist attacks in Tunisia, with three devastating ones in 2015 alone. These attacks marked a shift in media coverage of Tunisia. Outlets were no longer as focused on democracy in Tunisia, nor on how to support it. Their attention turned to the topic of terrorism.
Western leaders still paid lip service to Tunisian democracy to help it grow, but their real concern was on the country’s security situation. Western leaders focused on Tunisia’s internal security, not because they cared for Tunisians, but rather, they sought to have the country as a barrier to non-state terrorist entities.
The Myth of the Revolution Finally Dies
Due to the terrorist attacks, Tunisia’s all-important tourism sector plummeted, plunging the country into an economic crisis. As the crisis worsened and the fight against non-state groups increased, the West’s focus shifted to these issues. Only occasionally did Western media cover the state of Tunisian democracy, and those articles made sure to emphasize the country’s dire situation.
As all these crises brewed, Tunisians grew increasingly frustrated and discontent with their situation, paving the way for the current president, Kais Saied, to win the 2019 elections. As Saied was a relatively unknown figure, media coverage of him was relatively neutral, describing him as a “conservative” and an “anti-corruption candidate.”
Although Saied positioned himself as an incorruptible candidate breaking with the previous order, he took advantage of Tunisia’s crises and concentrated power in his hands. Two years into his 5-year term, he invoked Article 80 of the 2014 Constitution, which allows “the president the power to take any measures necessary to lead the country in the event of imminent danger presented against the country’s institutions.”
Using that newfound power, he dismissed the Prime Minister, suspended parliament, ruled by decree, and announced he was suspending the current constitution and drafting a new one.
In the first half of 2022, Saied signed two decrees that gave himself essentially limitless power. The first one gave himself the power to suspend judges, and the second allowed him to appoint members of the Independent High Authority for Elections.
Saied’s new constitution gave the President immunity, stating that, “[the President] must not be questioned about the measures they adopt during the term of their presidency,” and encoded the powers he gave himself through decree. He now had the final say on the law and on elections, making him virtually untouchable, reminiscent of Ben-Ali’s presidency.
Western reaction to his coup was unsurprising, with a BBC article stating “[Saied’s] authoritarian streak is neither unique nor new to Tunisia or the region.” With this sentence, the BBC is almost making it seem that dictatorship is inevitable in Tunisia and MENA at large, and that they are incompatible with democracy.
Back to Square One
Despite condemning Saied’s coup, Western nations continue to expand their relations with Tunisia more than ever before. In July 2023, the European Union (EU) and Tunisia signed a deal on migration that would see Tunisia receive hundreds of millions of Euros in exchange for curbing migration to the EU. This deal aimed to strengthen Tunisia’s coastguard to patrol its borders and prevent “irregular migration”. The EU also stated the deal would cooperate “with the United Nations on the protection of refugees and migrants and their return to their countries of origin.”
Yet, despite the EU’s statements, Tunisian officials have routinely left migrants to die in the desert as a measure of curbing migration. The EU, widely aware of Tunisia’s political situation and human rights violations, especially the government’s abhorrent treatment of migrants, signed the deal anyway. This deal suggests that the West has never truly cared for Tunisian democracy. They much prefer a stable government they can work with to achieve their political goals.
But the EU does not seek a stability where Tunisians flourish and prosper. On the contrary, the current Tunisian stability comes on the backdrop of an economic crisis that has made them poorer than they were before Ben-Ali left power. Saied has brought back part of Ben-Ali’s police state that was once thought dead. Police regularly arrest and beat people, especially activists and journalists, jailing 28 of the latter since the coup.
The West prefers to work with Saied now that the police state is back, as it allows the EU to outsource border policing to Tunisia, to preserve Europe’s image as a bastion of democracy, freedom and liberalism, in contrast to the barbaric and undemocratic “Islamic” states they fund in order to maintain authoritarian governance.
Saied, although more religious and socially conservative than Ben Ali, has returned to the dictator’s secular roots. Saied’s meandering return to a secular dictatorship has also encouraged Western leaders as it brought back a sense of familiarity and stability that they found sorely missing when Tunisians democratically elected Islamist political parties. Saied’s rise and ultimate power grab may have even confirmed the Western belief that Islam is truly incompatible with democracy, because Tunisia, one of the only true democracies in MENA, fell.
The West Finds its Stability
It seems Tunisia’s revolution failed not only due to internal power struggles and weak institutions, but also outside pressures, mainly from the West. Initially, the West put Tunisia under a microscope after its revolution ousted its Western-backed dictator. Yet, when it became clear Tunisia’s democracy was on shaky ground, the West maintained its distance.
However, when Saied completed his power grab, Western countries came back to the table and advocated in favour of their interests. Western media and think tanks started publishing articles entitled “Has the West Learned to Work with Tunisia?” This article emphasizes the EU’s migration deal with Tunisia as a “partnership” and a “[plan] to help develop Africa.” The article merely repeats the claim that the West needs to engage with Saied and his authoritarian Tunisia to maintain “stability.”
To add insult to injury, the article also includes the phrase, “the West must still find a way to balance security and strategic competition with the values of human rights protection.” It is evident that Western powers will always prioritize their security and strategy over human rights, because they never sincerely cared for Tunisian human rights and democracy in the first place. If they had done so, they would not have backed Saied’s current government and would have offered more support to Tunisia’s democracy in its early stages.
The West sought a Tunisia it could work with and that possessed the fabled “stability.” Maybe it is not that the Arab world and MENA are incompatible with democracy, but rather that the West prefers an undemocratic MENA region, forcing democracy to be incompatible with the Arab World. After all, a truly democratic MENA would likely not be as pro-Western as it currently is.
Edited by Chelsea Bean
