Questions about Tunisia

Tunisia appears to have gone about things in a manner calculated to secure the revolution. They allowed parties time to organize and campaign, and elected in the first instance a constitutional convention, rather than putting something or someone in place, to whom the convention would become more or less a threat. And who would find plenty of reasons to interfere with its deliberations.

So the questions are:

1.       Did the interim government really behave as an interim government?

A: It focused on making the elections possible, not on stealing the outcomes. At least that was the outcome.

2.       Did the parties so organized have platforms? or programs? If so, what’s in them?

A: They campaigned – and given the amount of time allowed, meaningfully – on recognizably different platforms, and even against each other’s platforms so recognized.

3.       Did they have a fair chance to campaign on their programs?

A: Yes, “impartial” international observers thought so, and those people do seem to know the difference.

4.       Do the parties or programs have any identifiable class orientation or content?

A: There were explicitly revolutionary parties on the ballot. The parties criticized each other’s relative standing and role in the revolution…

5.       How strong politically are the classes the (secular) revolutionary parties represent?

A: …so there is enough strength to contend for the principles of the revolution themselves…

6.       The leading Islamist party has proven to be the strongest of all the parties. Can they be considered tolerant?

A: …and enough strength to earn a place in the governing coalition. So the government will include a party with specifically revolutionary credentials even as opposed to Islamic credentials. To that extent, the plurality party is behaving with tolerance…

7.       We are afraid of Sharia. Should we be afraid of Tunisia on that account?

A: …and they have to recognize specifically bourgeois expectations. The question of women, for example, is open and near the top of the agenda. Under these circumstances, Sharia could be realized, if at all, only to limited extent.

8.       What are the parties’ attitudes towards the West? That is, and specifically, their neighbors across the Mediterranean?

A: Of course it would be counter-productive to run on a platform to adopt Western values, but neither could the unemployed rationally support a platform that rejects Western capital (in spite of the strings attached). There is nothing in the result to make me abandon my view that Tunisia is naturally and geographically a Mediterranean state rather than an Arab state.

The result is that the revolution goes well. No element has come forward openly against the hope of the people for civil and political liberty. They can still rely, justifiably, on what they already have to prevent it from being taken away.

Between Iraq and Tunisia lies the ground where the Arab Spring was sown. The whole region, with one or two notable exceptions, had been subject to despots. Now, it may be, the path of democracy will follow the path of revolution.