Tunisia crisis poses renewal of the revolution

The abrupt turns by Tunisia’s Congress for the Republic party highlight the political fragility of the country which was the birthplace of the Arab spring two years ago and the potential of the masses to bring change.

Tunisia’s peaceful revolution made it a bellwether for Arab democracy and its current crisis – parallel to the one gripping Egypt - is important for that reason.

The CPR, president Moncef Marzouki’s party, announced a few days ago that it was withdrawing from coalition government which includes the ruling Islamist party Al-Nahda.

The secular CPR is part of the ruling coalition overseen by prime minister Hamadi Jebali. But yesterday, CPR secretary-general Mohammed Abou said the party would delay its plans to pull its ministers out of the cabinet.

Al-Nahda itself  has been in crisis since Sunday, when three of its own ministers resigned from the cabinet. But Jebali’s decision to dissolve the cabinet and replace it with technocrats is being challenged by his own party and others in the coalition.

The constitutional crisis reflects the continuing mass unrest in Tunisia since last week’s daylight execution of the opposition leader of the Jabha Chaabya (Popular Front), Chokri Belaid. Belaid’s murder by unknown gunmen is said to be the first political assassination since Tunisia's independence from France in 1965.

In fact Tunis was the scene of the execution by Israeli commandos of Yassir Arafat’s co-leader Abu Jihad in 1988. Tunisian opposition party WAFA is currently planning to sue Israel for its involvement.

Belaid’s co-leader and companion, Hammami Hamma, says that execution of revolutionary left Belaid, was "planned and executed by professionals”. Responsibility, Hamma said, lies with the government, which has demonstrated a "guilty indulgence towards violence."

In ongoing unrest hundreds of thousands have been demonstrating in Tunis against Belaidis’ murder and around the country.  Last Friday, Tunisia’s largest trade union called a general strike, one of the few in the country’s history. The leader of the General Union of Tunisian Workers said he had received a death threat as did radio journalist and blogger Emna Ben Jemaa.

The internal conflict within Nahda is a reflection of the contending forces within Tunisia in the wake of the overthrow of its former dictator, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali who ruled the country from 1987 until January 2011. He has since been sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment for inciting violence and murder.

But does it all boil down to a conflict between the “fundamentalist” wing of the Islamic Salafist movement and the secular democrats within the ruling coalition?

Certainly there is plenty of evidence that political assassinations serves the interests of those who seek to unseat liberal-leaning, pro-Western politicians, as with the seizure of hostages in the Algerian gas plant and elsewhere. The insecurity of the ruling parties in Tunisian coalition politics as in Egypt is clearly something to be exploited by sinister forces.

Indeed, the revolutionary Arab spring is in danger. But the simplistic narrative that the alternatives consist of “Western democracy” versus indigenous Islam is wrong and dangerous.

The overthrow of Ben Ali like that of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt marked the end of an historic epoch. The rule of those like Ali’s predecessor, Bourguiba was the result of an impasse. The uprising that followed the immolation of Mohammed Bouazizi in late 2010, came because there was no possibility of reform from within the regime.

Unrest and crisis continues because none of the conditions behind the 2011 uprising have been changed: massive unemployment, a deteriorating economy, but above all the lack of an economic and political say in the country’s future, all remain burning issues. Protesters have been attacked by security forces with tear gas and the torture of opponents continues in Tunisia’s notorious jails.

Electoral coalitions shuffling power amongst themselves cannot satisfy these aspirations. It is clear that the limited political democracy offered by its ruling political formations – secular or religious -  cannot meet the aspirations of the Tunisian youth, workers, women and farmers. A renewal of the revolution that this time aims to transfer real power to the people is on the horizon.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Arab Spring's first election

“Whatever happens next, I feel like now I exist”, said one man in Tunisia, just after voting. And, indeed, Sunday’s elections in the small country that sparked off the Arab awakening of 2011 have seen an amazing enthusiasm from people, young and old.

Voter turnout exceeded all expectations as over 90% of those who had registered cast their votes. Out of Tunisia’s 10.6 million population, 4.4 have the right to vote. Over the summer 95% of them registered.

A Facebook campaign “Je me suis inscrit – Je vote” was enthusiastically supported and circular red bumper stickers with the motto “ana qayyadtu" – the same message in Arabic – are still decorating walls and cars.

For Tunisians this is an historic moment as the election for a constituent assembly is their first chance to voice their political desires since the overthrow of dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, last January. The new assembly has the task of designing a new political system and how the state will relate to its citizens.

The Tunisian political revolution was sparked by the self-immolation of a young fruit seller in the poor south of the country. Mohammed Bouazizi’s sacrifice became the signal for Tunisians to rise up against their oppressive rulers in a revolution which captured the imagination of millions of young Arabs, notably in Egypt where the dictator Mubarak was ousted within weeks.

The movement soon spread from North Africa to Spain and countless other countries which have seen democracy movements rise up.

The prejudice that Arab countries are incapable of embracing a wide range of views and holding truly democratic elections is being well and truly squashed by the seemingly endless and amazingly patient queues outside polling stations around the country.

They have voted for 11,000 candidates from nearly 100 parties for a 217 member constituent assembly in 33 districts of the country in a day which, according to thousands of international and local observers, saw few if any infringements of electoral procedures.

Dr Amor Boubakri, professor of law at the university of Sousse and a member of the Electoral Observatory , said he believed Tunisians have, have succeeded in making the Arab Spring's first election a resounding success.

Boubakri, who was interviewed by Al Jazeera, is confident that election will be a democratic transition, highlighting pluralism, power-sharing, organised opposition and gender inclusiveness as never before.

It is undoubtedly a new phenomenon, “something happening for the first time in Arab culture, as linguist and historian, Hammadi Sammoud has noted. “It is a rite of passage from accepting the things were decided for us to participating. We are creating ourselves.”

Huge problems beset the country, which has 700,000 out of work, a zero growth rate and near-junk status of its bond ratings. There is also a deep north-south divide. The northern coast benefits from tourism, cosmopolitanism and fertile land, while the south – where Bouazizi lived, remains dogged by poverty and under-development.

The people of the south and centre of the country are seen as a silent majority who have hitherto seen themselves as excluded from the entire political system.

Of the political parties, it is likely that al-Nahda (Renaissance), the moderate Turkish-style Islamic party will pick up voters in the coastal cities. But this will be countered by support for the Democratic Forum for Labour and Liberties and the Progressive Democratic Party.

The large number of political parties and diversity of views is an expression of Tunisia’s unique culture which has seen a synthesis of Ottoman, Arab and Islamic heritages with European influences.

The election is now re-shaping the relations of the citizens with the state. Tunisians know they are being closely watched by their neighbours in Morocco and Libya and more widely around the world. The huge enthusiasm shows a clear desire to take forward the democratic gains of the Tunisia’s January revolution into the social improvements that still elude ordinary people.

Corinna Lotz

A World to Win secretary

Power vacuum in Yemen's 'endless revolution'

Inspired by the ousting of dictators in Tunisia and Egypt, people have massed on the streets of Yemen since February in their “Endless Revolution”. They have defied government forces, including plain-clothes thugs acting for the regime, despite the martyrdom of at least 350 protesters.

When the badly wounded dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh was wafted to Saudi Arabia after the June 3 rocket attack on the presidential complex, crowds of Yemenis celebrated his departure in Change Square in Sanaa, and Freedom Square in the southern city of Taiz.

For a poignant moment, they could revel in the knowledge that their months of sacrifice had not been in vain – and give their country’s Roman name Arabia Felix ‘happy Arabia’ a real meaning.

Speaking in Taiz, activist Wassem al Gorashi hailed the sacrifice of anti-regime protesters, saying: “On behalf of the free revolutionaries and all the noble people of the nation, we send you our sincere congratulations. We start with all of our martyrs, and then we congratulate all the rebels in different squares and all the Yemeni people. We congratulate you for the departure of the head of the arrogant regime. This day will be marked in history as one of the greatest days in Yemen.”
They were heartened by the news that In Taiz, the Khalid Bin Walid barracks, the largest barracks in the city, defected over the weekend. Central security forces have also completely pulled out of the city's streets, though the Republican Guard still maintains a presence.

For most people, Yemen is just a place on the map – the southern-most tip of the Arabian peninsula, sharing a long border with Saudi Arabia. But it has long been known first for its fertility and stupendous architecture and town planning.

Unfortunately for its citizens, in the 20th century Yemen became a strategic hotspot, due to its location dominating the straits between the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea and proximity to the world’s biggest oil producer, Saudi Arabia.

The southern port of Aden was occupied by the British forces in 1839 largely to protect their shipping interests. It became Britain’s main base in the area after the loss of the Suez canal in 1956. After four years of anti-colonial insurgency and civil strife, the British departed in 1967, leaving a divided country in their wake. The 1990 unification of south and north Yemen under Ali Abdullah Saleh – and his 32-year rule - have left many southerners feeling they were unfairly treated by the south and civil war broke out in 1994.

Taking advantage of the tensions, Al Qaeda began operations in 1992. Around 300 Al-Qaeda fighters are thought to operate from the South, making it a major target for US drones and bombers.They have strongholds in the mountainous areas and, despite US bombardment, Al Qaeda militants in the south of the country seized the provincial capital of Zinjibar only yesterday.

Although it now wants him not to return home, the United States has been desperately propping up the Saleh regime for years, supplying it with military aid to the tune of $140 million in 2010. In the past they saw Saleh and his cronies as allies in the “war against terror”.

Lara Aryani, reporting from Sana’a for Jadaliyya, has warned of the manoeuvring “of the elites, by the elites and for the elites”, including the opposition party coalition, the Joint Meeting Parties (JMP), which, she says has thrust itself into the middle of negotiations with the regime (which the protesters have refused) as if it represents or even understands the demands of the protesters and the necessary changes that would cause the protests to dissipate.”

Ousting Saleh – who imposed the World Bank and IMF’s “Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility” – on his people, is only be the beginning of clearing out the elites under whom the people of Yemen have been suffering for so long. The time for Yemenis to decide their own fate, free of the interests of Washington, Saudi Arabia, Al Qaeda and their own greedy elites must come soon.

Corinna Lotz

'You Go - We Stay' fits the bill everywhere

The Egyptian revolution continues its unfinished business. Before but especially since Hosni Mubarak was overthrown, a situation of dual power prevails in a country where eight million people – a tenth of the whole population – took part in the mass uprising that broke the back of the dictatorship.

The sweeping out of not only the despised Mubarak, but his entire regime, including the five million in the security apparatus and the military top brass, is in progress, but is still to be completed.

The military has announced that it is dissolving parliament which was stuffed full of Mubarak’s cronies and suspending a constitution that banned political activity, thus conceding some of the principal demands put forward by those who occupied Tahrir Square in Cairo.

But groups such as, amongst others, the Coalition of the Youths of Egypt’s Revolution, the Revolutionary Youth Council and Revolutionary Command Council are insisting on further changes. They remain wary about the army – which propped up Mubarak – being in charge until promised elections are to be held in six months’ time.

Leading activist Khaled Abdelkader Ouda, while welcoming the army’s initial steps, said a council of trustees would be announced on Friday, the date when organisers want millions on the street to celebrate Mubarak’s removal. The council is being set up to guard "the people's revolution".

In the 48 hours run-up to Mubarak’s ousting, organised workers began to move and go on strike around the country. Transport workers in Cairo walked out on Thursday and some 24,000 textile workers struck in the town of Mahalla al-Kubra. Over the weekend, workers at the National Bank of Egypt struck, demanding the resignation of the bank's directors and restructuring of the wages.

Other groups taking action include oil workers, public transport workers and environment ministry civil servants. But while the mass movement is flexing its muscles, the army is reportedly preparing to ban strikes and other actions in a challenge to the popular will.

Egyptians were first inspired by the success of their fellow north Africans in Tunisia, who saw off President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January. Like the Tunisian masses, they were motivated first by economic demands – an end to unemployment and poverty. This then turned into a political struggle – led and coordinated by young people making full use of the internet and social networking to defy and bypass state media censorship.

The focus is presently on a political revolution: the departure of the regime, its cronies and state apparatus. People want the dissolution of parliament to be followed by a new constitution and untainted forms of representation and democracy for all sections and political organisations in Egyptian society.

But the economic demands of the Egyptian revolution must still be formulated and achieved. They include the right to employment, good working conditions, a living wage and free trade unions. Attaining these means taking on those who own and control the banks, major industries and installations, such as the Suez canal. Elections to a new Parliament alone cannot fulfil these aspirations.

The calm determination of the Egyptian masses over the past 18 days, their courage in the face of state terror, their inventive and witty slogans such as “Day of Departure”, “No You Can’t”, “You Go - We Stay”, their insistence on remaining in Tahrir Square, has demonstrated unequivocally that when masses of people act together they become an unstoppable force.

So far the movement has been characterised by a skilful combination of face-to-face communication together with social media (sometimes used for deliberate deception), secrecy and strategic maneuvering has succeeded in outwitting the security apparatus.

The outcome of the Egyptian revolution now depends on the development of a leadership that can unite the networks of young people in the cities together with industrial workers for the purpose of a social revolution.

The demands of the movement must be broadened and deepened to articulate the economic and social needs of the Egyptian masses. This means liberating Egypt’s resources from the capitalist classes, one third of which are in the hands of the military.

The revolutionary and community councils and militant workers must appeal to the army rank-and-file, who have until now remained largely neutral, to join the revolution and remove Mubarak’s generals. These organisations can become the basis of a new democratic state to replace the existing, corrupt and big business state.

In this way Egypt can show the way, not only to the hundreds of thousands already stirring on the streets of Algeria, Yemen and Jordan, but to workers throughout the world who are fighting the impact of the world economic recession. 'You Go - We Stay' should be our common refrain.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary

Eygpt's uprising shakes Washington

The prospect of a renewed period of linked revolutionary struggles not seen since the 1989 anti-Stalinist movements in Europe, is taking shape in North Africa. Events are shaking not just regimes like Mubarak’s in Egypt but the calculations of Washington and London too.

The major powers have relied heavily on authoritarian governments in the Middle East, fundamentalist as in Saudi Arabia as well as secular as those in Damascus and Cairo, to sustain their own interests in the region. These centre on maintaining the flow of oil and sustaining Israel, regardless of its treatment of the Palestinians.

Washington has turned a blind eye to systematic repression while hypocritically prattling on about “democratic values”. Now that the people themselves in Tunisia and Egypt have taken matters into their own hands in defiant uprisings, the United States and others are urging caution!

Clearly, to talk about democracy is one thing, but to actually fight for it is not acceptable.

The position was summed up by Tony Blair, the New Labour prime minister who introduced the world to “regime change” with the joint US-British illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. The Middle East “peace envoy”, told the BBC’s Today programme that Egypt
should "evolve and modernise",

He added: “The question is how they evolve and modernise, but do so with stability. The danger is if you open up a vacuum anything can happen. As Hillary Clinton [Obama’s secretary of state] was saying yesterday, the important thing is to engage in this process of modernisation, and improving systems of government, but do it in a way that keeps the order and stability of the country together."

Fortunately, there are moments in history when the thoughts of people like Blair and Clinton count for little and express only their nervousness at the appearance of the masses on the streets.

A new generations is simply not prepared to put up with mass unemployment, rising prices, political corruption and authoritarian rule. Men like Mubarak can no longer – unjustifiably – claim the mantle of previous leaders like Nasser who led the fight against colonial rule and nationalised the Suez canal.

Nor are the people of Egypt buying into the regime’s propaganda that it’s either us or the fundamentalists. That kind of scaremongering is reminiscent of the old Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe who justified their authoritarian regimes by warning of the imperialist enemy at the gates. Fat good it did them in the end.

Blair is right in one sense. No one knows where a revolutionary process will end up. Egypt, with its population of more than 80 million, is key. The struggle of the 1950s for national independence roused the nation’s workers and rural poor. Many lay down their lives to thwart the 1956 invasion by Britain and France.

With the dire intervention of Moscow, the revolutionary movement degenerated and the country became a pawn in the struggle between the major powers. Today, Stalinism is no more and America’s power and influence is clearly waning. The opportunity arises to launch a new stage of a revolution that was distorted and halted by Sadat and then Mubarak.

This time, the aim has to be a transfer of political and economic power into the hands of the masses themselves, with the objective of ending private ownership of industry and land and creating a renewed democracy based on popular people’s assembles. Driving the upsurge in North Africa is the world crisis of capitalism. The same crisis is having a deep impact in Britain, with growing unemployment, exorbitant fuel costs and inflation. We should take our inspiration from those on the streets of Cairo, Suez and Tunis.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

One solution, one state

The leaked “Palestine Papers” establish beyond any doubt that the Zionist rulers of Israel are not interested in any sort of an agreement, however dramatic the concessions Palestinian negotiators are prepared to make.

Tragically in some ways, the papers also reveal the degeneration of the Palestine Authority (PA) under Mahmoud Abbas. The more intransigent the Israelis, the more PA officials grovelled while hiding the truth about what they were doing from the Palestinian people.

All to no avail. The lingering death of the "peace process" is self-evident.

Al Jazeera TV published the leaked files, which contain more than 1,600 internal documents related to the last decade of peace negotiations. They include memos, e-mails, maps, minutes from private meetings, accounts of high level exchanges, strategy papers and even power point presentations.

Among Al Jazeera's significant revelations are major offers by the PA to Israel in the context of settlements in East Jerusalem, including major portions of the Old City that adjoin the Dome of the Rock, the second holiest site in Islam.

PA leaders also proposed "unprecedented" land swaps with the Israeli government, Al Jazeera revealed. In 2008, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met with PA President Mahmoud Abbas after the PA offered to allow the Israeli state to annex most of the East Jerusalem settlements without demanding concessions in return.

Olmert reportedly showed Abbas a map of the newly-proposed swaps, which outlined Israel's plan to annex more than 10 percent of the West Bank. "Abbas was not allowed to keep a copy of the map, and so the 73-year-old Palestinian president had to sketch a copy by hand on a napkin," the network added.

Desperate for a deal, Palestinian negotiators led by Saeb Erekat privately agreed that only 10, 000 refugees and their families, out of a total refugee population exceeding 5 million, could return to Israel as part of a settlement.

Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state under George Bush, suggested in 2008 Palestinian refugees could be resettled in South America. "Maybe we will be able to find countries that can contribute in kind," she said. "Chile, Argentina, etc."

PLO leaders also accepted Israel's demand to define itself as an explicitly Jewish state, in sharp contrast to their public position. Erekat privately told Israeli negotiators: "If you want to call your state the Jewish state of Israel you can call it what you want." Israel's 1.3 million Palestinian citizens are particularly opposed to the notion of a “Jewish state” because it undermines their own rights which are constantly being eroded in any case.

The Electronic Intifada’s co-founder and executive director, Ali Abunimah, was given special access to the documents and helped analyse them for Al Jazeera. He said:

What we can discern immediately from these documents is that the US-brokered negotiations, especially under the Obama administration, can never lead to the restoration of Palestinian rights and that the two-state solution is basically dead. In the long term, we will have to ask how the peace process charade, revealed in these papers, was allowed to continue for so long as Israel continued its relentless colonisation of Palestinian land and the Palestinian Authority that was supposed to be a step on the road to freedom become a sophisticated tool of continued Israeli occupation.

He is right. But the responsibility for the almost desperate nature of the concessions lies not just with the PA leaders but with also with other Arab regimes, especially Egypt’s who help Israel to enforce a blockade of Gaza, for example. From Damascus to Amman, discredited leaders have watched the Palestinian people’s suffering from a safe distance. Washington, of course, has consistently backed the Israelis and the Zionist view that they have a God-given right to occupy Palestinan land.

A way forward may now be opening up as the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia finds its echo in Cairo today and other Arab cities tomorrow. The sweeping out of the old dictatorships can open the way to a new leadership and the building of a secular, single state which Jews and Palestinians can co-habit as they did in earlier times.

Paul Feldman
Communications editor

The Jasmine Revolution marches on

As the landless poor from rural Tunisia organised in a “freedom caravan” defy curfews and teargas, the movement to drive all of the country’s old leaders from power has assumed a revolutionary momentum which is shaking the Arab world.

The forces of the state are deeply divided. Soldiers have refused to attack the protests and some police marched through Tunis on Saturday. “The police is a people's party,” some officers chanted. “We no longer want to be a tool for the repression of the people by the authorities,” one policeman said. On Monday, however, some police tear gassed the “freedom caravan”.

One of the most amazing events was at Tunis airport, where hundreds of people came to greet an Internet campaigner. Tarek Mekki, who arrived from Canada, had led a Facebook/YouTube campaign to oust the old regime. Mekki told the gathering the "Jasmine Revolution" was not over. "What the government is doing is not enough, it's a new way of seizing control of government."

But it is not only the unemployed who are besieging the streets and challenging the police and military. Highly-educated professionals were united with the poor and trade unionists in bringing down the 23-year dictatorship of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali on January 14.

As those seeking the complete downfall of the government and a total purge of Ben Ali’s Constitutional Democratic Party (RCD) and his accomplices dig in for the long term, a “Salvation Government” is being cobbled together by three politicians. They are Ahmed Mestiri, leader of the liberal Social Democratic Movement, plus Ahmed Ben Saleh and Moustafa Elfilali who are deeply compromised by their involvement with the old regime.

Shaykh Rachid Gannouchi (not to be confused with current Prime Minister Mohammed Gannouchi) who has been in exile in London is now expected to return to Tunis to a hero’s welcome. The Ben Ali regime has viciously persecuted his moderate Islamic Nahda party since the 1990s.

Gannouchi has spoken about the Jasmine revolution and how Tunisians have scorned all the existing political parties: “It is the people who made this revolution. This revolution was not made by an angry, out-of-control mob. There are 250,000 university graduates who are in fact the basis for this revolution. It is not angry, uneducated people. They were the base of this revolution with their creative ways of using the Internet and other media.”

Gannouchi’s role will be crucial since he is viewed as an opponent of the old regime. In addition, Abid Briki, deputy head of the General Tunisian Workers Union (UGTT) has said that a collegial national government should be set up, “in accordance with the demands of the street and political parties”.

The UGTT played a contradictory role in the uprising: in the north and in the capital its leaders negotiated with the regime, while in the south they opposed it and played a key role in organising and spreading the revolution from one town to another. But it is now weighing in to protect the political compromise being cooked up.

The “salvation government” is intended to provide a democratic smokescreen by embracing all political currents and associations. There will be a 50-member transitional council, which will be dissolved after free elections in 2012. The council will have the task of developing a new democratic constitution. Clearly this is not enough to satisfy the masses.

Arab leaders throughout northern Africa and the Middle East are fearfully watching the scrambling to cap the revolutionary upsurge while young people throughout north Africa are inspired by the example of Mohamed Bouazizi, the young man who immolated himself, sparking the revolutionary upsurge last month.

Even far away Yemen has caught the fever. This morning demonstrators forced the release of Tawakul Karman, a young woman journalist who had organised anti-regime protests. And there street actions in Algeria too.

Events in Tunisia are creating an unprecedented crisis for the Arab ruling classes and their Western backers. They mark a new stage of the revolutionary upsurge that led to independence from colonial powers like France only to see dictatorships assume control.

Corinna Lotz
A World to Win secretary