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Tunisia: People Power Succeeds Without Western Backing
Emad Mekay, Inter Press Service
These are scenes Western powers would have loved to see in Iran – thousands of young people braving live bullets and forcing an autocratic ruler out of the country. But it is in the North African nation Tunisia where an uprising forced the Western-backed autocratic President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali to flee the country.
Western powers remain incredulous. France, the real power broker in the Franco North African nation, was giving Ben Ali tacit support until an hour before he fled Friday.
… To date, at least 100 people have been killed, hundreds injured and millions of dollars in losses reported.
Ben Ali ruled the country since 1987. Like many other Western-backed Arab rulers, he ruled with an iron fist, leading to massive human rights abuses, widespread corruption and lack of democracy.
When a young street hawker named Mohammed Bouazizi set himself on fire in mid-December to protest unemployment and corruption in the central town Sidi Buzeid, Western capitals didn’t react. Ben Ali, it was assumed, was sure to crush the protests that followed in no time.
(15 January 2011)
Tunisia: The First WikiLeaks Revolution?
Elizabeth Dickinson, Foreign Policy
… we might also count Tunisia as the first time that WikiLeaks pushed people over the brink. These protests are also about the country’s utter lack of freedom of expression — including when it comes to WikiLeaks.
… Tunisia’s government doesn’t exactly get a flattering portrayal in the leaked State Department cables. The country’s ruling family is described as “The Family” — a mafia-esque elite who have their hands in every cookie jar in the entire economy. “President Ben Ali is aging, his regime is sclerotic and there is no clear successor,” a June 2009 cable reads.
… Matters got worse, not better (as surely the government hoped), when WikiLeaks was blocked by the authorities and started seeking out dissidents and activists on social networking sites.
… As in the recent so-called “Twitter Revolutions” in Moldova and Iran, there was clearly lots wrong with Tunisia before Julian Assange ever got hold of the diplomatic cables. Rather, WikiLeaks acted as a catalyst: both a trigger and a tool for political outcry. Which is probably the best compliment one could give the whistle-blower site.
(15 January 2011)
How Tunisian Facebookers Will Change Newsrooms
Romina Ruiz-Goiriena, Huffington Post
After weeks of unrest in Tunisia seen only through videos uploaded on Facebook, it seems as our psychological apprehension to rely on social networks as a news source will finally come to an end.
“Approximately 3.6 million Tunisians are online. The majority of these manifestations [demonstrations], including the one in front of Ben Ali’s presidential palace today were organized exclusively through Facebook,” recounted Phillip Rochot live from Tunis on Radio Inter minutes after Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi proclaimed he’d taken over the country’s interim presidency.
Media censorship had long played a key role in Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s 23 year rule of the North African country. Video-sharing sites were banned in Tunisia until Thursday when Ben Ali himself announced “Al Jazeera, YouTube, Dailymotion, Takriz would now be accessible to all.” The televised speech aimed to appease Tunisian youth. What he hadn’t realized was that the other site, Facebook.com — which he hadn’t clamped down on — was the primary culprit.
Maximizing networks
Weeks prior, a WikiLeaks cable had revealed the extensive power of Ben Ali’s regime. However, Mukhtar Trifi, head of the Tunisian League for the Defense of Human Rights explains that although fear and repression was rampant, Facebook provided an outlet to many of Tunisia’s unemployed youths. “It was something we all knew but simply could not talk about… still, one in every 10 Tunisians had a Facebook account.”
While the toppling of Ben Ali’s government would not have been possible without the army’s backing, Tunisians deployed amateur videos of police repression, firing squads and riots on their personal profiles from their homes and cybercafes.
(15 January 2011)
Timing, success and meaning of the Tunisian uprising.
Marwan Bishara, Aljazeera
Nationwide public protests since mid-December have led to the toppling of Tunisia’s president of 23 years, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, from power and his hasty departure from the country.
Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera’s senior political analyst, comments on three crucial issues.
Q: The recent dramatic change in Tunisia has come as a surprise to most. How do you explain its success, timing and speed?
… Unlike the short-lived uprising in neighbouring Algeria or recent socio-economic protests in other Arab countries, the popular Tunisian uprising was immediately supported by all the opposition groups, from the Islamists to the Communists, as well as by the labour unions, which helped it spread to all major parts of the country, including the influential north.
Likewise, the great degree of pent-up tension after decades of dictatorship, especially the last quarter of a century of police state under Ben Ali, allowed the situation to explode once the lid was removed in the early days of the protest against unemployment.
Q: How does such an unpopular oppressive regime stay off the radar of the international community?
The so-called international community has been traditionally silent about totalitarian practices and abuses within its member states, except in cases where certain Western countries or powers have invoked questions of regime oppression either as a tool of foreign policy or championing the cause of human rights for public consumption.
So that when those regimes, as in Tunisia, co-operated with their Western counterparts on economic or strategic issues, their abuses of power have been generally ignored.
(15 January 2011)
Wedeman: Tunisia’s military putting boot on ‘Jasmine Revolution’
Ben Wedeman, CNN
… It happened with breathtaking speed. Within a matter of weeks, Tunisia went from being a beacon of authoritarian, pro-Western stability to a country in open, nationwide revolt. A largely leaderless, spontaneous popular movement drove the head of state from power.
At the moment it’s not clear whether that movement will result in real change, or just a change at the top.
… The feel is very much that of a military takeover. It’s hard to catch a whiff of what is being called the Jasmine Revolution.
Mounting fear of chaos is diluting the unbridled joy inspired by Ben Ali’s departure. Fires have broken out in prisons in Muntasir and Al-Mahdia. There are reports of gangs on looting sprees.
… On back streets in the center of Tunis, away from the soldiers and plain-clothed police, people are still seething with anger at Ben Ali. They complain of rampant corruption and nepotism by him and his clique, of deteriorating economic conditions, rising prices, high unemployment and a lack of job opportunities for university graduates.
Everything they complain about plagues many other Arab countries.
(15 January 2011)
Jordanians march against inflation
Agencies, Aljazeera
Thousands of Jordanians have taken to the streets of the capital Amman and other cities to protest against rising commodity prices, unemployment and poverty.
The protesters are calling on the government headed by Samir Rifai, the prime minister, to step down. Demonstrators, including trade unionists and leftist party members, carried national flags and chanted anti-government slogans in downtown Amman.
They called Rifai a “coward” and demanded his resignation. “Prices, particularly gasoline and food, are getting out of hand,” Buthaina Iftial, a 24-year-old civil servant, said.
… Friday’s protests came amid similar protests in Algeria and Tunisia.
On Tuesday, Jordan’s government announced a $169m plan to reduce the prices of commodities, including fuel, sugar and rice, and to create jobs in the face of rising popular discontent.
(14 January 2011)
