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Women, the State, and Political Liberalization: Middle Eastern and North African Experiences
Laurie A. Brand
1998
7. Bourguiba and His Legacy
Tunisia provides two clear examples of political liberalization. The first opening began in the late 1970s and continued, in one form or another, until about 1983. The second began with the coup against Bourguiba in November 1987, and continued until the second half of 1989. The comparison of the two is particularly interesting: while both owed to economic difficulties and political malaise, the first was quite limited and managed, while the second involved a swift overturn of leadership. In both cases, women’s organizations and concerns played key roles in the debates and struggles.
The Tunisian Political System
No discussion of modern Tunisia, and certainly none that is concerned with the state’s relationship with women, can start without a discussion of the country’s president for more than thirty years, Habib Bourguiba. The architect of the Tunisian state embarked after independence in 1956 upon a path of political and social engineering, a transformative project initiated from above that required a careful management of institutions to preempt opposition from below. Bourguiba put in place a vast, centralized state apparatus: a bureaucracy, a single party, and satellite organizations that were subordinate to it. Among such organizations were the UGTT (Union Générale de Travailleurs Tunisiens), the UNAT (Union Nationale d’Agricoles Tunisiens), the UNFT (Union Nationale des Femmes de Tunisie, later renamed the Union Nationale des Femmes Tunisiennes) and UTICA (Union Tunisienne de l’Industrie, du Commerce et de l’Artisanat). There was also a range of sports and charitable groups that did not come under such close control by the state, although most relied on the state for financial support, drew their leadership from the state party, the Parti Socialiste Destourien (PSD), and were subject to close scrutiny. 1
Bourguiba eliminated progressively, then brutally, all formations that escaped his control. Arrests, interrogations, withdrawals of passports, all “aided” recalcitrants to see the error of their ways. Some were absorbed, others eradicated. 2 While the PSD and its subordinate structures increased their power over time, Bourguiba’s most important initial move to consolidate his position had involved breaking the power of traditional centers of influence, particularly those who had supported his primary rivals for power. He neutralized the fallaghas (the former anti-French guerrillas), broke the partisans of his opponent and former party secretary-general Ben Youssef, and dethroned the bey.
A primary instrument used to effect change was legislation. Bourguiba modified laws regarding habous (religious endowments), reformed education, and unified the legal system so that all Tunisians, regardless of religion, were subject to the state courts. Perhaps best known among his legal innovations, however, was the Code du Statut Personnel (CSP), promulgated beginning in 1956. As in other Arab countries, this law governs issues related to the family: marriage, divorce, guardianship of children, and inheritance. With the CSP, Bourguiba took the bold step of, among other significant changes, abolishing polygamy and making divorce subject to judicial review. Through these policies and then through the formation and expansion of the PSD, Bourguiba in effect created a counter-elite comprising the emerging middle class and relying on at least passive support from women. 3
The president was careful to locate these changes (through his discourse) within the framework, not of dismissing religion, but of a modernist reading of Islam. Indeed, the reforms contained in the CSP had first been suggested earlier in the century by Islamist reformers such as Egypt’s Qasim Amin and Tunisia’s own Tahar Haddad. 4 Bourguiba was also supported by the mufti at the time, who was willing to accept the modifications, particularly since they were presented as the product of ijtihad (independent interpretation), not a break with Islam. 5 Finally, of course, the euphoria that accompanied independence and Bourguiba’s considerable personal prestige also played key roles in overcoming what might have otherwise been broader-based opposition to the CSP and the other reforms.
Subsequently, however, Bourguiba became well-known for his secularism and some of his more spectacular violations of Islamic practice (such as drinking a glass of orange juice on television in 1960 during Ramadan as a way of trying to do away with the fast) or suggesting that Islamic inheritance law should be changed. There is no question that he sought to undermine any independent base of Islamist or traditionalist opposition to his regime. This was in keeping with the general thrust of not eliminating, but rather bringing under state control, all forms of civil society organization. Bourguiba clearly wanted to undercut the religious establishment’s ability to obstruct his developmentalist program, just as he sought to take revenge on those conservative factions that had opposed him at the time of independence. To this end, among other measures, Bourguiba replaced the independent Zitouna religious university with a faculty of theology integrated into the University of Tunis, where instructors were chosen from state institutions and nominated by the president. He also made members of the religious hierarchy state employees and ordered that the expenses for the upkeep of mosques and the salaries of preachers be drawn from the state budget. 6
Nevertheless, while the champion of Tunisian independence may have himself been a secularist, his years in office in no way represent an unrelenting assault against Islam or religion. As noted above, he was always careful to position any suggested changes within a modernist reading of Islam. Indeed, even when he made his (very unsuccessful) anti-fasting appeal in 1960, he did so on the grounds that the country was involved in a jihad against poverty and misery and that fasting was not required of those engaged in jihad. This is not to minimize the importance of the secularist tradition that Bourguiba engendered in Tunisian society, which continues to be quite deep, at least among the now older generation. It is simply to point out that the record is not without ambiguity on the question of religion.
For example, in 1970, Bourguiba’s government, which was regularly cursed by ulama of the Arab world for its reformism, sponsored the creation of the Association for Preserving the Qur’an (Association pour la Sauvegarde du Coran) which, at its first congress in 1971, established the objectives of restoring religious practice and promoting the authentic values of Islam. It quickly became a training ground for Islamists. In 1973, the first Tunisian salon du livre, organized by the authorities, assisted in distributing the writings of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers, because they were considered antidotes to Marxist literature. 7 Out of these groupings eventually emerged what came to be known as the MTI, Mouvance de la tendance islamique (Islamic Tendency Movement). It gradually began to attract members and by 1979 organized a founding congress to bring together a group of study circles into a more coherent organization. 8 Perhaps the clearest example of the shifting line of the Bourguiba regime vis-à-vis Islamist elements is that of the policies pursued by the moderately liberalizing government of Prime Minister Muhammad Mzali (1980–86). As Minister of Education from 1969 to 1980 almost without interruption, Mzali not only oversaw the Arabization of the teaching of philosophy but also replaced the existing program with a curriculum of Islamic thought from which were excluded all western thinkers associated with the left. It was during Mzali’s prime ministership that the MTI came to constitute a major oppositional force, and the prime minister apparently sought to win over some religious conservatives through initiating a number of policies viewed as sympathetic to Islam.
Although women and their “liberation” were the primary target of Islamist and conservative ire over the years, ironically, Bourguiba’s program for women was not one that sought fundamentally to undermine traditional family relations. Bourguiba promoted women’s equal access to education and to contraception, but he also made clear on a number of occasions that Tunisia’s path was not to lead to a westernization of Tunisian women. Indeed, the issuance of the CSP had less (if anything) to do with feminism than with the president’s desire to eliminate traditions and practices that he felt obstructed his modernizing program. In other words, Tunisian women were to be educated and capable of controlling their family size but not as part of a project that would undermine their primary role in the home as homemakers and mothers. None of Bourguiba’s colleagues remembers that he was particularly concerned with the “women question” before the promulgation of the code. 9 In fact, the president’s statements on the role of the liberation of Tunisian women do not represent a coherent single line of argument. What is clear is that he did not envision a Tunisia in which women themselves would make demands for further changes not first proposed by the president. At all times Bourguiba saw himself and himself alone as the liberator of Tunisian women, as the initiator of any and all projects in that domain. If women made any additional demands, they were viewed as ungrateful. 10
Despite the wavering between or mixing of modernist and conservative elements in Bourguiba’s program, religious conservatives viewed him as incorrigibly secularist and saw the CSP not only as the centerpiece of the president’s modernization program but also as the symbol of a broader attack against Islam. Islamic family law—which is clear on the division of male and female roles and the centrality of the family—is viewed as the last bastion of shari‘a in the modern Arab state. Thus, for Islamists, conceding changes in this law involves a weakening of control of women through the family, the central unit in the construction of Islamist society, as well as an assault on the only area of law in which Islamic precepts (if mixed with local custom) continue to hold sway. As a result, in Tunisia, when Islamist elements began to flex their muscle, they aimed first at the CSP. And, although not all non-Islamist men were pleased or satisfied with the rights Bourguiba had given Tunisian women, any questioning of the CSP by the Islamists was understood, by extension, to mean a threat to the broader secularism of Tunisian society. Thus, during periods of liberalization, when the Islamists enjoyed somewhat greater freedom of expression, issues related to women became the lightening rod in attacks against and defenses of laicism in general. This made women the first natural line of defense as well as the first likely victims in any challenge to the state by the Islamists.
The Tunisian Economy
Following independence Tunisia followed an essentially laissez-faire economic policy; however, in 1961, faced with a deteriorating economic situation, the country turned in the direction of a planned economy, with strict import substitution industrialization controls to protect internal markets, a fixed exchange rate and currency regulation. This approach ultimately proved a failure, as it did in many parts of the third world, as inefficiency and corruption plagued state-owned enterprises, and attempts to collectivize the rural areas met with strong peasant resistance. In 1969 the architect of the socialist project, Ahmed Ben Salah, was discredited and Tunisia turned back to a more free-market approach.
The early years of the infitah, or economic opening, witnessed tremendous growth. The middle classes in particular, which experienced a notable development under twenty years of Bourguiba’s rule, emerged as the base of the regime. 11 Nonetheless, the gap between rich and poor increased as well, and the expansion of the export sector made the country more vulnerable to developments in the international economy. Tunisia found itself in particular jeopardy as the establishment of tariff barriers by its EU partners threatened its interaction with its primary markets. By the early 1980s the boom had ended. The European market had become more and more difficult to penetrate, oil prices fell, drought destroyed harvests, remittances dropped, and employment overseas through migration was no longer able to absorb the excess supply of labor. 12 The country had also been rocked by strikes and violence in 1978 triggered by deteriorating economic conditions. Failure to address the root problems led to further and more extensive rioting and violence in December 1983–January 1984.
By 1986, the economy was in crisis and the government was forced to seek IMF assistance. As a result of a number of factors, including fortuitous ones such as the end of the drought, as well as careful attention to the economy by Bourguiba’s successor, Ben ‘Ali, the country was able to overcome the crisis and return to a path of economic growth of a sort that once again served to solidify middle-class support for the regime. Tunisia’s successes in implementing structural adjustment and in further liberalizing the economy have regularly led international financial institutions to point to it as a model for others to emulate.
The Role of External Actors
In its immediate neighborhood, Tunisia’s primary external concerns are its two large and oil/gas wealthy neighbors, Libya and Algeria. Although during the Cold War Tunisia maintained a nonaligned status, its relatively more pro-Western position, combined with its long-standing ties with France, led to periodic ideological, political, territorial, and economic disputes with its neighbors. Its geographic location and alignment posture have traditionally led it to seek good relations with Morocco as a way of balancing the sometimes threatening power of Algiers or Tripoli. Instances of attempts by the Algerian and Libyan regimes to influence or interfere in domestic Tunisian politics are numerous, most notably the Libyan involvement in the Gafsa affair (a 1980 mutiny), and the expulsion of Tunisian workers from Libya in 1985. In the case of Algeria, in early 1988, an FLN (Front de Libération Nationale, the state party in Algeria) representative at the Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique (RCD, the reformed PSD) convention warned Tunisia against a political opening that would include the legalization of the MTI, 13 presumably because such a change could have affected the political game inside Algeria. Ironically, the development and activism of the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) in Algeria, and the political instability that accompanied its rise, ultimately gave the Tunisian regime an additional reason to clamp down on its own Islamists. The Tunisian regime has continued to cite civil strife in Algeria as an example of what could happen were Ben ‘Ali not firm and vigilant in dealing with the Islamists at home.
Outside of its immediate neighborhood, but still within the Arab arena, Tunisia’s relations with the Arab Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, should be mentioned. Prior to the 1990 Gulf crisis, Tunisia’s most important aid donor was Saudi Arabia: it had investments of $275 million, was financing eight projects, and had signed fifteen loan agreements. Kuwaiti aid came next. 14 The negative side effect of these relationships was the greater influence the aid and investment gave these states in Tunisian affairs, both internal and external. While the impact was often subtle, the Arabization of curriculum under Mzali in the 1980s, the increasing tolerance of the regime for the distribution of religious tracts and of an incipient Islamist movement—all of which have had a profound impact on domestic politics—are attributed by some analysts to the relationship between Tunisia and these Gulf states.
Despite the importance to Tunisia of its Arab world ties, over the years, France, the U.S., and the European community have been the country’s most important external partners. The U.S. has played an important post-independence role, in no small measure balancing the economic weight of France and in providing military equipment. However, Europe is much closer geographically, and a major theme of Ben ‘Ali’s foreign policy discourse and activity has been Tunisia’s role in the Mediterranean basin. By stressing Tunisia’s belonging, not to the Arab world or to Africa, but to the Mediterranean, Ben ‘Ali promotes a sense of outwardlookingness. 15 This theme is further reinforced by the emphasis on the country’s involvement through numerous conferences and meetings in what is characterized as a dialogue between civilizations in contrast to the extremism or obscurantisme—which means, in the North African context, fundamentalism—that has plagued Algeria but that Tunisia has, by implication, managed to tame.
Tunisia’s adherence to IMF dictates in reforming the economy has also contributed to the external perception of the country as friendly to investment and serious about economic development. In a November 1995 visit to Tunisia, IMF president Michel Camdessus praised the country for its success with structural adjustment and called it a model of development. Such positive evaluations from powerful international financial institutions are critical to Tunisia’s maintaining an image of a country worthy of the attention of international investors. There is no question that Tunisia has been successful in implementing critical economic reforms since 1986, especially since Ben ‘Ali came to power. Nonetheless, such high praise from the IMF helps blunt the impact of the reports of Amnesty International (one of which was released only a few weeks before the Camdessus panegyric), which have clearly documented the dark side of the regime’s recent development record.
All of these factors—the small size and hence regional vulnerability of Tunisia, its historic and deep ties with Europe and with France in particular, its desire to cultivate an image of tolerance and forwardlookingness, and its need to balance the broader Arab environment—will, in the course of the coming chapters, be shown to have a direct or indirect impact on the course of the liberalization process and its implications for relations between the state and women.
The Liberalization Story Act I: The First Opening
The first, brief opening of the Tunisian political system actually came in 1970, and it is to this period that one must look for the roots of the opening later in the decade. Primary among the causes of the opening was the failure of the regime’s economic policy of collectivism and cooperatives. Perhaps because of the discrediting of the regime that this implied, during this period Bourguiba experienced his first health crisis, apparently depression, and he left for Paris in November 1969 for treatment. The president’s seven-month absence somewhat relaxed the grip of the state, and Tunisian society tasted a bit of freedom. After his return, he gave a speech in which he gave the green light to democratization and then assembled a commission to reform the constitution. 16 In these circumstances, the liberal wing of the PSD attempted to press for a further opening of the political system. A war of political factions ensued, with the president’s wife, Wasila, taking the part of the liberals in opposition to the newly appointed party loyalist and more hardline prime minister Hedi Nouira. 17 While at first Bourguiba seemed responsive, he subsequently mapped out a strategy to undermine those pushing for a greater opening. Following some “promising debate” at the party congress of 1971, he expelled the leaders of this wing of the party and then proceeded over the next three years to reassert presidential control. This phase was capped by the party’s proclamation of him as President for Life in 1975. 18
During the course of the factional infighting, two new centers of power emerged. The first was Nouira, who continued to rely on the hardline wing of the PSD and managed to bury the projects for constitutional reform proposed by the liberals. The other center was the “palace,” i.e., the president’s wife and her entourage. Wasila was, by all accounts, a formidable woman and politician who acquired increasing power due to her husband’s ill health, his devotion to her, and her own considerable skills. The president’s illness in 1969–70 had forced Tunisians to think for the first time of what the post-Bourguiba era might look like. With hindsight it seems at very least ironic that, as early as 1970, power jockeying was taking place on the basis of concern over the “imminent” demise of a man who at this writing (1997), was still alive, if not lucid. However, at the time, the president was 68 years old, and the serious nature of this as well as a series of subsequent crises forced considerations of who might constitute a successor. The maneuvering and intrigues associated with the successor struggle explain a great deal of the economic and political context that led to the liberalization in the late 1970s as well as its contours and characteristics: the major political actors were more absorbed in playing the politics of the succession game than in seriously addressing the country’s socioeconomic and political problems.
As was noted above, by the late 1970s the economy was encountering increasing problems, including the impact of domestic regionalism—the preeminence of the coast and the capital over the south—growing unemployment, and stagnation in the agricultural sector. During this period of growing discontent, rather than serving to channel popular feeling, “the PSD continued to become more politically and ideologically monolithic while losing much of its early effectiveness as a vehicle of mass mobilization.” 19 As a result, two alternative vehicles emerged to break the blockage.
The first was the UGTT. The UGTT’s historic legitimacy from its participation in the independence movement and the broad base of popular support it enjoyed afforded it some protection against state repression, thus leading it to become one of the few institutions from which or in which the regime could be challenged. 20 At the same time, Nouira had a different view of the role of the UGTT than his predecessor. Unlike Ben Salah, whose socialist project had implied a “rigid conception of national unity,” Nouira acknowledged the existence of a diversity of interests in Tunisian society. “Not class conflict, but social partners in dialogue was the new model of state-society relations.” 21 Hence, part of Nouira’s strategy was, within limits, to revive the UGTT.
The second vehicle was the Islamists. It was during this period that what would eventually be formalized (although not legalized) as the MTI began to develop. Its support base was the traditional religious elite, the shaykhs and former students of the Zitouna who found themselves marginalized by the new elite that had been trained in a different curriculum in both European and Tunisian schools. In the 1970s, young activists joined the ranks of this incipient movement as Islam began to emerge as a mobilizing force throughout the region. The would-be activists were encouraged, if not supported, by government policies that targeted what was viewed as the more dangerous left. A journal, Ma‘arifah, was established, and circles for religious discussion and lessons emerged, first at mosques, then in faculties of theology and from there into the university more broadly. 22 The real energizing force, however, did not come until 1979, with the Iranian revolution.
Some evidence of a liberalizing intent may be detected as early as May 1977, when the Minister of the Interior, Tahar Belkhodja, Wasila’s candidate for successor to Nouira, allowed the licensing of the Ligue Tunisienne des Droits de l’Homme (LTDH). This constituted the first break with the state’s monopoly on institutions with any kind of political agenda. Belkhodja’s liberalism was at least in part a strategy aimed at distinguishing himself and his policies from those of Nouira. A month later, the National Council on Public Liberties was launched following a call from 520 intellectuals and professionals asking the president to allow the emergence of a pluralist democracy. 23
In this atmosphere, a controversy arose over the growing independence of the UGTT, with Belkhodja pushing for a softer government line on the union and others pressuring Nouira to crack down. The regime first used its traditional arsenal to bring the UGTT into line (“moral suasion, manipulation of elite politicians, appeal to Destourian members of the UGTT”). 24 However, when this did not work, following the UGTT general strike in January 1978, Bourguiba called in the army and more direct and bloody measures were used, leaving hundreds dead and wounded.
The country was shocked by the events of January 1978, and their impact on the public at large and the leadership should not be underestimated, for they were seen as resulting from the stagnation of the political system. The most immediate political fallout from the violence was that Wasila’s liberals were forced out (Belkhodja was dismissed), although Nouira began to talk about opening up the party to a more diverse range of views through an internal reorganization of the PSD. In tandem, national committees and committees of reflection were to be created to be open to all citizens (not just PSD members), in order to prepare for the next party congress. In the event, the party itself balked, and it became clear that any opening would be limited to a kind of internal democratization: in the 1979 elections, the PSD put up multiple candidates rather than the traditional one for each parliamentary seat.
However, Nouira was on his way out. Bourguiba was unhappy with the way the 1979 party congress, which had seriously discussed the possibility of the party’s asserting greater autonomy from the state, 25 was conducted, and the president responded by dismissing three of the prime minister’s top supporters. Then came the January 1980 mutiny: a small group of Tunisians trained in Libya took control of the mining town of Gafsa, located in an area largely neglected by the central government. The mutiny, which lasted several days, highlighted the discontent of ignored regions as well as the small country’s vulnerability to designs by its larger neighbors. Nouira’s health failed shortly thereafter, and in April 1980 Bourguiba chose a new prime minister, Muhammad Mzali, the former minister of education.
Mzali, a long-time party loyalist, was nonetheless an unexpected choice. 26 Like many upper-level Tunisian politicians, he was without a personal constituency or base of support—other than the president. In his first years, he seemed to have no ambitions beyond the prime ministership, although the possibility of his succeeding Bourguiba existed from the very beginning. His major competitor, not surprisingly, was the president’s wife. On the question of liberalizing the political system, Wasila and Mzali were in accord. However, the president’s wife made clear in a July 28, 1982 interview with Jeune Afrique that, contrary to her husband’s expressed will—formalized by constitutional amendment in 1976—that his successor be the serving prime minister at the time of his passing, she favored the popular election of a successor. Her argument was that none of the potential successors could command the respect that her husband did without the further legitimation of having won an election. She further clarified that she did not favor Mzali for the job, probably thinking that she could influence elections to produce an outcome more to her liking. 27
For Mzali, on the other hand, the liberalization was a means of building a record and consolidating power. He began his liberalizing program by bringing into his cabinet a member of the PSD offshoot Mouvement des Démocrates Socialistes (MDS) and several former ministers who had lost their positions in 1977 for opposing the government’s hard line against labor. 28 Indeed, it was the UGTT that Mzali first targeted as a possible reserve of support. Some have argued that in so doing he also sought to counter the rising power of the Islamists following the Iranian revolution. Whatever the case, with the PSD largely devoid of energy, Mzali’s courting of the UGTT made perfect sense.
At the party congress of 1981 Bourguiba publicly sanctioned the principle of pluralism as long as any new organization worked for the higher good of the country, and rejected fanaticism and violence. This opened the way for the operation of a number of women’s groups and for a limited experiment in multi-partyism. 29 Outside the realm of political parties, the expansion of civil society continued to be constrained by the requirement that new associations obtain permits from the authorities, and they were rarely forthcoming. In the meantime, as part of his policy of giving the UGTT a greater role by making it the privileged interlocutor of the state, the prime minister began working on concluding an electoral alliance with it. The establishment of a National Front list of candidates from both the PSD and the UGTT was intended both to make the UGTT more of a partner with the government as well as implicate it in government policies. (In fact, the National Front was presented as a creation of the PSD and the UGTT in which the UTICA, UNAT, and UNFT also participated). Thus, contradictory processes or designs were at work: on the one hand Mzali allowed the UGTT to assert its autonomy or independence; yet, immediately thereafter, he courted it as an electoral partner. This not only displeased some UGTT members, who saw in it a betrayal of the hard won autonomy; the newly recognized opposition parties also took exception, for they understood that such an alliance further marginalized their voices. 30
The UGTT did manage to secure 27 seats in the 1981 elections, but the voting was marred by charges of massive fraud. None of the opposition parties managed to secure the 5 percent of the vote that Bourguiba had set as a requirement for subsequent legalization. The elections were therefore an embarrassment for Mzali, but represented the height of Wasila’s power. Indeed, one source attributed the massive fraud to her directives. Having ensured that there would be no major changes in government as a result of the elections, she was in a position to begin to work with Mzali, or at least not at cross-purposes. This continued until the 1983 elections, by which time Mzali had increased his strength and began to chafe under Wasila’s influence and interference. 31
In the meantime, the Islamists were on the rise. Mzali’s position on them and their movement had contradictory elements. On the one hand, as suggested above, it seems that one of Mzali’s reasons for courting the UGTT and permitting the open operation of parties other than the PSD derived from a desire to counter the Islamists. Indeed, at one point, Mzali called on all democrats to put aside their differences and form a bloc against intolerance. At the same time, the government in effect tried to occupy the Islamists’ space. For example, during Ramadan in 1981, the Minister of the Interior ordered restaurants closed. (Two days later, upon hearing about the order, a furious Bourguiba had the directive rescinded.) 32 Likewise, the MTI’s request that it be recognized as a legal political party in 1981 was denied, yet at the same time the state built mosques and established prayer areas in ministries and at the university. 33 The most likely explanation of Mzali’s policy appears to be that in order not to allow growing traditionalist sentiment to be exploited solely by the Islamists, he directed certain policies that, while apparently in contradiction to the state’s secular image, made the state, or Mzali himself, a kind of competitor with Islamists for the sympathies of traditionalists.
Thus, while the broader socioeconomic crisis had triggered the riots of 1978, the limited political opening of the late 1970s-early 1980s cannot be understood unless one also takes into account the competition within the political class or ruling circles. Liberalization in this case was not so much a survival strategy of the regime as a strategy advocated by certain key political actors intended to reinforce their power and ensure their political future within the existing constellation of forces. Both Wasila and Mzali played liberalization cards to this end. It is for that reason—the liberalization’s lack of strong connection to social and political forces in the country and its use as a tactic by individuals, not a commitment by a coherent group—that its boundaries kept shifting.
The Retreat of the Opening and Bourguiba’s Last Years
The legalization of the MDS and Mouvement de l’ Unité Populaire (MUP) II and the subsequent elections of 1983, to which there was overwhelming, positive popular response, 34 were in fact the high point of Mzali’s power and of the opening. Feeling his power in the period leading up to the elections, the prime minister, under the guise of homogeneity and solidarity in the government, began increasingly to eliminate those who could cause problems and replace them with friends and relatives. 35 In general, however, the country continued to drift politically. Frustration was widespread, and Mzali’s policy of surrounding himself with supporters led to his increasing isolation. 36 There is no clearer indication of the country’s economic and political problems and of the degree to which the prime minister was out of touch than the riots of December 1983–January 1984 after the long-postponed announcement of an increase in bread prices. Rioting broke out in the hinterland (Kasserine) and then spread, first throughout the traditionally marginalized areas, but ultimately to all the major cities. This was not a repetition of the strikes turned violent of January 1978, but something more grave and far-reaching. It brought to an end Mzali’s courting of the UGTT, just as it marked the beginning of the end of the period of limited liberalization.
Some 150 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in the violence. In response, Bourguiba rolled back the price increases and the unrest ended, but a new period of repression followed. Numerous MTI members were arrested and MDS meetings were interrupted. The retreat in freedoms also extended to written expression as numerous major magazines—Jeune Afrique, Réalités, Le Maghreb, al-Mustaqbal—were closed or banned for extended periods. A number of changes in government structure were also introduced. First, there was a reorganization of the Ministry of the Interior. There were also changes of personnel in the governorates, the creation of four new municipalities, and the reform of existing communal structures. In addition, Mzali had sought broad ministerial changes, but Bourguiba permitted only limited modifications. Following another presidential heart attack in November 1984, the succession issue was reopened, 37 Bourguiba’s continuing statements reconfirming Mzali as heir apparent notwithstanding. 38
Mzali realized his attempt to build a power base with the UGTT had failed, and the attempt to coopt the union was abandoned in favor of a more aggressive policy of undermining UGTT power. On October 30, 1985 the UGTT was finally closed and by the end of the year a number of its leaders had been arrested. On the other hand, Mzali seems not to have abandoned the Islamists quite so quickly, as the summer of 1985 saw the MTI dare openly to call into question some aspects of the CSP. The most likely source of opposition to such a call, the UNFT, was silent in response. Perhaps the silence owed to the fact that it was Mzali’s wife, Fathia, who headed the women’s organization (and had been at the helm since 1973). In any case, Mzali’s record with the Islamists remains controversial. There are those who argue that he saw the Islamists as a potential base of support as his attempts to consolidate the backing of the UGTT failed. 39 He did release MTI leaders Mourou and Ghannouchi in August 1984, thus leading to their de facto recognition. 40 MTI representatives were even received by the prime minister following the autumn 1985 Israeli raid on the PLO headquarters at Hammam al-Shatt. Observers have also charged Mzali with having friendly relations or at least periodic meetings with some Islamist groups, a matter that Bourguiba sought details and explanation of in June 1986, in one of his last meetings with Mzali before his dismissal. Since his fall from grace there have also been charges that he used Ministry of Culture funds to print and distribute Islamist literature, and that small, inexpensive books about various aspects of Islam seemed to find their way into the country in great numbers beginning in 1985. 41
Mzali’s approach to the Islamists may simply have derived from a belief that it was wiser to keep them above ground, where they could be more easily monitored, or that he could coopt substantial numbers by letting them into the game in order to defuse their power (not unlike the policy Ben ‘Ali appears to have initiated in the immediate wake of November 7, 1987). Perhaps in response, the MTI did proclaim its attachment to democratic values, identified itself as a political not a religious movement, expressed a willingness to participate in legislative elections, and was represented in and defended by the LTDH. 42 That said, the MTI was never legalized under Mzali, but that may have been due more to the presence of Bourguiba than Mzali’s policy preference. In any case, there seems to be little question that Mzali was not a man of particularly strong political convictions. The criticism of the secularists and of many women is that by treating with the Islamists, he encouraged them and provided a context in which the MTI’s Mourou could openly call into question the CSP. Following Mzali’s dismissal, charges of corruption of various sorts were leveled and he was villainized: even at the time of this research, nearly ten years after he left office, it was clear from my interview experiences that the record of Muhammad and Fathia Mzali remains sensitive and controversial.
In any event by early 1986, Bourguiba seems to have decided that he had had enough of the machinations of the power contenders. Although he reaffirmed his confidence in Mzali at the party congress in spring 1986, rumors began to fly that the prime minister’s days were numbered. The first sign that the end was near was Bourguiba’s June 23, 1986 decision to close the Ministry of the Family and the Promotion of Women, which had been established and entrusted to Fathia Mzali in November 1983. Only two weeks later, on July 8, the president replaced Mzali with Rachid Sfar, a man not previously discussed as a possible presidential successor. All that remained was for Bourguiba to divorce Wasila, from whom he had been separated since early in the year. Within a few weeks, what had seemed like a closed book on the succession question was reopened with a vengeance. The sense of political drift, but also of anxiety regarding when and how the aging president would finally exit the scene, continued to grow.
Le Changement/Al-Tahawwul
The contest between Bourguiba and the Islamists became increasingly intractable. Islamist journals were closed, and the MTI leadership arrested and interrogated. 43 Zayn al-‘Abdine Ben ‘Ali’s move against Bourguiba on November 7, 1987, the changement or tahawwul, as it is called, is generally attributed to the immediate possibility of an Islamist move against the state. A number of Islamists had been convicted of participation in a series of terrorist attacks in July and August and had received what Bourguiba viewed as lenient sentences. Ben ‘Ali apparently feared that had the sentences been overturned and the Islamists executed as the president wanted, they would have been viewed as martyrs and might have served to mobilize some of the population against the state. While this may have been the proximate trigger, the state of the economy and the growing political crisis associated with Bourguiba’s increasingly unpredictable and irrational style form the broader backdrop.
When thinking about the transition from Bourguiba to Ben ‘Ali, it is important to keep in mind that Ben ‘Ali had served as director of military security, minister of the interior, and prime minister, assuming the last post only a month before deposing Bourguiba. So it was not apparent that he would have the will or the power to change the system. 44 What was clear was that he needed to consolidate his own position. This required dealing with three main forces: the party (which he had joined only in 1984 and for many members of whose old guard he must have appeared potentially threatening); the Islamists; and the secular opposition. His strategy appears to have been first to defuse the Islamist challenge and to offer hope to the secular opposition as he set to work on a process of revival and renewal in the party. For that he needed a period of relative social calm.
Ben ‘Ali took a number of steps immediately following the November 7 removal of Bourguiba which seemed to promise a new beginning for politics in Tunisia and which bought him time with both the Islamist and secular opposition. He abolished the presidency for life and limited the president’s tenure to three, five-year terms. Political prisoners began to be released and some exiled politicians began to return home. The state allowed several opposition newspapers to resume publication and the official media began to report opposition party activities. The government also initiated contacts with the opposition parties regarding a new political parties law.
At the same time, Ben ‘Ali initiated an Islamization of official discourse. He condemned the extent of his predecessor’s secularism and argued that the free expression of religious faith had been compromised. He also began to stress the government’s role as defender of Islam and morality. The national radio and television began broadcasting the five daily prayers, the Zitouna University’s autonomy was restored, and the president and his entourage began to take advantage of every occasion to demonstrate their attachment to Islam by appearing at mosques on Fridays and days of celebrations, and by making the pilgrimage to Mecca. 45
Perhaps Ben ‘Ali believed he could truly coopt all religious elements by such gestures. More likely, he may have thought that he could coopt at least enough of the pious elements to undermine the Islamists, a repetition of Mzali’s early policy toward them. Given the outpouring of apparent support for the Islamist program, it seems likely that he was also trying to determine the relative balance of forces, coopting where possible as he gradually consolidated his position.
Having made initial conciliatory gestures to both Islamists and secularists, Ben ‘Ali moved to push through changes in the PSD, where support for his program of reconciliation and renewal was by no means universal. For example in January 1988, the occasion of partial legislative elections triggered demonstrations in which cries of “Long live Bourguiba, down with democracy,” could be heard, attributed to some PSD barons who were opposed to the country’s new direction. The central committee of the party met in late February, chose a new name, the Rassemblement Constitutionnel Démocratique (RCD), and embarked on a path of renewal. The president took charge of the RCD (a move denounced by the opposition parties) and then proceeded to choose 122 of 200 members of the RCD Central Committee and reduce the number of political bureau members from fifteen to six. In so doing he purged some of the old guard who were staunch defenders of the ancien régime. 46 The merging of party and government was a warning of things to come.
In early 1988, following the beginning of the new Islamization of state discourse, a polemical exchange began between Islamists and secularists. The Islamists called for an amendment to the constitution stating that Islam was the state religion. Secularists responded by launching their own petition expressing concerns about making any further concessions to the Islamists. The Islamists then denounced the separation of mosque and state. 47 In the midst of the exchange, in March 1988, the president made his first clear statement on the CSP, the symbol of secularism. On this issue, he insisted, there would be no retreat; however, his position was “the code, but nothing but the code,” meaning that women could also expect no further reforms.
Shortly thereafter, a new Political Party Law was announced permitting the establishment of new opposition parties as long as they were not founded on the basis of language, race, ethnicity, or religion. This, of course, continued to exclude the MTI. However, three new parties were founded: the Social Party for Progress (PSP), the Progressive Socialist Assembly (RSP), and the Unitary Democratic Union (UDU). A new electoral code gave opposition parties a role in the distribution and counting of electoral ballots, while financial subsidies were provided to help defray the costs of campaigns. 48
In the fall of 1988, Ben ‘Ali opened a dialogue with opposition politicians, as well as leaders of the main national organizations (labor, employers, farmers, women’s unions), with the goal of producing a national pact. While guaranteeing basic freedoms and the right to form political parties, the final document emphasized the consensual nature of Tunisian politics and the country’s Arabo-Islamic identity. This last aspect, Ben ‘Ali’s apparent reaching out to Islamists, certainly altered MTI members’ perception of the government. 49 The pact was finally signed on the first anniversary of the changement by members of the country’s six legal political parties, trade unions, a representative of the still unrecognized MTI, and, of course, the president.
The MTI was, at least officially, doing everything right to render it eligible for legalization, and there had been a number of positive signs from the government (although the official press multiplied its attacks against the Islamists). 50 However, each time the MTI’s leaders sought to take part in negotiations with the government aimed at further recognition, new barriers were raised. The state had first demanded that the MTI recognize the validity of the democratic and pluralist game, as well as the specificity of the Tunisian experience, including the CSP. The MTI had accepted these conditions and signed on to the National Pact. They then changed the name of their organization to al-Nahdah to make it more acceptable and in February 1989 applied for a license. During the next four months, al-Nahdah made many positive statements about the regime in hopes of, in addition to recognition, securing the release of its members still in prison, the reinstatement of others in their jobs, approval for the publication of an Islamic newspaper, and the cancellation of the law banning the veil in schools, universities, and government offices. 51
The state’s temporizing with the Islamists should perhaps have been read as an omen for the political system more broadly. The form of the new liberalization was only briefly matched by content, as most observers seem to agree that by the time of the parliamentary elections of April 1989, and certainly by the beginning of 1990, significant political indicators pointed in the direction of a renewed authoritarian swing. Freedom of expression and association were gradually constricted, and members of legal political parties—loyal opposition by most definitions—were increasingly harassed. Accusations of maltreatment and torture, not to mention death while in custody, were widely reported. 52 Just as serious for the long term was that, contrary to the Bourguibist tradition of keeping the military out of politics, Ben ‘Ali was gradually insinuating the army into positions of civilian power. 53
It is worth considering how developments in Algeria may have influenced the Tunisian leadership’s approach toward the MTI/al-Nahdah. It was noted above that the FLN representative to the PSD/RCD conference in February 1988 had warned the Tunisians against a political opening that would go beyond the framework of the RCD. 54 However, riots rocked Algeria later that year, and the FLN was forced to initiate its own political opening. Algerian Islamists began to flex their muscle in February 1989, and strikes and demonstrations continued through the spring. The FIS and other parties demanded legalization in the summer, and the Islamist party was finally legalized on September 12. In late fall, the strikes and demonstrations increased as did Islamist violence against women. The effect that this had on Tunisian decisionmakers’ thinking is not clear; however, a year later they did deliberately decide to schedule their municipal elections several days ahead of the Algerian municipal elections so as to avoid a spillover effect.
In the meantime, the advance of al-Nahdah, and the government’s apparent early willingness to deal with it, had put Tunisian women on the defensive. While the president’s March 1988 speech confirming the preservation of the CSP was somewhat reassuring, concerned women did not feel they could be complacent. For example, on April 8, 1988, at an LTDH meeting on “Femme et la Société,” the question and answer period deteriorated into a session in which Islamist youth heckled the presenters, until one of them, a lawyer who happened to be four months pregnant, was physically attacked and beaten by one of the attendees who called the woman a heretic as he assaulted her. The fact that the MTI denounced the attack in a communique was of little comfort to women who saw government tolerance for Islamist discourse as creating an environment that encouraged violence against women. Moreover, despite their adherence to the National Pact, during the 1989 electoral campaign some members of al-Nahdah attacked Tunisia’s secularism as well as the CSP on the issues of divorce and polygamy. The fact that their meetings attracted large and youthful crowds around the country worried secularist women and men. 55
Even some members of the government took stands during this period that indicated, if not a sympathy for the Islamists, a clear antagonism toward women. The most notable example occurred during the December 1989 parliamentary discussions of the 1990 budget. During the discussion of the budget for the Ministry of Justice, Deputy Hamza Sa‘id called into question Tunisia’s laws on polygamy and adoption (the latter of which is permitted in Tunisia but effectively forbidden in Islam), making clear his antagonism toward women. During the discussion of the Ministry of Higher Education’s budget, some deputies contended that the increasing feminization of the educational structure was significantly hurting standards. It was suggested that women’s work in education should be regulated by law and that women should be forbidden to give birth during the academic year. Another deputy, ‘Abd al-Rahman Khalif stated in a newspaper interview that girls should play sports only with other females, thus making clear his preference for sex segregation. 56
Yet, by this time, the tide had already begun to turn. The 1989 elections, which were legislative and presidential, were a great shock and revelation. In the first place, Ben ‘Ali, the only candidate for president, presented himself as the guarantor of both religion and modernity. The powerful electoral machine of the PSD turned RCD, combined with the state’s monopoly of information and the meager resources of the opposition parties, allowed the RCD to win all the seats. At the same time, the opposition bitterly complained of electoral abuses. Only al-Nahdah, which had been forced to run its candidates as independents, made a respectable showing, taking as much as 30 percent of the vote in some large industrial and urban areas, especially Tunis. The secular opposition had underestimated the power of both the Islamists and the RCD, while overestimating the president’s desire to reform Tunisian political life. 57
For a year and a half, the new government had aimed at reaching out—within limits—to the more religiously conservative elements in Tunisian society. The 1989 election results showed that while the RCD may have tempered their dissatisfaction, they had not secured their loyalty. Perhaps as shocked by the successes of the Islamists as the secular opposition was with those of the RCD, the state saw in these elections a turning point in its relations with al-Nahdah. The assault against the Islamists began following the 1989 elections, if initially in a measured fashion. For example, on June 8, 1989, al-Nahdah’s request for recognition was rejected. In the meantime, the state continued policies aimed at undercutting the Islamists’ appeal. A delegate for religious affairs was named for each provincial governor, and the RCD began to organize colloquia at Zitouna. The prime minister inaugurated the first conference of preachers recruited and salaried by the state and charged with disseminating a religious message supporting the state and the president. Such practices reinforced the new president’s policy of making the state the sole defender of Islam and protector of the faith. 58
The Islamists replied in September 1989 by publishing a long list of human rights violations against their cadres. In a bolder move, al-Nahdah attacked the Minister of Education, Muhammad Charfi, the former head of the LTDH, for suggested curricular and textbook reforms. Charfi had also resumed enforcing the law banning the hijab after almost two years of nonenforcement. Such changes made the Islamists furious, and the minister was physically threatened. 59 On October 21, 1989, the president spoke of national reconciliation and dialogue but in his November 7 changement anniversary address he made clear that religion and politics were not to be mixed, that there was no place in Tunisia for a religious party, and that Islam was the religion of all, not a subject of competition nor a springboard to power. The only defender of Islam in Tunisia would be the state itself.
A complete rehearsal of all of the twists and turns, carrots and sticks of this period in the relationship between al-Nahdah and the state as well as between the state and the secular opposition is beyond the scope of this presentation. However, expressions of popular discontent exploded in February 1990, triggered by floods in the south. The campuses then witnessed massive sit-ins to which al-Nahdah gave its full support. 60 The strikes continued, making this the worst unrest since Ben ‘Ali had come to power, as the authorities resorted to using water cannon, dogs, and tear gas. 61 The June 1990 municipal elections only confirmed the continuing coercive tendencies of the government. Only eighteen independent lists were able to overcome the various hurdles to being placed on the ballot, and some were believed to be RCD lists in disguise. 62 Further marring the balloting were the serious questions raised about the voting lists, since the total was 1.3 million names fewer than it had been in 1981. 63 In the event, it was another RCD sweep, as only one list succeeded in beating the RCD (in Chebba, 110 miles south of Tunis).
Only a few months later, Tunisia found itself caught up in the Gulf crisis. Given its desire to preserve its important (financial) relationship with the Gulf states, Tunisia’s official position was that it condemned the Iraqi invasion as well as the presence of Western troops in the Gulf. Although the government allowed pro-Iraq demonstrations, the first since Ben ‘Ali had come to power, it nonetheless distanced itself from popular reaction as well as the press, which was firmly pro-Iraq. Press confiscations began at the end of August, as two weeklies were banned for publishing articles about Saudi Arabia which were regarded as slanderous. The economic fallout, particularly from the drop in tourism revenues, also hit hard. 64
On the other hand, relations with the opposition improved somewhat, and it expected something positive from Ben ‘Ali in his changement anniversary speech. To its surprise, however, his November 7, 1990 message was one of closure, not opening. The president insisted that it was the state that would determine the framework and the climate needed for political competition and dialogue. It was then up to civil society to accept the state’s determination and, beyond that, to oppose any actions that ran counter to the (regime-defined) national consensus. 65
At the end of November it was announced that a cell of Islamist terrorists intending to overthrow the state had been rounded up. Al-Nahdah claimed noninvolvement, but arrests of its members followed. 66 As the crackdown on al-Nahdah continued, unease in the opposition ranks grew. On January 12, 1991 the legal opposition parties issued a joint statement declaring their deep concern with “the diminution of political liberties and the trend toward violence.” The statement called on the government to lift restrictions on opposition groups, both licensed and unlicensed. 67 In the meantime, al-Nahdah continued to press for legalization.
The point of no return came on March 22, 1991, when Islamists attacked and set fire to an RCD office in Bab Souika, just outside the medina in Tunis. People were outraged by the violence, in which one person was killed and another badly burned. Some 800 people were picked up, including most of the al-Nahdah leadership not in jail or exile, although the group initially denied any responsibility. At the end of the roundups, only three members of its executive committee were left at liberty in Tunis, and they subsequently announced that they were freezing their membership because of the violence. New state claims of discoveries of arms and explosives as well as anti-regime tracts followed, underlining that a full-scale battle was underway.
As Ben ‘Ali mounted his final assault against al-Nahdah, he once again reached out to the secular opposition (whose appeal had been severely undermined by Saddam Hussein’s humiliating defeat in the Gulf war). He also tried to deflect charges from abroad of torture and other human rights abuses against Islamists. On April 9 the president officially installed a Higher Council on Human Rights and proceeded to create human rights departments in the ministries of foreign affairs, the interior, and justice, as well as in the RCD. On May 1 he announced a revision of the labor code and an increase in salaries to make up for the recent lifting of subsidies on basic items. He assembled a national commission to look into the university crisis and proposed giving subventions ($52,000) and greater media access to each of the legal opposition parties. Opposition papers were also promised some $30,000 each. 68
Unrest on university campuses broke out again in May and was blamed by the authorities on Islamist student organizations. While the opposition parties implicitly criticized the government’s use of force, they continued to place most of the blame on the Islamists. Announcements of new discoveries of Islamist arms caches punctuated the period, and at the end of May, the government announced it had foiled a fundamentalist plot to take power by force. The state struck back with waves of arrests; torture was frequently reported, and death in custody or under mysterious circumstances took on previously unknown proportions. 69 As the offensive continued throughout the summer, the opposition fell in line behind the government, leaving no credible opposition voice. The ferocity of the offensive brought criticism from human rights groups in the country and abroad, leading Amnesty International to send an investigative committee. The Arab Organization for Human Rights called for an end to the climate of political violence in the country. The severity of the anti-Islamist campaign reportedly left the population traumatized. 70
At the same time, attention was focused on Algeria and the coming parliamentary elections there. Once the FIS was declared illegal, the elections suspended, and first-round results overturned, the disquiet about Islamists in Tunisia diminished somewhat, although it is not clear there were many Islamists left above ground to repress after the assault of the previous months. But this did not mean that a new opening might be around the corner; indeed, political life in the country had been crushed. The only opposition of any consequence had been pulverized while the legal opposition parties were victims of their continuing weakness in the face of the RCD machine, the cooptation of their best and brightest, and their complicity of sorts in the suppression of al-Nahdah.
On the other hand, the state increased its support for the expansion of what one might call apolitical associative life. The official line was that civil society organizations were not only an example of the new pluralism in post-Bourguiba Tunisia, but also that such organizations constituted a critical shield against the forces of obscurantism (i.e., the Islamists). The focus by international aid and development agencies on decentralization and NGOs has no doubt also played a role in the government’s decisions to allow the proliferation of such organizations. The state has also provided subsidies to defray the operating costs of such groups, whose number a 1992 study put at well over 5,000. 71
But one must keep in mind that these organizations operate within the same political context that was detailed above. The state’s provision of subsidies is neither systematic nor institutionalized. Moreover, official circles encourage RCD loyalists to join such groups as a way of controlling their activities. Occasionally the regime has resorted to creating a duplicate union (as was the case with Human Rights League) to “dilute and countervail the influence of the original.” When none of these strategies works, coercion is always available. “To the extent that the regime fosters associational life it is because the regime sees associations as ‘transmission belts’ for its own policies.” 72
Conclusions
Although the two openings examined above had somewhat different proximate triggers, both came in response to gathering crises. As a result, Mzali, within the framework of the continuing Bourguibist regime, and Ben ‘Ali, as he tried to chart a new course after retiring the aging president, experimented with alternative bases of support. In both cases, the Islamists were part of the experiment, as each leader sought to deal with them or perhaps include them in a way that marked a departure, in the case of Mzali, and arguably a break in the case of Ben ‘Ali, with the approach Bourguiba had used.
While Mzali apparently sought to engage the Islamists in some sort of dialogue from the beginning, his first target in his effort to consolidate power was the UGTT. When that experiment failed, he turned more openly toward the Islamists, allowing them more freedom of action. Ben ‘Ali’s approach was a bit different, no doubt because he had retired Bourguiba, but also because he was a man from the military-security apparatus. While his personal commitment to secularism is unclear, he was certainly intent from the beginning on reintroducing so-called Arabo-Islamic values into state discourse. Whether the goal was to test the waters, draw out the Islamists to see their true strength, coopt whom he could by lessening the most objectionable aspects of Bourguiba’s secularism, or all of the above is not clear.
Whatever the case, the fact that the Islamists were seen as potential bases of support or that parts of their discourse were tolerated or even adopted meant that secularist women felt and were threatened. The concern was greater with the arrival of Ben ‘Ali precisely because he needed to break with the Bourguibist legacy—in which women were heavily invested and implicated—in order to consolidate his own power.
Epilogue
This is not the end of the story of government interaction with Islamists or with the secular opposition. It is, however, the end of the final chapter of the limited liberalization following the changement. By early fall 1992, the regime claimed that al-Nahdah had been crushed, although efforts were still underway to silence its leaders in exile. 73
In January 1993, Ben ‘Ali announced changes to the electoral code to ensure that the opposition would be represented (although the changes also ensured that the RCD would win an overall majority). At the beginning of 1994, in preparation for coming presidential and parliamentary elections, yet another electoral reform was announced setting aside twenty seats (of 163) for opposition parties, based on the proportion of the total vote they received. In a daring move, LTDH activist Moncef Marzouki tried to run against Ben ‘Ali but, along with another candidate, was thwarted by a constitutional obstacle. Nonetheless, Marzouki’s attempted candidacy proved very embarrassing to the president: the Tunisian press was forbidden to report it and foreign journalists were warned against noting it. During the campaign itself, the opposition parties were subsidized by the government and accorded air time on radio and television. While there were some complaints of irregularities, the April 1 elections were generally held to be a great improvement over 1989 in terms of proper procedure and constituted a clear success for the RCD and Ben ‘Ali.
The history of the last few years is one of periodic and largely symbolic gestures in the direction of political opening, but any attempt to take advantage of the purported openings generally leads to harassment or jail. The government wants the trappings of pluralism, but does not want, and indeed as of fall 1995 would no longer tolerate, expressions of anything less than full support. At the time of this writing, human rights abuses continue, if not at the same level as 1991–92, and the press is all but dead. Discussions of decentralization are largely a window dressing intended to so impress outside agencies that they will overlook the high levels of coercion applied. The strong performance of the Tunisian economy, an IMF structural adjustment success story, has also seduced outside agencies.
Many Tunisians view the regime as development-oriented, and the presence of a large middle class, with consumer tastes it can now indulge, has certainly contributed to the regime’s staying power. There is a sense that, at least in the realm of the economy, the country is moving forward. Further contributing to popular support for (or lack of active opposition to) the regime has been the Tunisian state’s involvement in welfare and development activities, functions that, as a result of state financial incapacity and bureaucratic malaise, the Islamists have taken over in such countries as Egypt and Algeria. Perhaps its most notable effort in this regard has been the establishment of the National Solidarity Fund, 2626, which is used to finance projects in poorer or neglected areas (manatiq al-dhill or zones d’ombres). Although there is a real drive for rural development, there are also projects in all the governorates especially aimed at the Islamists’ traditional targets: housing and youth employment. Ben ‘Ali’s machine may be repressive and corrupt, but is not sclerotic. 74
The relative homogeneity of Tunisian society reduces the number of potential societal fault lines and may also militate for greater stability. Probably more important has been the regime’s utilization of the fear Islamists engender among the liberal opposition to legitimate its control of power and its rejection of more open political contestation. Whether Islamists continue to pose a threat to Tunisia is an open question, but what seems to be a matter of consensus among a majority of Tunisians is that Ben ‘Ali’s assault against the Islamists saved the country from going the way of Algeria and that any political moves that might allow the Islamists to resurface are simply not worth the risk. It remains to be seen how long the Islamist threat and the specter of Algeria can be used by the regime to legitimate its authoritarian reality thinly veiled with faux pluralism.
Endnotes
Note 1: Eva Bellin, “Civil Society in Formation: Tunisia,” in R. Augustus Norton (ed.), Civil Society in the Middle East (Leiden: Brill, 1994), p. 128. Back.
Note 2: Zakya Daoud, Féminisme et Politique au Maghreb (Casablanca: Editions Eddif, 1993), p. 51. Back.
Note 3: Interview with activist and member of the Association Tunisienne des Femmes Démocrates (ATFD) Raouda Gharbi, in Tunis, October 24, 1995. Back.
Note 4: M. Ahnaf, “Tunisie: un débat sur les rapports Etat/religion,” Maghreb-Machrek, no. 126 (October&-;December 1989), p. 94. Back.
Note 5: Souad Chater, La Femme Tunisienne: citoyenne ou sujet? (Tunis: Maison Tunisienne de L’Edition, n.d.), pp. 91–92. Back.
Note 6: Sophie Bessis and Souhayr Belhassan, Femmes du Maghreb: l’enjeu (Casablanca: Editions Eddif, 1992), p. 130. Back.
Note 7: Ibid., pp. 143, 148–149. Back.
Note 8: Bellin, “Civil Society in Formation,” p. 130. Back.
Note 9: Sophie Bessis and Souhayr Belhassan, Bourguiba, vol. 2: Un si long règne (Paris: Jeune Afrique Livres, 1989), p. 13. Back.
Note 10: Interview with Hedia Jrad, president of the ATFD, in Tunis, October 23, 1995. Back.
Note 11: Bessis and Belhassan, Femmes, p. 141. Back.
Note 12: Mark Tessler, John Entelis and Gregory White, “The Republic of Tunisia,” in David E. Long and Bernard Reich (eds.), The Governments and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa (Boulder: Westview, 1996), pp. 440–441. Back.
Note 13: Remy Leveau, “La Tunisie du Président Ben Ali: équilibre interne et environnement arabe,” Maghreb-Machrek, no. 124 (Avril–Juin 1989), pp. 14–15. Back.
Note 14: Annuaire de l’Afrique du Nord (hereafter AAN), 1990 (Paris: Editions de CNRS, 1990), p. 788. Back.
Note 15: See, for example, press reports of the visit of French President Jacques Chirac to Tunisia, October 5–6, 1985 in al-Sabah and La Presse. Back.
Note 16: Bessis and Belhassan, Bourguiba, p. 97. Back.
Note 18: Bellin, “Civil Society in Formation,” p. 129. Back.
Note 19: Tessler et al., “Republic of Tunisia,” p. 429. Back.
Note 20: Bellin, “Civil Society in Formation,” p. 130, footnote, 20. Back.
Note 21: Eva Rana Bellin, “Civil Society Emergent?: State and Social Classes in Tunisia,” doctoral dissertation, Princeton University, 1992, pp. 278–279. Back.
Note 22: Souad Chater, Les Emancipées du Harem: regard sur la femme tunisienne (Tunis: Editions La Presse, 1992), pp. 31–32. Back.
Note 23: Bessis and Belhassan, Bourguiba, pp. 149–150. Back.
Note 24: Bellin, “Civil Society in Formation,” p. 130. Back.
Note 25: AAN 1979, p. 560. Back.
Note 26: AAN 1980, p. 595. Back.
Note 27: Bessis and Belhassan, Bourguiba, p. 186. Back.
Note 28: Tessler et al., “Republic of Tunisia,” p. 431. Back.
Note 29: Bellin, “Civil Society in Formation,” p. 131. Back.
Note 30: Ibid., pp. 614–15. Back.
Note 31: Bessis and Belhassan, Bourguiba, p. 196. Back.
Note 32: AAN 1981, p. 623. Back.
Note 33: L.B. Ware, “Ben Ali’s Constitutional Coup in Tunisia,” Middle East Journal, vol. 42, no. 4 (autumn 1988), p. 591. Back.
Note 34: Jeune Afrique, 30 November 1983. Back.
Note 35: Jeune Afrique, 23 July 1986. Back.
Note 36: AAN 1983, p. 899. Back.
Note 37: AAN 1984, pp. 979–980. Back.
Note 38: AAN 1985, p. 698. Back.
Note 39: Jeune Afrique, 19 June 1985. Back.
Note 41: Aziza Dargouth Medimegh, Droits et Vécu de la Femme en Tunisie (Paris: L’Hermès Edilis, 1992), p. 132. Back.
Note 42: AAN 1985, p. 708. Back.
Note 43: AAN 1987, p. 650. Back.
Note 44: Kevin Dwyer, Arab Voices: The Human Rights Debate in the Middle East (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991), p. 149. Back.
Note 45: AAN 1987, p. 746. Back.
Note 46: AAN 1988, p. 745. Back.
Note 47: Ahnaf, pp. 98–105. Back.
Note 48: Bellin, “Civil Society in Formation,” pp. 133–34. Back.
Note 49: Economic Intelligence Unit, Quarterly Report, (hereafter, EIU), Tunisia, no. 4, 1988, p. 7. Back.
Note 50: AAN 1989, pp. 682–3. Back.
Note 51: Middle East Journal, “Chronology,” for January 29, 1989. Back.
Note 52: See Amnesty International Reports: “Tunisia: Heavy Sentences after Unfair Trials,” (October 1992); and “Tunisia: Prolonged Incommunicado Detention and Torture,” (March 1992). Back.
Note 53: Leveau, “La Tunisie du Président Ben Ali, p. 6. Back.
Note 55: EIU, no. 2, 1989, p. 7. Back.
Note 56: Al-Sabah (Tunis), 28 December 1989. Back.
Note 57: AAN 1989, pp. 685–6. Back.
Note 58: AAN 1989, p. 688. Back.
Note 59: AAN 1989, 689–90; and Middle East International, (hereafter, MEI), October 20, 1989. Back.
Note 60: MEI, 2 March 1990. Back.
Note 61: EIU, no.2, 1990, p. 9. Back.
Note 63: AAN 1990, p. 784. Back.
Note 64: EIU, no. 4, 1990, p. 10. Back.
Note 65: AAN 1990, p. 793. Back.
Note 67: EIU, no.1, 1991, p. 11. Back.
Note 68: EIU, no. 2, 1991, p. 15. Back.
Note 69: For a personal story of that period by a man who was merely suspected of having Islamist sympathies see Ahmed Manai, Supplice Tunisien: Le jardin secret du général Ben Ali (Paris: Editions la Decouverte, 1995). Back.
Note 70: AAN 1991, pp. 949–950. See also the annual reports of Amnesty International for that period. Back.
Note 71: Bellin, “Civil Society in Formation,” p. 136. Back.
Note 72: Ibid., pp. 140–41. Back.
Note 73: EIU, no. 4, 1992, p. 10. Back.
Note 74: Off-the-record discussion with an official at the U.S. Embassy, Tunis, October 6, 1995. Back.
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