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Hello and welcome to Newsclick.
Today we have with us, Prof.Aijaz Ahmad to discuss
the situation that is developing in Tunisia
partly with the new developments that have taken place and partly about the impact that is to going to
be in
the larger framework of West Asia, Arab countries the Maghreb and so on.
Aijaz,
The Tunisian developments seem to be
moving quite rapidly
but one thing is very clear
the old regime
is not being accepted by the people any more
President Ben Ali is being
thrown out
but the regime now is continuing with the successors who were part of his
establishment
who are also being not accepted by the people. How do you read this situation?
Well it is an interesting thing.
I was thinking about the word regime
before we have started talking
and the way I have thought about it is that the dictatorship is gone
but the regime still it's there
tottering
hopefully on it's last legs.
This is the last card
that the old regime is playing which is
to try to keep
the government under the control of the RCD, the
ruling party
what it's called, the Constitutional Democratic Rally,
the RCD
Actually most of the organized forces
had
accepted this
formula.
There are different kinds of arguments
put forth by the opposition parties which have joined the government.
The
biggest one being
that
the most important thing to
do right now is to restore stability, law and order
ensure fresh elections
and have a competent government.
One of the leaders of the opposition said that
because of the dictatorship, because of the kind of
political setup
Tunisa have always had,
all the competent people are in ruling party.
Therefore, we cannot break from the ruling party.
All the people who can actually
run the government
are there.
But under mass pressure actually,
the unions have taken now a very very strong stand.
The
four ministers formed the party that is aligning with the unions UGTT (Tunisia General Labour Union),
the general union of Tunisian workers.
The party
that was aligning with the
union UGTT
have resigned - three of them have been resigned and one of them
have been suspended himself as the
secretary general of the party
and the union has now taken a very strong stand that we will not sit
in the same room with the
people who have been administered.
So that is the next step
whether or not
they will do that. Important in
this is
what needs to be watched
is the role of the Tunisian army.
Tunisian army clearly differentiated itself on the police of the interior ministry
which was very much under the control of
the dictatorship
and refused to not only fire
on the protesters but
even protected them in many many places
and
arrested many many ofthe police officers
who carried out many of firing.
Tunisian army is very small compact professional army.
It never had a political role
that is one thing the previous President, (Habib) Bourguiba
the late President
made sure that the army was kept completely out of politics
because that is what he witnessed in Libya, in Egypt, in Syria and so on.
So
now will they step in,
we don't know
the kind of actions that they have taken
have made them quite popular.
They
facilitated the departure of Ben Ali
that much they did.
Their refusal to fire on the masses have
forced the resignation then facilitated his departure.
So right now they are very popular.
If they were to take over, we don't know
Very many protestors of might have retreat
if they were to come in and say
this political dispute is not been getting
you know.. there is chaos.. and we are coming in
and we are holding elections
within 90 days or some such thing. That might end the protests.
So effectively
army is the only other institution apart from the RCD which has the cohesive institutional framework.
That's right, the crisis in the RCD has reached a point where
the prime minister
and the president
both of them who were illustrious members of the RCD
and were the close allies of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali,
the departed president
they have both resigned from the party
and more resignations of high-profile members
are in order so that the party is crumbling in that way.
Other part could be that you distance yourself formally or officially from the party
but you still maintain a frame. So in that sense it is yet to be seen what's really is happening.
Now you see
there is something else that's
needs to be said about the RCD is
that
it is a party that
has a membership of two million people out of ten million
So every family had a member.
You had to be a member in order to
get admission into a college
or whatever
at the same time it is not a proper political party
in the sense that there was no politics left in the last twenty three years when Zine El Abidine was president...
Bourguiba was a repressive President.
Socially very progressive in great many ways but a repressive one.
So it has been a long time since Tunisia has had a politics.
A political process of any kind.
So long that
the cabinet
one after another
were packed with technocrats
they are not politicians in the sense in which we understand politicians.
So there is an argument that technocrats
were picked up to
be cabinet ministers ..so why not work with them.
Do you think that these political process which has been unfolding
in that sense mass politics which is
what distinguishes from the earlier kind of formations that existed in Tunisia.
The first you really have much protests of the scale 0:07:18.889,0:07:21.100 which has led to a change at least in the form of the regime
if not the content that we have yet to see.
Do you think that this mass politics will bring in the
left forces, the islamist forces which both are actually have been there
into a more
active play?
About the protest, let me say that Tunisia has had a
recent history of protests
and
repeated ones, last was in 2008
what happened
with these protests is
rather
the pattern of protests in
Tunisia has been that they have been mostly in the South and in the Coastal regions,
-- the poorer regions
of Tunisia.
This time for the first time
they came into Tunis.
They did not start in the capital.
They started in the historic homelands of protests.
But they came into Tunis. That is where
it became a mass protest.
Otherwise these were a congregation of 300 people here 500 people there and so on
and all that
So that is what is new
that the city has risen.
Who has risen in the city?
to start with professional classes, educated and employed.
Tunisia is a highly educated society
much more educated than any other Arab country
with a very fine education system.
So it's a very sophisticated educated class
and yet unemployment is running about twenty five
percent for college graduates.
They were on the streets,
professionals were on the streets.
Lawyers.
If you want to identify the main players in this
organized ones,
these are the union UGTT and the lawyers.
including the Bar association.
There was general strike of
Tunisian Bar Association.
Some 95 percent of the lawyers came out
in the streets and in fact
they threw in their lot with the protestors very early.
so it was an uprising of the educated
professional classes
the working class amass
came in much later
but now they are the ones who are dominating
the protests
because in the professional classes there is a division now.
Part of the professional classes are saying
look stability is very important so long as we get elections
in sixty days something etc.
the other part of the professional classes were not.
The question that you were posing about the Left and of Islamisists
Tunisia has
had
a very very
powerful
trade
union movement.
that has always been the heart of the left.
It has been much more advanced than the left wing political parties.
But it was in its heyday in the sixties and the seventies -- one of the world's great trade union movements.
Very closely aligned
during that history
very closely aligned with the French,
CGT
and so on.
That institution
is not now what it used to be in 70s and 80s but that is one civil institution
that exists
and exists to a very considerable degree and is a significant
institution
in
Tunisian Society.
There was a very strong left movement
not a very strong communist party.
There's been a communist party but there have been
a very..
and by and large Tunisian
intelligentsia
tends to be left of centre.
secular left of centre,
secular left of center very much like the French Socialist Party.
without the imperial pretense/ problems of the French Socialist Party.
It's enlightened
secular, very
well educated left
of centre intelligentsia
it has had no organizational
form recently.
It has had very strong
cultural intelligentsia
in film and literature and things like that.
That is what
the left is
trade union movement plus this.
All its organisational forms
were suppressed
and co-opted by
the Neo-Destour which was Bourguiba's party
which transformed itself into the RCD.
But in its
fragmented form or whatever form that left exits.
Some of it has become very high
human rights
oriented
secular intelligentsia-- some of the high profile people
are people who used to be very much on the left,
who still have left leanings
but who are much more now
into the democratic movement, human rights.. Rights platform
Tunisia is a country where
on both houses of parliament
there are twenty percent or more women.
It's socially a very progressive society.
This all and that.
There was an organized
Islamisist movement
and one of the few achievements
of
President Bin Ali, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali
was to suppress that great success.
Now, they will come back
there is a political vacuum
in which
all these forces
will contend
and none of them have
been other than
UGTT
other than the union.
None of them have had a powerful
organisational form in recent years.
There is going to be a free for all among these
But now, the draw back in all among these is this.
The army and the UGTT are the only stable institutions. The third one
the RCD which is going to collapse. Committees are
arising across Tunisia.
But things moved so fast that they have not had the time to gel
you know neighbourhood committees and various sorts of committees
which could become sort of
nucleus centres. You see what
would have been best in Tunisia which I am not very sure
is for another force to emerge which
becomes the dominant force
which becomes a transitional force in
some sort of
transitional
assembly.
which may include these other people including parts of the RCD
But which is then dominated by this other kind of force.
Which then creates a constituent assembly which then
holds next election or so on
that's the
only guarantee free and
fair elections will be held and
the RCD types
wont come back.
Now whether that happens or not we don't know
things are moving very fast.
Thanks Aijaz we will come back in the next session of what impact is going to be on the larger Arab scenario
as well as what impact is likely to be on Africa because we have
other instances of similar uprisings or
unhappiness in the current regime too. We will come back in the next part with this discussion
Thank
you
very much