Arab exception or Tunisian way: what lessons can be learned from events in Tunisia, asks Amr El-Shobaki* Tunisia is still the most talked-about country in the world a week after the fall of the Zein Al-Abidine Bin Ali government. Speculation is rife over the interim phase. Many wonder whether the old order will manage to creep back into power under different faces and different names. Others fear that the "Jasmine Revolution" will disintegrate into chaos, paving the way for a military dictatorship that will sweep away the democratic gains that the Tunisian people have won through their month-long uprising. What is certain is that what has happened in Tunisia is a historic event in every sense of the term. National success stories have come from many parts of the Third World, but few from the Arab world. There has been a Malaysian economic miracle and an economic boom in South Korea, which was worse off than the Arab world in the 1960s. Indonesia's student uprising against former president Suharto set an early model for mass protest. Another model can be found in Brazil's great president Luiz Inàcio Lula da Silva, who led his country to great economic, political and social achievements, who had a 90 per cent popularity rating, and who stepped down after two terms in office in accordance with the national constitution -- in sharp contrast with practices in Arab countries where national constitutions are violated by the day. There have also been success stories from countries that, although they cannot be entirely ranked as members of the Third World, have also scored victories. Turkey is a prime example of a country that has passed through political and economic plight in order to become one of the most economically robust and influential powers regionally and internationally. Only the Arab world has seemed to stagnate, causing many observers in the East and West to speak of the "Arab exception", with the Islamist trends proving no exception to this rule. Now, suddenly, the Tunisian revolution has turned this discourse and led many to believe in the possibility of change in this part of the world, even if the methods and means of that change differ. And why shouldn't they? There has never been just one route to democratisation. Internal reform needs to be spearheaded by a reformist movement that expresses the conviction that a country needs to be managed better. But this movement might press its cause through civil action, or it might obtain power through a military coup, as has occurred in Mauritania and Sudan, although in the latter cases whatever democratic inroads were made were also quickly abandoned. Democratic change may also come through understandings or alliances between reformist forces within a regime and opposition forces fighting outside it. During the last century, this was perhaps the most common course and was one followed by the countries of Eastern Europe and Latin America, with Spain and Portugal coming before them and Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia coming after them. The Tunisian revolution has put paid to the illusions spread by certain other discourses, notably the communist definition of popular revolution that prevailed in the 19th century and continues to impress some today. According to this version, a "proper revolution" requires popular armies hundreds of thousands strong and masses of bloodshed in order to obtain freedom. However, in fact many societies have managed to democratise without sacrificing a single life. In Tunisia, some 90 people died during that country's march to freedom, which is a relatively small number compared to the supposed toll that revolutions need to see according to the conventional wisdom. The Tunisian message of change has reached all the peoples of the world, but the Tunisian process of change still faces many challenges. One of the most immediate will be how to handle the former regime and how the old will interact with the new. The former regime does not only consist of a ruling clique whose members can be brought to trial on charges of corruption or complicity in torture. Instead, it was an entire social order, in which a ruling party was linked to an executive, a judiciary and a legislature within the framework of a state. If Tunisia tries to emulate the Iraqi model of uprooting its former ruling Baath Party, then the consequences will be catastrophic. The country will be plunged into chaos, and the army will move into the capital and institute direct military rule. If, on the other hand, the Tunisians adhere to a democratic spirit, they might consider excluding the ruling Constitutional Rally Party from power through democratic procedures, only allowing it to return after it has changed in name and substance. This was the pattern followed in Eastern Europe, and it made peaceful political evolution there possible. The defeat of the former Tunisian ruling party in the forthcoming elections by presenting the electorate with a convincing alternative would also serve the purpose. The alternative would not even necessarily need to be an opposition party: the Unionist Party, which has seats in the current Tunisian parliament, might also be a viable candidate. History has proven that the exclusionist ideas that have characterised the world's great revolutions, such as the French, Russian and Iranian, were not ones that brought constructive change to many countries in the late 20th century. In Eastern Europe, for example, the old system was allowed to reform itself, and the destruction of the former regimes did not entail the destruction of the states themselves, unlike what has happened in the disastrous case of Iraq. Thus far the likelihood is that Tunisia will follow the successful path, which is to say that it will allow a reformed Constitutional Rally Party the opportunity to sit with the opposition. After some 60 years in power, if under different names, it will now taste a bit of what it fed its opponents, which in itself will serve as a useful learning experience for all. The second major challenge the new Tunisia will face is how to deal with the Islamists, and specifically with the Renaissance Party that was banned throughout the rule of the former president. It was no small key to the success of the Tunisian revolution that the Islamist movement neither organised it nor led it. Instead, this was a revolution sparked by an ordinary citizen and sustained by the grit and courage of thousands of other ordinary citizens. The danger that it now faces is that the inspiration of such ordinary citizens will be overshadowed by the calculations of politicians and party leaders. The Tunisian revolution proclaimed quintessentially civil slogans, such as "freedom", "justice" and "human dignity". The protesters chanted the splendid verses of the Tunisian poet Abul-Qassem Al-Shabbi: "If the people want to live, fate will answer their call." There was not a single religious or sectarian slogan in evidence, such as the slogan "Islam is the solution" that we sometimes hear in Egypt, Gaza and Jordan. And there certainly was not the strident sectarian cacophony that sometimes deafens the ears in Iraq. In the light of this, the fact that the Renaissance Movement and its leader Rachid Al-Ghanoushi are not organisationally associated with the Muslim Brotherhood brings them halfway along the path to assimilation into the democratic process in Tunisia. Certainly, the party's members and rhetoric lie at a midpoint between the democratic failures of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt, Sudan, Gaza and elsewhere and the democratic successes of the Justice and Development Parties of Turkey and Morocco. The Renaissance Movement would be encouraged towards going in the latter direction if it were to be assimilated into Tunisia's new democratic order, whose secular foundations were, in fact, laid by the post-independence Bourguiba regime. The failures of the Islamic world come from Islamist governments that came to power through coups, as occurred in Sudan, or from the type of Islamist one- upmanship that has also brought them to power in Sudan. Alternatively, such governments rule in the absence of a state and state-like institutions, as is the case in Palestine. The few successful experiences of such governments have been those in which the Islamists have been incorporated into the public sphere within the framework of a state that has strong institutional traditions and a civil constitution and that respects the rules of the democratic political game. Examples of such states are Morocco and Turkey. As a country that also has strong institutional traditions, a democratised Tunisia could afford safely to incorporate the "semi-enlightened" Renaissance Movement. The cultural and social ills of Tunisian society are relatively minor ones. The former political order there repressed the people politically, much as the former regimes in Eastern Europe did, but it did not destroy the fundamental values that serve as the basis for any humanitarian society in the world, such as the right to education and healthcare, gender equality, a secular public domain and cultural institutions, and the rational formation of public opinion. As long as these values remain intact, a new democratic order in Tunisia could assimilate the Islamists without any great difficulty and inspire the majority of them to respect the principles, mechanisms and spirit of democracy. For the moment, however, it remains to be seen whether the political forces now in play in the country can reach consensus on the rules of democratic government. * The writer is an expert at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
