Tunisia: Understanding Conflict 2012 - Johns Hopkins School of ...

Those released therefore included political prisoners from all strata of society and
holding all political views—including a number of salafi adherents. However, it is
important to note that the amnesty did not include those imprisoned on criminal
charges—including for those individuals who claimed the evidence against them had
been fabricated by the regime. These individuals consider themselves as political
prisoners and several have demanded retrial or release.
Consensus amongst the Tunisian people appears still to be that the political
amnesty itself was necessary, as was its all-encompassing nature; to understand why, it is
important to grasp the interrelationship of the religious and the political in opposition to
the regime in its latter years.
To Tunisians, theirs is not the “Jasmine Revolution.” Rather, it is known in the
country as the Revolution of Liberty and Human Dignity, a much loftier title but one
which carries with it a creed specifically in opposition to the repressions imposed on the
Tunisian people by the Ben Ali regime—suppression of their freedom of speech, of many
of their social and commercial freedoms, and, crucially, of many of the behaviors
Tunisians associate with the practice of their religion.
It is within this context then—a context that includes acts such as banning the
wearing of the headscarf in schools and universities, acts that were conducted under the
mantle of President Bourguiba’s aggressive secularization policies, and interpreted
strongly as anti-Islamic and contrary to the wishes of the vast majority of Tunisians—that
the role of Islamist groups in Tunisia must be considered. North Africa’s history with
Islamist political groups has been turbulent and violent for much of the past three
decades. While Algeria stands as the most dramatic example—one not lost on Tunisia,
both government and people—Morocco, Egypt, Libya and Tunisia have all seen political
opposition be funneled through groups that, in addition to taking on a strong traditional
identification with Islam, have specific political ambitions, with regime change as their
ultimate goal.
For Ben Ali, the Western attitude of fear and distrust towards Islamic-based
political organizations—particularly armed ones, unsurprisingly—created the opportunity
for the former President to place himself, in the minds of Western leaders, as the
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