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

Conclusion
P. Terrence Hopmann
The SAIS Conflict Management field trip took place in January 2012, one year after the
revolutionary events of 2011 that have come to be known as the “Jasmine Revolution” or
the first uprising of the Arab Spring. The events of early 2011 were unique in many
ways. A largely spontaneous revolution succeeded in overthrowing a well entrenched
dictatorship using almost entirely non-violent means and with relatively little overall
bloodshed. As the chapters in this volume by Gary Decker and Malikat Rufai indicate,
this revolution originated among mostly young, often unemployed citizens in the interior
regions of Tunisia who had been marginalized by the Ben Ali regime and treated with
brutality by the political police. Without any central organization or broadly shared
ideology, the idea of citizens opposing the autocratic rule of Ben Ali spread through
social media across the country and led to a wide range of non-violent protests, often
broken up by violent police reaction. However, large-scale violence was largely averted
as the Tunisian Army remained on the sidelines, and Ben Ali and close family members
quickly decided to opt for exile abroad rather than putting up a lengthy fight that has
become commonplace in response to other subsequent rebellions in the Arab World.
The mostly non-violent revolution has facilitated a largely peaceful transition in
its aftermath as well; however, that does not mean that the transition has been without
conflict. Indeed, the absence of a unifying ideology behind the revolution has meant that
the primary result has been to open space for a fundamental debate about the nature of
Tunisian society and its governance. This debate focused initially on the elections in
October 2011 to choose representatives to a Constituent Assembly, charged with writing
a new constitution while also serving as an interim government; after the elections, the
debate turned directly to address the content of the new constitution and the policy
priorities for the new regime. Undoubtedly the most divisive issue highlighted by the
revolution is, as Jennifer Pogue-Geile emphasizes, the role of religion in the future
Tunisian state.
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