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

that in practice many people who espouse these views are interpreted by the rest of
Tunisians as lacking religion and partaking in non-religious activities. For example, one
man with whom we spoke discussed his religious adherence, but the belief that the
government had no place in regulating it, knowing about it, or mandating it. He felt
strong religious ties, but did not feel that this was appropriate in the public space. In
Tunisia, the belief in secularism appears to be a desire that one’s religious practices
should not color the capacity to accomplish things within society. Thus, for these types
of secularists, a lack of religion could be causal, but is not the foundation of the
movement. Rather, it seems to be a combination between a specific historical process of
separation religion and state combined with the desire to maintain Tunisian societal
norms of equality and to protect Tunisians from the international Islamic fundamentalist
movement.
Religious Secularism
Religious secularism is the belief structure that the older forms of secularism are not
viable given the changes in dynamics that occurred as a result of the shift to democracy
since the revolution. It is not viable for a society that will most likely claim to be Arab-
Muslim in its constitution to have a party that explicitly argues for Islam to be out of the
public sphere. Furthermore, religious secularists would argue that the secular precedent
in Tunisia is not one of complete separation of religion and state. In fact, Bourguiba did
not codify anything that went against Islam. For example, he did not change the abortion
law. Thus, for the secular parties to have a viable political platform, particularly going
forward, a model of complete laïcité as in France is not possible. Additionally, based on
widespread Tunisian interpretation of secularism, the historical experience of it under
Bourguiba and Ben Ali, and the French influences, following the process of laïque
secularism will not yield the liberty and equality for all religions that the secularists
desire.
The biggest proponent that we met with of this alternate secularist interpretation is
Radwan Masmoudi. Mr. Masmoudi has started a separate religious secularist movement.
Mr. Masmoudi ran as an independent in the elections, but hopes to garner support for this
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