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

desires of the opposition. Tellingly, in her 1998 book Women, the State and Political
Liberalization: Middle Eastern and North African Experience, Laurie Brand closes her
analysis of Tunisia with these words:
Many women are unwilling to criticize the regime’s approach. They have
been profoundly affected by developments in Algeria and believe that
their choice is between the current Tunisian government and the
Islamists…Yet as long as the economy appears to perform well and the
country is stable, many Tunisians, women and men, will be unwilling to
risk the rise of Islamist influence and the losses they believe it would
bring, by pushing for a greater opening of the system. (Brand 1998, 246)
It seems that such a time has come. Thus, one cannot consider the role of debates about
women’s rights in the revolution, not to mention the future of women’s rights in the
country, without first looking back to consider their establishment and evolution—and
thus the framework within which women’s rights has been defined.
Once one has considered the historical framework of women’s rights, the current
role of women’s rights in the debate about the country’s future becomes more
comprehensible. For one, the debate about women is not front and center, but rather is
taking place through conversations about other issues that have arisen since the
revolution: debates about the right of women to wear the niqab 10 in universities, the right
of an executive to show Persepolis on national television, the government’s response to
salafists’ actions in rural areas like Sajnan, and the ambiguity of Ennahdha’s position on
certain aspects of the CPS. Moreover, because women’s rights have been at the heart of
the debate between Islamists and secularists for some time, many of the individuals we
interviewed linked (either implicitly or explicitly) debates about secularism versus
conservatism with questions about the role of women. In general, liberals argue that the
conservatism at the root of Ennahdha threatens women’s rights, and Ennahdha’s “double
speak” is proof of the imminence of the threat, while members and friends of Ennahdha
10 The “niqab” refers to the religious garment that covers a woman’s hair and face. The garment
that covers just a woman’s hair will be referred to as the “hijab.”
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