Revolution in the Arab World - Observation of a lost soul Blog

foreign policy • revolution in the arab world • Tunisia
became the regime’s praetorian guard, operating directly under the control
of the president and Interior Ministry. There is more than a little irony in
the fact that the government recruited heavily for the security forces in the
same disenfranchised regions that generated the wave of protest that broke
in mid-December. The military, on the other hand, remained very professional
but relatively weak—a fact that will no doubt affect Tunisia’s future
political development.
Once it became clear in the mid-1990s that the government had forced
the Islamists out of the country or so far underground that they could not
organize any meaningful opposition, Tunisians began to lose their patience
with Ben Ali’s authoritarianism. Human rights activists and dissident journalists
began to complain more loudly, and the government cracked down
even harder. Stories about beatings by plainclothes agents, arbitrary arrests,
and torture mounted.
So why revolt now and not a decade ago The media coverage has emphasized
frustrations over unemployment and prices. However, it is easy to
forget that for most of Ben Ali’s rule, Tunisia’s economy grew at a respectable
rate. Tunisia has a larger middle class and a higher standard of living
than any of its neighbors. As long as you stayed out of politics, Ben Ali’s
government left you alone and allowed you to make some money, buy a nice
house or apartment, and live a better life than your parents lived.
More recently, however, the Europe-dependent Tunisian economy was
experiencing global-recession-related contraction—which hit university
degree-holders of the sort that took to the streets against Ben Ali particularly
hard.
Then there is social media. When the definitive history of this era gets
written, Facebook will get its own chapter. Activists used Facebook to organize
on the one space that the regime couldn’t control—cyberspace.
Not long ago, police firing on protesters or funeral marchers in out-ofthe-way
towns like Thala or Kasserine would have remained a bit of local
lore, something to whisper about. Not now. Facebook brought the events
in Thala to Tunis and helped build coalitions that the government could
not break.
Tunisia now enters a truly novel stage. Prime Minister Mohamed Ghannouchi
has become the transitional president, with orders to organize new
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