"It all began with the despair of one man, a young graduate unable to get a job, like so many others in his country.
Mohammed Bouazizi turned to selling fruit and veg illegally to earn some money for his family, but when the police confiscated his produce last month because he had no permit, it was all too much. He poured petrol on himself and set it alight in an unusually public protest.
The 26-year-old died earlier this month, but today he is a hero. Not just to his nation, but across the ‘gendarmerie’ states of north Africa.
For that agonising act of self-immolation sparked something remarkable: a wave of protests that, for the first time in recent memory, felled a leader in the Arab world.
Courageous protesters withstood bullets, beatings and bloodshed to oust a loathed president who had made their lives a misery while growing rich at their expense."
Even so, it can be thought part of the ‘Arab world’, considering that its most used language is Arabic, and of course for its historical connection to the more properly Arab countries and Arab culture (just as Australia is part of the ‘Western world’).
The most used language in business and media is French, so we could just as well say that Tunisia is a French country. (Which for the most part it is.)
This is hardly a technical or scientific term; the article is hardly technical or scientific.
Tunisia was historically a part of various Arab caliphates, and is currently a member of the Arab League (i.e. considers itself a part of the ‘Arab world’). The only official language is Arabic. It is also the most widely spoken language. The most practiced religion (>99% of the population) originated in the Arabian peninsula, which is still a main focus of the religion (e.g. for prayer and pilgrimage).
EDIT: “So, some new scoundrel will take over and do exactly the same things.”
Probably. I was more interested in the beginning and process of the revolt.
The most used language in business and media is French, so we could just as well say that Tunisia is a French country. (Which for the most part it is.)
Tunisia has a significant Semetic background (think Carthage), and was a place of heavy Semetic immigration during the Roman Empire era. On a coincidence, her “mother country” Lebanon also uses French as her “business language”. The food is much more “French” in Tunisia than in Lebanon (so therefore it is not as good)
It’s curious to note until a couple of months ago Ben Ali’s regime was hailed by the West as “an example for the Muslim world”. Tour operators were still selling long (4+ weeks) vacations at dirt cheap prices. Even the French government, which actively supported Ben Ali and prides itself in knowing everything about its former colonies, didn’t see it coming. There was no organized opposition because it had been crushed decades ago. In less than a month everybody was proven wrong. Now Washington and Paris are burning the midnight oil to come up with a quick fix. But as I said there’s no organized opposition (apart from a very few underground Muslim movements), no charismatic leader that can be cajoled, bribed or coerced. This is a genuine explosion of popular wrath. The “hittites” (a term coming from the Arabic hit, wall, which could be loosely translated as “those who have no other occupation but to lean against a wall”), the destitute youths of the Arabic-speaking world, have reached the breaking point. Like Mohammed Bouazizi they have no future. They want a job but there are no jobs. They want to take the future into their own hand. They may not know what they want but they know very well what they do not want. It’s hard not to sympathize with them.
This popular uprising is sending shockwaves in all of North Africa: there have already been similar outbreaks in Algeria (put down with extreme prejudice) but the big game lies East, in Lybia and Egypt. Lybia is run by the eccentric, shall I say?, Colonel Khadafi whose popularity is shrinking day by day. Egypt is run by the geriatric Hosni Mubarak, who is currently grooming his son to be his successor.
Khadafi’s popularity started to shrink as his ill-conceived military adventures in the Chad were crushed by the French and the country became a a destination of choice for immigrants from the poorest parts of the world, attracted by the prospect of easy passage to Europe and Lybia’s oil and natural gas wealth. His recent 180° face turn (going from an enemy of the US to an ally in the “War against Terror”) and his stern refusal to share the wealth of the nation with the population have done more harm than his ever-growing mental instability and his five scoundrel-sons (“one worse than the other” as Taki Theodoracopoulos said), whose arrogant antics fill the pages of European newspapers.
Mubarak took over when the previous foreign stooge, General Sadat, was murdered. His regime is as brutal as the Shah’s: I’ve often said that Egypt has an explosive situation to say the least and I am more and more certain about it every single day. Mubarak is fully backed by the US and their European allies: the recent creation of the “tourist paradise” on the Red Sea was engineered to provide Egypt with much needed hard cash. Despite being self-sufficient in many sectors (including energy), Egypt’s economy is in a very poor state: the large military and the huge police take up enormous resources and the situation isn’t very different from Tunisia and Algeria, namely a booming population with extremely high unemployment among young people and very low living standards. If Egypt goes God only knows what can happen.