Subsequent Question for Tunisia: The Role of Islam in Politics

Subsequent Question for Tunisia: The Role of Islam in Politics

By THOMAS FULLER

TUNIS - The Tunisian revolution that overthrew decades of authoritarian rule has entered a delicate new phase in latest days over the role of Islam in politics. Tensions mounted right here final week when military helicopters and security forces have been named in to carry out an unusual mission: protecting the city’s brothels from a mob of zealots.

Police officers dispersed a group of rock-throwing protesters who streamed into a warren of alleyways lined with legally sanctioned bordellos shouting, “God is wonderful!” and “No to brothels inside a Muslim country!”

5 weeks following protesters forced out the country’s dictator, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisians are locked inside a fierce and noisy debate about how far, or even no matter whether, Islamism ought to be infused into the new government.

About 98 % from the population of 10 million is Muslim, but Tunisia’s liberal social policies and Western life-style shatter stereotypes with the Arab globe. Abortion is legal, polygamy is banned and ladies commonly wear bikinis on the country’s Mediterranean beaches. Wine is openly sold in supermarkets and imbibed at bars across the country.

Women’s groups say they're concerned that within the cacophonous aftermath of the revolution, conservative forces could tug the nation away from its strict tradition of secularism.

“Nothing is irreversible,” said Khadija Cherif, a former head of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Ladies, a feminist organization. “We don’t desire to let down our guard.”

Ms. Cherif was one of a large number of Tunisians who marched via Tunis, the capital, on Saturday demanding the separation of mosque and state in among the largest demonstrations because the overthrow of Mr. Ben Ali.

Protesters held up indicators saying, “Politics ruins religion and religion ruins politics.”

They have been also mourning the killing on Friday of a Polish priest by unknown attackers. That assault was also condemned by the country’s primary Muslim political motion, Ennahdha, or Renaissance, which was banned beneath Mr. Ben Ali’s dictatorship but is now regrouping.

In interviews in the Tunisian news media, Ennahdha’s leaders have taken pains to praise tolerance and moderation, comparing themselves towards the Islamic parties that govern Turkey and Malaysia.

“We know we have an essentially fragile economic system that's very open toward the outside globe, towards the point of getting entirely dependent on it,” Hamadi Jebali, the party’s secretary basic, mentioned in an interview with all the Tunisian magazine Réalités. “We have no interest whatsoever in throwing everything away these days or tomorrow.”

The party, which is allied with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, says it opposes the imposition of Islamic law in Tunisia.

But some Tunisians say they stay unconvinced.

Raja Mansour, a bank employee in Tunis, mentioned it was too early to inform how the Islamist motion would evolve.

“We really don't know if they're a genuine threat or not,” she said. “But the best defense is always to attack.” By this she meant that secularists ought to assert themselves, she mentioned.

Ennahdha is among the handful of organized movements inside a highly fractured political landscape. The caretaker government that has managed the country because Mr. Ben Ali was ousted is fragile and weak, with no clear leadership emerging from the revolution.

The unanimity from the protest motion against Mr. Ben Ali in January, the uprising that set off demonstrations across the Arab world, has because evolved into many every day protests by competing groups, a development that many Tunisians locate unsettling.

“Freedom is often a fantastic, wonderful adventure, but it is not with no dangers,” said Fathi Ben Haj Yathia, an author and former political prisoner. “There are several unknowns.”

One of the largest demonstrations because Mr. Ben Ali fled took spot on Sunday in Tunis, where several thousand protesters marched for the prime minister’s office to demand the caretaker government’s resignation. They accused it of possessing hyperlinks to Mr. Ben Ali’s government.

Tunisians are debating the future of their nation on the streets. Avenue Habib Bourguiba, the broad thoroughfare in central Tunis named right after the country’s 1st president, resembles a Roman forum on weekends, packed with folks of all ages excitedly discussing politics.

The freewheeling and somewhat chaotic atmosphere across the nation has been accompanied by a breakdown in security that continues to be especially unsettling for ladies. With the substantial security apparatus with the old government decimated, leaving the police force in disarray, a lot of girls now say they may be afraid to walk outside alone at evening.

Achouri Thouraya, a 29-year-old graphic artist, says she has mixed feelings toward the revolution.

She shared within the joy from the overthrow of what she described as Mr. Ben Ali’s kleptocratic government. But she also says she believes that the government’s crackdown on any Muslim groups it deemed extremist, a draconian police plan that included monitoring these who prayed on a regular basis, helped shield the rights of ladies.

“We had the freedom to reside our lives like ladies in Europe,” she stated.

But now Ms. Thouraya said she was a “little scared.”

She added, “We do not know who is going to be president and what attitudes he will have toward females.”

Mounir Troudi, a jazz musician, disagrees. He has no adore for the former Ben Ali government, but stated he believed that Tunisia would remain a land of beer and bikinis.

“This is often a maritime country,” Mr. Troudi stated. “We are sailors, and we’ve always been open for the outside world. I've confidence in the Tunisian individuals. It is not a nation of fanatics.”