Understanding Revolutions

Opening Acts in Tunisia

Azmi Bishara

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780755644735
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia africana

Based on empirical and theoretical investigation, and original insight into how a local protest movement developed into a revolution that changed a regime, this book shows us how we can understand political revolutions. Azmi Bishara critically explores the gradual democratic reform and peaceful transfer of power in the context of Tunisia. He grapples with the specific make-up of Tunisia as a modern state and its republican political heritage and investigates how this determined the development and survival of the revolution and the democratic transition in its aftermath. For Bishara, the political culture and attitudes of the elites and their readiness to compromise, in addition to an army without political ambitions, were aspects that proved crucial for the relative success of the Tunisian experience. But he distinguishes between protest movements and mass movements that aim at regime change and discerns the social and political conditions required for the transition from the former to the latter. Bishara shows that the specific factors that correspond to mass movements and regime change are relative deprivation, awareness of injustice, dignity and indignation. He concludes, based on meticulous documentation of the events in Tunisia and theoretical investigation, that while revolutions are unpredictable with no single theory able to explain them, all revolutions across different historical and conceptual contexts be seen as popular uprisings that aim at regime change. The book is the first of a trilogy, the Understanding Revolutions series by Bishara, seeking to provide a rich, comprehensive and lucid assessment of the revolutions in three states: Tunisia, Syria, and Egypt.

Chapter 1

The Arab and the Tunisian in the Tunisian Revolution

Whichever historical perspective one adopts, the postcolonial period in the Arab world has been marked by the entrenchment of the state, which has challenged ideologies, sometimes held by its own rulers, that delegitimize its borders as artificial and colonially determined. This process, which can be traced back – depending on the country in question – to the 1970s, began in Tunisia before other Arab countries due to the state’s embrace of postcolonial Tunisian nationalism.

The question is: Do events of the second decade of the twenty-first century herald the beginning of an entirely new era, or are we simply entering a new phase of the same historical period? An attempt to answer this question would be premature, since it will take decades for the outcomes of the Arab revolutions to emerge and for their structure to become clearer. However, if current events eventually yield a number of democratic Arab states, a new era of the history of the Arab world will indeed have been born.

The last, long chapter in the history of Arab states witnessed the emergence of a prominent trend in which despotic regimes in Arab republics assimilated certain novel behaviours and traits. Having consolidated the rule of a dictatorship, they shed the ideological facade previously posited as one of the sources of their legitimacy and began creating hybrid political systems around the dictator. Typically, this hybrid included the dictator’s family (an ‘innovation’ unheard of in Arab republics), with or without the presence of a ruling party, strong security services and a group of prominent businessmen, bred by a mixture of economic liberalism, nepotism and political clientelism, who, through personal, familial or marital ties, were linked with the main figures dominating the country’s political and security scene. This business elite generally thrived on its relationship with the regime and benefited from liberalization of the economy under authoritarianism. Not only do such capitalists not strive for democracy; they fear it as well.

The regime thus witnessed the emergence of a new ruling class composed of a network made up of the sons and relatives of the ruling family – an Arab variety of nepotism – along with the class of new businessmen and an ensemble of security agencies. This coalition of interests was in turn supported by a relatively broad group of intellectuals and technocrats who served as their institutional face and public image, although some of them were sincere civil servants who know the system too well to dare to express a political opinion, not to speak of a critique. With this class effectively taking the reins of power, cabinets and ministries became mere bureaucratic positions, since prime ministers and ministers, whether technocrats or politicians, generally lacked decision-making powers. Hence, ministers manage their respective domains according to policies that they do not determine, but for whose failures they may take the blame. Ministries are also used to reward loyalists and maintain their favour in a pattern similar to that of the regimes that emerged in Latin America in the latter half of the twentieth century. It is not unusual for governments to absorb and contain former opponents of the regime (mostly in monarchies like Jordan and Morocco, but less so in republics that are not so ‘tolerant’, in this sense Ben Ali’s first decade in rule was an exception).

These regimes have varied in every other respect. Some, such as those in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, allowed a margin for trade unions and an official and semi-official opposition (with a relatively larger margin in Tunisia for trade unions historical reasons, and a relatively larger margin for press freedom in Egypt and Yemen), while others, such as Syria, Iraq and Libya (as well as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, albeit with monarchical dynasties and different sources of legitimacy), embodied a closed, rigid form of authoritarianism. The state structure and the degree of coherence and resolve of the authoritarian regimes affected both the character of the revolution and the probability of its outbreak.

For a relatively long period, it seemed as if this ominous, stagnant political reality, which had overshadowed the postcolonial Arab state since the 1970s, would be permanent. Even military coups have let up since then, except in Sudan and Mauritania. The self-assurance of Arab leaders was such that they showed no qualms about publicly displaying their corruption – a result of merging politics, security and economy; the lack of separation between private and public domains; and an absence of the rule of law. They openly relied on the heavy hand of the security apparatus and client networks. Corruption provokes people’s rage even more than the existent socio-economic gaps, because corruption cannot be justified even in the regime’s propaganda itself but only denied – lied about, that is – because it trains people’s rage on certain persons (usually the ruler’s relatives and entourage rather than the ruler himself). Furthermore, corruption is a favourite topic of sensationalists and rumour mongers, both in the private sphere and in social networks.

In democracies, the state may enter citizens’ private domain; however, it does so through well-defined legal channels. The constant changes in the boundaries between public and private – alongside social struggles, changes in public awareness and the creation of new laws – lead to a domain that lies at the intersection between private and public, otherwise known as ‘citizenship’. In democratic countries citizenship is endowed with both a private and a public element. In authoritarian regimes, on the other hand, the state can unilaterally invade the private sphere, which is more or less devoid of all sanctity, so the private becomes public. At the same time, the public becomes a private domain for the ruler, and corruption becomes the rule.

Meanwhile, across the region, as leaders’ self-confidence grew and their regimes consolidated, they groomed their sons for succession, a feature not peculiar to Arab republics but a hallmark of ageing authoritarian republics across the world.¹ Ironically, the very term ‘republic’ is derived from the word ‘public’, a fact that is also conveyed literally in the Arabic translation of the term jumhūriyah. In the case of Arab republics like Syria and Libya, and to a lesser degree Egypt and Tunisia, however, the emergence of ruling dynasties and hereditary rule represented an official ‘privatization’ of republics, which were approached as if they were fiefdoms. This brought with it a conscious and subconscious ethos of subjugation of public affairs to personal interests that permeated all echelons of the system. This ethos would have been alien to the first generation of authoritarian rulers, who were not corrupt, at least not in the sense of personal enriching or greed for money, and sometimes even personally austere. These despots believed that they were serving the public interest even though they established the repressive ‘infrastructure’ for the corruption of a later generation of rulers who, although they possessed the tools of previous despots, did not share their goals.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the Arab revolutions erupted precisely in the republics that were witnessing attempts to establish hereditary rule (Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria, where the hereditary transfer of rule had already taken place). This was also the case with Tunisia, a country ruled by a dictator whose family had the power to plunder the economy but lacked a male heir. The rejection of the hereditary transfer of rule became a potent symbol of the struggle against the regime throughout the revolutions. Bequeathing the presidency constituted a breach of republican ethos (manifested by rulers like Bourguiba, Tunisia’s first president, Algeria’s Boumediene and Nasser of Egypt) and abandonment of its original ideological legitimacy. Proof of this legitimacy crisis lay in the fact that despite the public grooming of heirs and the broad prerogatives handed down to them before they assumed power, regimes typically denied their plans to bequeath rule to an heir. Denials and lies, nonetheless, did not deceive the people; rather, the regime’s insistence on denying the obvious bespoke its recognition of the lack of legitimacy of its actions.

This is not to say that revolutions cannot erupt in monarchist regimes. On the contrary, this remains a possibility, as the eruption of revolutions goes beyond a crisis of legitimacy. The monarchist regimes in Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Jordan and elsewhere are most certainly authoritarian, though to varying degrees. And uprisings did erupt in 2011 in Bahrain, Jordan and Morocco. Undeniably, the source of a monarchy’s legitimacy differs from that of a republic. In royalist regimes, the rule of the family and kin exists as a matter of course, but Arab republics and monarchies converge on many points, particularly in terms of the power granted to security services. In view of the revolts in the region, those who claim that republics are more prone to revolution than monarchies may suffer from a short memory span and should be reminded that the very idea of democratic revolution began with the rebellions against monarchist regimes in Europe and that the most notable popular revolt before the recent Arab uprisings was the Iranian revolution against the monarchist regime of the Shah, not to mention the numerous revolutions and coups against Arab monarchies that occurred during the second half of the twentieth century. Of course, the problem for despotic Arab republics is that the contradiction between their reality and their source of legitimacy is more obvious. In addition, the traditional structures that can protect individuals from the arbitrariness of the state by mediating between them are much weaker in republics than in monarchies.

A source of frustration and concern among Arabs lies in the fact that despite clear signs of decay and corruption, the features and instruments of change had yet to emerge. It seemed as if Arab societies were doomed to remain under the yoke of ruling cliques that combined economic neoliberalism with political authoritarianism, even after it became clear that these regimes were in the twilight of their reign. In circumstances of rampant nepotism and patronage, neoliberalism means little more than the sanctioning of corruption. Never before in its modern era had the Arab world experienced such a state of hopelessness caused by despotism, corruption, deprivation, growing poverty among the lower classes and rage on the part of middle classes, which felt increasingly threatened and precarious. This took place alongside the emergence of a consumerist society and lifestyle that ceaselessly created more needs and a widening gap between needs and the means of fulfilling them.

People had no need of social theories to see that there were many obstacles to organized action for regime change; however, the principal barrier was the oppressiveness of the security apparatus.

The popular revolution in Tunisia marked the end of a grim era in Arab history. More importantly, the Tunisian Revolution has shown the opportunities that come with a new era. Across the region, a new horizon has opened, and a spirit of hope has been revived.

Authoritarianism in the phase of decadence

Tunisia’s modern history abounds in instances of popular protest over social and political issues. On 26 January 1969, the al-Wardanin uprising took place against the policy of collectivized agricultural land. On 10 October 1977, a protest movement erupted in Qasr Hilal, and on 26 January 1978, a general strike was announced by the General Tunisian Labor Union (UGTT). This popular protest was quelled so brutally that the day was infamously designated ‘Black Thursday’. The bread uprising that flared on 3 January 1984 – the one most similar to the 2011 uprising-turned-revolution – was followed² in 2008 by the protracted uprising of the mining basin in Gafsa Governorate.

Tunisia’s revolution was preceded by local uprisings with social demands that had been increasing in frequency over the previous five years, mostly in the country’s interior, in the marginalized centre and southwest. The revolution itself started as a local uprising. This geographical division, which has historical roots, had been reinforced by government policies in modern Tunisia. Not only was there no affirmative action and development planning to close the gap, but the governments who came mostly from the coastal cities tended to favour the coastal areas for development and public allocations. Despite the unevenness of government policies throughout the country, numerous Tunisian cities and provinces joined the movement. Thanks to the perseverance and courage of the residents and political activists of Sidi Bouzid and Kasserine governorates and other peripheral provinces, the last of these uprisings lasted long enough for the cities, especially Sfax and the capital city of Tunis, to join in, along with a number of civil society activists, poor inner-city neighbourhoods and, towards the end, members of the middle classes.

For the citizens of Sidi Bouzid and Kasserine who took to the street, social demands were mixed with a sense of rage and affronted dignity, epitomized by the act of a young Tunisian man who set himself on fire in protest against the humiliation he had endured. The fact that urban areas joined in revealed the rage that had been building up in the poor peripheries of the capital. Similarly, it revealed the regime’s growing isolation even from the social base of the marginalized ruling party, which could no longer provide this base with the privileges to which it had grown accustomed.

Self-immolation is the most powerful declaration of protest against injustice and helplessness. Hence, the movement began as an uprising that had been triggered not by poverty alone but by poverty and indignation. The will to restore dignity is founded upon a desire for freedom from degrading repression and for equal treatment as a human being. It was this combination of the rejection of deprivation and a repudiation of humiliation that led to such audacity.

To a large extent, the Tunisian Revolution began as a rebellion of the marginalized peripheries against the political and economic centre. It was then joined by political parties and elites who presented democracy as an alternative. Indeed, this structure of the revolution will determine the course of Tunisian politics for a long time to come.³ Time will tell whether a democracy in a developing country can resolve issues of social and interregional injustices in spite of scarcity, populism, competing political parties, protracted disagreements over social plans and growing expectations on the part of the public. This will be a major challenge for democrats.

Corruption was actually not a distinguishing feature of Arab republics’ founding authoritarian rulers. The first generation of the leaders of independent Arab states was not corrupt. Nasser, Bourguiba, Ben Bella, Boumediene, Shukri al-Quwatli and Abd al-Karim Qasim were not known for their pursuit of wealth. Regardless of the faults of their reigns, greed and the desire to enrich themselves at the expense of the public were not among their failings. On the contrary, the ability to rise above such material ambitions was viewed as essential to the character of a great leader.

Meanwhile, in the absence of democracy and transparency, patriotic values are hollowed out, ideological legitimacy is tarnished and financial corruption reigns. Corruption has been bald-faced in recent years, with a majority of the business class forming close links with the likes of Mubarak (and his sons and his wife), Bashar al-Assad (and his brother, wife and cousins) and Ben Ali (and his wife and his in-laws). The events in Tunisia shed light on the impact corruption has on people. Arguably, blatant corruption has the potential to enrage people even more than poverty. People may even tolerate poverty if they believe that their situation is not the result of some injustice; however, patent, uninhibited and ostentatious corruption seems to confirm that poverty is, in fact, a direct consequence of discrimination...