Tunisian Democracy in Peril?

Tunisia is the birthplace of the Arab Spring, the protests that began there and toppled a government quickly spread throughout the Middle East. Unfortunately Tunisia’s fledgling democracy is looking increasingly unstable. Following the assassination of the opposition leader, Chokri Belaid, on the 6^th of February mass protests began and numerous politicians resigned. The latest to go is the Prime Minister, Hamadi Jebali, who resigned on Tuesday after he was unable to form a coalition and refused to create a government of technocrats. The political tensions following Mr Belaid’s assassination and the completely paralysed economy means that more protests and more violence will soon follow. Others will try and form a coalition government, but it will not be easy as tensions go and more people resign. Although still several months away, these sort of problems could prove detrimental to the smooth running of the general election scheduled for summer.

All throughout the Middle East countries that overthrew dictators look increasingly likely to relapse into autocracy, their economies are struggling due to the revolutions and their politics are increasingly tense. At a time of austerity, this may not be welcomed in the West, but we must help them out. A triad of democratic states (Tunisia, Libya and Egypt) could prove invaluable as allies and would help to stabilise the region and oil supply lines (an appeal to conservatives). We’ve already seen the invaluable work a democratic Turkey has done, adding three more nations to the list would be brilliant. We must help these nations in any way possible.

Jebali announcing his resignation
source: www.bbc.co.uk

A Year of Revolution and Protest

 This year was the year the world rebelled. It started with the Arab Spring, with every Arab country experiencing some sort of unrest. The Arab Spring would later inspire the Occupy Movement and the protests in Moscow.

It all began with a street vendor in Tunisia, Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in protest to the police taking away his wares. Although he later died, his action sparked major protests in Tunisia which saw the overthrow of the President. These revolutionary protests later swept through the Arab world, overthrowing Egypt’s government and causing civil war in Libya which resulted in Colonel Gaddafi being killed. Revolts in Bahrain were crushed by Bahraini police and Saudi Arabian troops. A Bahraini commissioned report accused the government of committing human rights violations. The fact that this report got published is hopefully the first signs of reform. Protests in Syria are still on-going though and the government continues to crackdown harshly on protests. With China and Russia blocking any moves towards a UN resolution, it is difficult to estimate when or how the current stalemate will end.

A map of the Arab Spring.

Navy indicates government overthrown

Dark blue indicated sustained civil disorder and governmental changes

Light blue indicates protests and governmental changes

Orange indicates major protests

Sand-like colour indicates minor protests

Protests were not confined to the Arab world; many other countries experienced the Occupy movement. It started out on Wall Street, but it did not take long for the protests to go global with Occupy movements springing up in London, Hong Kong, Rio de Janeiro and hundreds of other cities. The movement protests against the inequalities that exist in society. Slogans such as “We are the 99%” prompted many important questions for politicians to answer. The slogan comes from the fact that the richest 1% of people earn a disproportionate amount of money, in the USA the 1% earn around 40% of the entire nations wealth! This won’t be an easy battle for the Occupy movement; it would only take a few of the 1% to launch an effective propaganda campaign against the movement. But it would be wrong to brand all of the 1% as elites; Bill Gates is a well-known philanthropist who donates much of his money to charity work across the globe and there are many more like him.

Another major protest in 2011 was in Russia, after the state elections in December around 50,000 people crowded onto an island near the Kremlin and accused the elections of being rigged. This was despite the fact that the government had suffered severe losses in the elections. Despite this, European and American officials who watched over the elections supported the protesters’ view that the elections had been rigged in favour of the Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s party. The protests in Moscow were the biggest since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 90s. With Putin looking to run for presidency this has certainly damaged his chances.

With many of these protests still on going, 2012 will also be an important for many countries in both the Arab world and beyond.

Crowds in Tahrir Square, Cairo.