tunisia Archives - Page 5 of 13 - Foreign Policy In Focus

Is Algeria Next?

by Wided Khadraoui | Feb 24, 2011

Protesters in Martyr’s Square chanted “yesterday Egypt, today Algeria” during demonstrations in the Algerian capital Algiers on February 12. The Algerian government’s response to the protesters was reminiscent of Egypt’s ex-President Hosni Mubarak during the last five days of the 18-day protest in Cairo. Armed riot police and pro-government thugs attacked pro-democracy protesters to provoke violent clashes. The same aggressive approach to the protesters was seen again on February 19 when military-style armored police vehicles deployed throughout Algiers to prevent the protests from even forming.

Revolution is an Export Tunisia Can Be Proud of

by Nouri Gana | Feb 15, 2011

“Tunisia is known for exporting olive oil and deglet nour dates but is pleased to add revolution as one of its principal items of export.” Revolution will be Tunisia’s only around-the-clock and never-out-of-stock, free-of-charge export item. It is its only Marshall Plan for fostering homegrown democracy across the Arab world. Let it be so.

Fiction Blossoms into Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution

by Mustapha Tlili | Feb 9, 2011

As I try to grasp the full meaning of the Tunisian Revolution and to gauge its future, I am looking at my desk where I have spread two issues of The New York Times, both featuring Tunisia on their front pages. The two issues are dated 23 years apart.

U.S. Middle-East Policy: “See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil — Just Practice It, Then Act Surprised”

by Rob Prince | Feb 7, 2011

It will be a while before the Obama Administration can assess the damage to its interests done by Egyptian and Tunisian protests.

Tunisia’s Spark and Egypt’s Flame: the Middle East is Rising

by Phyllis Bennis | Jan 31, 2011

The breadth and depth of the spreading protests, the helplessness of the U.S.-backed governments to stop them, and the rapidly diminishing ability of the United States to protect its long-time clients, are resulting in a level of revolutionary fervor not visible in the Middle East in a generation.

Mothers of the Jasmine Revolution

by Imed Labidi | Jan 31, 2011

Like their revolutionary and brave Algerian sisters, who in the 1950s helped bring one of the most developed and vicious colonial armies to its knees and ushered the end of a longstanding European empire, les Tunisiennes challenged the premise that resistance, revolution, and war are the work of men alone. Defiantly, the women continued the resistance until Ben Ali “got the hell out.” Now that he’s gone, Tunisian women are appearing on Arab television and participating in the formation of neighborhood watch groups.

Carthage under Siege

by Feriel Bouhafa | Jan 26, 2011

Despite concessions made by interim government in Tunisia, a crisis of trust continues to reign over the people. The government’s fate remains uncertain as hundreds of people arrived in Tunis from rural areas on January 24, calling for the removal of all former government officials. This sea change in power raises several questions about the root causes of this extraordinary protest, the impact it will have on the region as a whole, and whether the theory that Arab civil societies are too inept to generate real change within their own governments has been finally disproved.

Who’s More Delusional? Former Tunisian President Ben Ali or Washington?

by Rob Prince | Jan 22, 2011

Ben Ali’s exile in Saudi Arabia, with whom Tunisia has an extradition treaty, is an uneasy one.

The United States and the Prospects for Democracy in Islamic Countries

by Stephen Zunes | Jan 21, 2011

The unarmed insurrection that overthrew the Ben Ali regime in Tunisia has opened up debate regarding prospects for democratization in Arab and other predominately Muslim countries. Many in the West are familiar with the way unarmed pro-democracy insurrections have helped bring democracy to Eastern Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia and Africa. But they discount the chances of such movements in Islamic countries, despite Tunisia being far from the first. Meanwhile, the United States — despite giving lip service in support for democracy – continues to actively support authoritarian governments in Islamic countries.

Arab Democracy Now!

by John Feffer | Jan 18, 2011

The campaign against dictatorship in the Arab world has brought together some strange bedfellows. The Bush administration’s neoconservatives darkly dreamed of democracy promotion in the Middle East before the Iraq and Afghanistan quagmires became the stuff of nightmares. Sharing the same bed, but dreaming different dreams, have been the Muslim Brotherhood and its fellow Islamists who have long railed against the injustices of authoritarian regimes in locales such as Egypt, Syria, and the Gulf States. And now, of course, the predominantly young protestors of Tunisia have turned dream into reality by ousting their dictator Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali after 23 years at the helm.