Tunisia is going to the polls

 Tunisia: looking at election posters

Tunisie goes to the polls on Sunday. The country where the Arab spring originated is also the first to vote in a democratic election. The assemblee that is going to be elected has as its main task to write a new constitution. I wrote a post (here) at the beginning of the campaign, earlier this month, in which I mentioned the large number of parties (some 110) that are taking part and the amount of candidates (some 1500). All of them get three minutes on state tv to make themselves known, which altogether is good for many hours of  television.
Pomed (Project on Middle East Democracy) did a useful paper about the most important parties and the expected outcome of these first elections in a democratized Tunisia, for which a huge amount of publicity was done.


The site Naawat, which was one of the most important sites during the revolution in December - January, wrote a post (in French) about the importance of being aware that this is a different Tunisia, where people are not - as was the prevailing discours under president Ben Ali - are all pro-European liberals, but really different from each other, something most people don't so far to have grasped. He is what Nawaat wrote - forr a shortened translation, look below):
Avant la révolution, les tunisiens étaient de deux genres : les “khobzistes”, ces opportunistes tout lisses qui renonçaient à leurs convictions pour plaire à l’Etat, et les passifs, ces êtres creux qui préféraient ne croire en rien et suivre la mouvance. Aujourd’hui, on voit encore beaucoup de “khobzistes” et de passifs, mais on voit également des communistes, des salafistes, des laïcistes, des humanistes, des athés, des conservateurs etc. et la liste est longue.
Les tunsiens, de tous bords, semblent à peine découvrir le vrai visage de leur pays, sans le fard et loin des clichés mauves de la propagande de Ben Ali qui prétendaient que les tunisiens formaient un bloc monolitique et homogène composé de citoyens tolérants, modérés, ouverts sur l’occident, attachés à leur tradition et laïques…Les tunsiens, pour une bonne part, découvrent aujourd’hui leur société sous ses différentes facettes : du religieux radical, au laïque radical, en passant par une large frange composée de conservateurs et de modérés.
Les médias étangers, mais également pas mal de nos médias, semblent aussi être dans le même état de torpeur face à l’enchaînement rapide des évènements, et ne s’intéressent, par fénéantisme, qu’aux plus bruyants. Au lieu de chercher à comprendre les motivations profondes des uns et des autres, et leur réel impact dans la société, on nous ressort une bonne vielle recette benalienne éprouvée : la montée dangereuse de la fièvre salafiste qui menace tout le pays…et qui pourrait rapidement justifier tous les abus et les dépassements.
Les choses sont pourant un peu plus compliquées que cela, et la Tunisie n’est ni laïque et progressiste dans sa majorité, ni subitement envahie par les salafistes et par le voil intégral. C’est le fait de minorités, qui sont beaucoup plus visibles aujourd’hui, et determinées à s’exprimer et à réclamer l’espace qui leur a été confisqué. Quoi de plus normal dans ce cas que de voir des barbus et des conservateurs resurgir, à chaque fois que l’occasion s’y prête, en gardiens du livre et de ses règles sacrées? Ils sont dans leur rôle, comme leurs contradicteurs sont dans le leur quand ils défendent leurs propres convictions.

Women at an election rally of the islamist Ennahda Party. Ennahda is projected to bewocm ethe biggest party with 20-30% of the votes. (AP) 


(Short) translation:
Before the revolution there were two kinds of Tunisians, the 'khobzistes' (derived from the Arabic word for bread - khobz), opportunists who sacrificied their principles to please the state, and passive people, who prefered to follow the lead and not pay attention. Nowadays both tendancies still exist, but apart for them there are also communists, salafists, protagonist of a separation of religion and state,  humanistes, conservatives and much more. Most Tunisians still seem to have trouble to recognize their country, freed as it is from the clichés of the Ben Ali-era, which pretended that the Tunisiians were a homogenous lot, who were moderate, tolerant, open towards the West, not in need of a religiously oriented state and attached to their traditions. Nowadays the Tunisians discover that their society is much more varied: fanatical salafists at one end, fanatical believers in an non-religious state, and a bvariety of moderates and conservatives in the middle between the two.
The media, the Tunisian as well as the foreign media, don't seem to be able to understand very well what is happening and are using stereotypes from the ben Ali periode, talking as they are about the dangers of the rise of the salafist fever. However, things are a bit more complicated than that and the country is neither in majority progressive and in favour of a separation of religion and state, or all of a sudden in the grip of salafists and the (complete) veil. It is just that the minorities tak advantage of the possiblilities that were robbed from them for so long, to make themselves visible and claim their own space. What is more normal than that conservatives and bearded men use the opportunities to defend the rules that are sacred to them? And that others, who oppose them, do the same?