By John R. Bradley

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

The Tunisian revolution may appear to provide a beacon of hope for Arab pro-democracy activists, but lost in the coverage is that the corollary of greater democracy in the Arab world is always a greater role for Islamist movements. In this sense, there is a rich irony in the fact that the country’s deposed secular president, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, an avowed enemy of Wahhabi-style Islam, will be living out his remaining years in Saudi Arabia. But his choice of exile may also prove prescient. In the coming years, Tunisia’s remarkably liberal society will increasingly resemble that of Saudi Arabia.

When Tunisia gained independence from France in 1956, the new regime struck a bargain with its people: there would be limited freedom of expression, but in return for strong economic growth, a massive investment in education, universally free health care and, above all, equal rights for women. For decades, the regime, under President Habib Bourguiba, delivered on its promises, and there is no evidence that the regime, in contrast to practically every other regime in the Middle East, ever executed any of its opponents.

When the recent revolution broke out, the poverty level in the country was just 4 percent, among the lowest in the world. Some 80 percent of the Tunisian population belonged to the middle class. Tunisia’s education system ranked globally 17th in terms of quality, and seventh in terms of proficiency in math and science. Underpinning this undeniable social and economic development was the state’s unflinching secularism. In Tunisia, the veil is banned in public institutions, and polygamy is outlawed. Tunisia is the only Muslim country where abortion is legal. Frank sex education is compulsory in the country’s high schools. Mosques are shuttered outside prayer times. Every city even has a legalized and regulated red-light district.

So what brought the Tunisian masses out onto the streets? In short: WikiLeaks and a weakening economy. In a sense, the regime was a victim of the arrogance that grew out of its successes. In Tunisia, unlike in other Arab countries, the educated and extensive middle class expected the well-oiled bureaucracy that runs the country to live up to its historically high standards.

When the global economic crisis struck in 2008, Tunisia was not spared. And this occurred just when the number of highly qualified university graduates seeking jobs grew to 40,000 a year. The official unemployment rate in the country is 14 percent, not high by European standards, but among recent graduates it is now three times as high.

Then came a WikiLeaks cable that detailed extensive corruption among the president’s extended family. Clearly, the ruling elite had grown greedy, corrupt, and arrogant, just as the strong economic growth on which the loyalty of the masses depended became unsustainable. The historic Tunisian social contract, where the loyalty of the people was bought rather than earned, became untenable.

But in the short term, the revolution is certain to make the problems that it sought to address far worse. The country’s tourism industry is the lifeblood of the economy, and tourists are presently being evacuated en masse. The once-peaceful Tunisian streets are full of roaming gangs of thugs and looters. It could take years for the country’s image, and therefore its tourism industry, to recover, a fact that will plunge tens of thousands into immediate poverty. Foreign investors, the second pillar of the economy, are rethinking their plans, and rating agencies are already downgrading the country.

The related long-term danger is that the revolution will usher in the gradual demise of Tunisia’s wonderful secularism, which may lead to catastrophic results, especially for the country’s uniquely liberated women. The Islamists played no apparent role in the uprising. But large swaths of young Tunisians, in their desperation, were already turning to Islam before the recent protests began. The new regime, in the name of pluralism, has invited home all foreign-based dissidents, including “moderate” Islamists who want women veiled. Islamist political prisoners, convicted of having tried to overthrow the secular order, have been released from prison. While they now condemn violence, they also seek to impose a much more conservative form of Islam from below, one that is historically alien to the country.

These Islamist rabble-rousers are likely to find post-revolutionary Tunisia highly fertile ground for their agendas. In the past few years, more and more Tunisian women were anyway donning the veil, and the Koran could as never before be heard blasting from radios in taxis, restaurants, and local shops. The trend is likely to deepen as the young despair of a quick fix – democracy or no democracy – to economic woes. The revolution’s fervor will inevitably dissipate, and the fact is that the economic problems Tunisia is facing are no different from those that are plaguing societies in much of Western Europe as well as in the United States.

So while the Tunisian revolution may one day be celebrated as the moment when a democracy of sorts finally triumphed in the Arab world, it may also come to be lamented as the moment when a truly secular alternative to radical Islam in the Middle East went up in smoke.

John R. Bradley is an author, and among his books is “Inside Egypt: The Land of the Pharaohs on the Brink of a Revolution” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008). This commentary first appeared at bitterlemonsinternational.org, an online newsletter that publishes views of Middle Eastern and Islamic issues.