A Power Structure Built on Sand

Henry Srebrnik, [Summerside, PEI] Pioneer-Journal

Authoritarian states may appear powerful and stable when viewed from afar, but since they have little legitimacy, they are built on sand.

Their rulers rely on repression and naked force, and when these no longer work, their downfall is swift. We have just witnessed another example of this in the North African state of Tunisia, where president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has been toppled after 23 years in power.

Many observers were taken by surprise by this spontaneous uprising, perhaps because Ben Ali and the nomenklatura that ruled the country were more circumspect than neighbouring autocrats such as Libya’s mercurial Muammar Qaddafi (a supporter of Ben Ali’s, by the way).

Ben Ali’s regime was viewed as “friendly” towards the West, and he was in the good graces of the former colonial power, France. He also sought to curb Islamist extremism.

For many, that was enough; they thought it prudent to overlook some of the less savoury aspects of the regime, including the torture of political opponents by the security forces and the stifling of all dissent. As long as there was a veneer of political competition, including fixed elections, things were fine.

This is a country that has had only two presidents since independence in 1956. Habib Bourguiba, a westernized intellectual and leader of the nationalist movement against France, ruled until 1987, when, deemed too old and incapable of governing, he was toppled by Ben Ali.

But Ben Ali ran a kleptocracy. He and his wife, Leila Trabelsi, along with their families, amassed untold wealth, while Tunisia’s youth, including university students, found themselves without jobs or hope. It was only a matter of time until this would blow up in their faces.

It all began to unravel on Dec. 17, when a university graduate set himself on fire in Sidi Bouzid over the lack of jobs, sparking protests. Within a month, Ben Ali’s hold on power collapsed, with many of his cronies now arrested or killed.

This “jasmine revolution” was not the work of clerics; Tunisian Islamists had a minimal role in overthrowing Ben Ali. But Sheikh Rached Ghannouchi, the exiled leader of the Tunisian opposition Islamic Hizb al-NahdaParty, who is based in London, has stated that he plans to return to Tunisia shortly. The party was banned under the Ben Ali regime.

Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi has taken over as interim leader and pledged to release all political prisoners and to recognize the outlawed Communist and Islamic parties, as well as hold free, internationally monitored elections within six months, but, as a former member of the hated regime, it is unclear how much power he really wields.

The political situation in the country is in such a state of flux at the moment that all we know for sure is that the president has departed to Saudi Arabia and his wife to Dubai – though even as she was getting ready to leave the country, Trabelsi managed to get hold of 1.5 tons of gold ingots, worth $59 million, from the central bank.

Numerous groups in civil society and in the military are vying for control of the nation and the outcome remains far from certain.