Tagged with Tunisia

Tunisia two years on: From hope to despair and back again

Two years ago Western backed dictator Ben Ali was removed from power in Tunisia.

Hope replaced desperation and ordinary Tunisian’s looked ahead to a new dawn of democracy and prosperity.

But fast forward to 2013 and hope has given way to despair with splits within political Islam, between the ruling “moderate” party and the extremist Salafists, widespread rioting, rising unemployment and multiple strike actions by trades unions with a general strike only  recently adverted after an 11th hour deal. Continue reading →

What will follow Gaddafi in Libya and beyond?

Less than 24 hours after the death of Gaddafi, thousands of people have already committed predictions for the future of Libya to print and/or cyberspace. Some of those indulging in speculation are more informed than others, but the simple reality is that nobody knows what happens next.

Although I have visited the country, and have conducted numerous telephone interviews with people in Libya over recent months, I do not profess any special expertise. Instead of offering an opinion, I will restrict myself to posing some fairly basic questions. Continue reading →

An age of revolt – in an age without a left

I remember the exact moment when I realised that I was living in a different era from the politically tranquil times I grew up in. It was in a lecture theatre at University College London, a week or so after the 52,000-strong student march. An impromptu ‘what next?’ meeting had been called, and the room was absolutely packed with undergrads. Baby-faced though I am, I was probably one of the oldest people there. Continue reading →

Egypt Revolts: Al-Jazeera Reports

Back in the 1960s, those who argued for military intervention in Indo China would often refer to the “domino theory”. If one pro Western Government fell to the Communists, the domino would fall, taking the next one with it and so on. The shakiest domino, after the fall of Dien Bien Phu and France’s scuttle from her former colony, was Vietnam. After Vietnam, would fall Laos, then Cambodia – and then Thailand. And so it largely proved to be. Continue reading →

Tunisia: test of Western protestations of democracy

Will Tunisia now herald the breakthrough to democracy for the Arab world?   Just as a small revolt in rural Hungary in 1989 sparked an interconnected  movement for freedom across the whole East European region, so an equally small but evocative incident in rural Tunisia has triggered a mass revolt   which may prove unstoppable across the bloc of authoritarian Arab states.   The issue however is: given Western interests throughout the oil-rich Middle East and visceral hostility to the spread of Islamic states, will the West allow this break-out to seek its own spirations to freedom or intervene as it did with such horrendous consequences in Algeria in the 1990s?