A much wider game is being played in Tunisia
The importance of Tunisia
Tunisia on the surface might seem an unimportant country, but it is the one where, over the course of a decade, what has conventionally been known as the “Arab Spring”, and which some have preferred to call the “Islamic Awakening”, began, and is probably coming to a close.
Regardless of its political or religious matrix, the uprising against Tunisian President Ben Ali between December 2010 and January 2011, and his subsequent ouster from the country, launched a decade of popular unrest triggered by frustration, social injustice, oppression and bad governance that has subsequently shaken the entire Middle East.
The Tunisian transition
The relatively peaceful Tunisian “transition” was followed by much bloodier ones in Egypt, Libya and Syria. In the latter two cases, outright civil wars ensued with a very heavy toll. In the small Emirate of Bahrain, on the other hand, the insurrection of the Shia majority of the population was quickly suppressed with the “brotherly” help of neighbouring Saudi Arabia.
Together with Lebanon, Tunisia was, and probably remains, the Arab country with the most advanced civil society, and this may explain the peaceful transition between the authoritarian regime of President Ben Ali and the subsequent governments that were the expression of free elections, in which the Enhada Party, representative of the Muslim Brotherhood, played a prominent role.
From Tunisia to Libya
Obviously, Tunisia was and remains important for its peculiar position, as an essentially secular crossroads between Europe and North Africa and between the western and eastern Mediterranean but, above all, as a privileged observatory for what is happening in turbulent neighbouring Libya and as an important thermometer for the evolving complex dynamic between political Islam and democracy.
Despite all its limitations, and not a few setbacks, Tunisia seemed to be the sole success story of the Arab Spring until last July, when the President of the Republic, Kais Saied, carried out a coup d’état by dissolving parliament and assuming extraordinary powers after months of growing tensions over economic and social dissatisfaction with the government of Premier Hichem Mechici and the parliament presided over by Enhada’s leader, Rachid Gannouchi.
Saied, who is a professor of constitutional law, justified his decision by invoking Article 80 of the Tunisian Constitution, adopted in 2014. However, the interpretation and application of the aforementioned article would seem to have gone, in the opinion of the majority of jurists, far beyond its operative part.
The internal tension, moreover, shows no sign of abating. The heavy effects of the pandemic and the economic crisis, aggravated by a weak performance of the government and parliament, have offered easy arguments to President Saied and his many supporters in the country. There have been protests among the latter and the political forces that are strenuously opposed to the President’s choices, while the latter has recently spared neither inflammatory statements, nor irritating decisions such as the indefinite extension of the emergency measures, nor even potentially polarising solutions such as the planned recourse to a referendum, on whose possible regularity one would be entitled to harbour more than one doubt.
What should have been outraged reactions on the part of the international community, particularly the West, which should be very vocal in these situations in accordance with its proclaimed values, have so far resolved themselves into tenuous condemnations or even embarrassed silences.
It is not yet clear whether the developments in Tunisia are to be ascribed to a political degeneration due to the growing – and objective – internal tensions, or whether they should instead be traced back to the long-standing confrontation that divides the Arab-Islamic world and which sees Turkey and Qatar associated in supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt strenuously opposing it; a confrontation that has so far found its main battleground in the Libyan conflict. Tunisia could be the final piece in a settling of accounts that has already seen the “normalisation” of Egypt with the 2013 coup d’état that overthrew the government of President Mohamed Morsi, also an expression of the Muslim Brotherhood and the winner of Egypt’s first free elections in 2012.
An authoritarian involution
Regardless of the constitutional disquisitions, whether the reactions to the putsch are more or less feeble, and the real origins of the coup, Tunisia deserves attention because it represents yet another authoritarian involution in a region that, recent historical experience teaches us, generally results – in the medium to long term – in crises that are even more explosive and, in perspective, difficult to manage.
In a highly uncertain international situation such as the current one, with the persistence of the pandemic, the clouds of inflation and excessive debt hanging over the prospects of a vigorous revival of world economic growth, and a worrying resumption of competition between the great powers after the thirty-year unipolar US era, it might seem understandable that even the western democracies tend to privilege – as in the Tunisian case (but also the Egyptian case, for instance) – stability over the strenuous defence of their own values. This is a mistake. In the long run, it may become increasingly difficult to make, and above all to passively promote, a distinction between good and bad dictatorships on the basis of mere realpolitik.
Italy’s role and possible developments
For Italy, then, for easily understandable reasons, the events in Tunis represent a further complication in the management of the complex Libyan game, which has now become a very delicate junction of a great game in the eastern Mediterranean: a crossroads of conflicting interests that involve our country, France, Russia, Egypt, Turkey and even some Persian Gulf monarchies, and that invests the issues of security, energy supplies and migration, generated by now, as we know, not just for political and economic reasons, but also and above all for climatic reasons.
It would be imprudent, to say the least, as well as potentially counterproductive, to imagine managing the Libyan game while ignoring what is happening in its western neighbour. Any solution should therefore be sympathetic to, and most importantly be based on, a genuine commitment by the European Union to the various threats looming on its south-eastern borders.
At this historical juncture, Italy is fortunate not only to have a leader such as Mario Draghi, with a very high international reputation and credibility, but also the fact that in the European sphere – also due to the British self-exile with Brexit, the uncertainties of the post-Merkel period in Germany and the clouds that are gathering over the renewal of Macron in France next spring – he can boast a prestige that has rarely distinguished his predecessors in his current post. President Draghi should seize this opportunity, which is unlikely to arise again in the future, to promote a strong EU initiative that could also count on the growing Asian distractions of the United States and, why not, on France’s wounded pride after the badly handled affair of the submarines originally destined for Australia. President Macron, long on the campaign trail, is looking for a concrete test in which to effectively relaunch his country. The excellent relationship that binds the two leaders seems an ideal starting point for an initiative that would have positive implications for both of them and consequently for the EU as well.
A composition of the Tunisian framework that safeguards the achievements of the uprising ten years ago would seem to be a fundamental prerequisite for better addressing the difficult Libyan game and the much broader and increasingly worrying one concerning the Sahel. If such a possible EU initiative would also develop a strand dedicated to Lebanon, all the better.
As long as the EU is able to converge on a clear identification of the main external threats facing its members, starting from the awareness that these are much closer, geographically, than the prevailing geopolitical narrative claims, its strategic autonomy could also benefit. The latter also has every interest in ensuring that the dynamic between political Islam and democracy consolidates the use of the ballot box as a natural confrontational arena.
Tunisia offers this double opportunity, confirming itself as something much more important than a small North African country.
*Marco Carnelos is the CEO of MC Geopolicy and former Special Envoy for the Middle East
