Mounting Violent Unrest In Tunisia

For years January has always been a turbulent month in Tunisia, however this time around a new austerity plan from the government throws oil on the fire. The European Union should better monitor the situation very carefully because many young Tunisians think about migrating which will further engross the magnitude of the migrant waves to the Italian shores. This, in turn, will only exacerbate rising nationalism on the European mainland. Additionally, a vacuum of power in Tunisia would undoubtedly lead to a rise of islamic terrorist activities in the region given that neighboring Libya is already prone to chaos and intense islamic activity.

On this Monday in Tunisia, massive street protests and widespread violence erupted in twenty towns and cities resulting in the death of a civilian as well as the arrest of some 200 people. On the following day, Tuesday, more protests took place in several other cities whereby thousands of protesters plundered several public buildings and shops. In the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, these protesters threw Molotov cocktails at the famous Ghriba synagogue on Djerba, and the 'Fech Nestanoua' campaign ('What are we waiting for?') was announcing a new big protest for this coming Friday. The atmosphere in Tunisia is therefore bleak.

Especially among young people, consisting of many students who often end up with a status of so-called 'unemployed graduate,' dissatisfaction is at the highest peak seven years after the 2011 revolution. As a reminder, it is in Tunisia that the first widespread protests again dictatorial regimes started igniting the commencement of the so-called Arab Spring. 

Indeed, on January 14, 2011, the death of Mohamed Bouazizi, a street seller who set himself on fire in a protest over police harassment and unemployment, sparked an angry mob to remove the Tunisian dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali forcefully. The successful, famous rally was the first falling domino of the Arab revolutions. The fire then turned to Egypt, where Hosni Mubarak also had to leave. Moammar Gaddafi, in Libya, was even lynched. There were demonstrators in Iraq, Yemen, and Jordan, and a very nasty civil war broke out in Syria. Moreover, to top it off, these violent civil unrests constituted a fertile ground for Islamic terrorism in the entire region, of which ISIS has been the leading protagonist.

Ever since the years of the dictatorship, the domestic economic situation in Tunisia has remained complicated; tourism, which represents a significant part the local economy (cf. 15% of GDP in 2016), was hit by the three horrific attacks on Sousse beach and the Bardo museum in Tunis back in 2015. Tunisia, which has few resources and a well-educated but unemployed population (15.3% unemployment in September 2017), therefore needs investments to reboot its economy.

Last year, the Tunisian government signed an agreement with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) for a loan of around 2.3 billion euros, in exchange for austerity reforms. In return for the IMF support the government in Tunis put in place a package of socio-economic reforms consisting of a range of new savings measures, such as the price increase of petrol and a higher VAT on essential goods (cf. flour, cars, mobile and internet use). For many Tunisians that is the drop that makes the bucket overflow, and some of them bear a nostalgia for the old regime. They also accuse the current government of sailing too far into the fairway of Ben Ali's former dictatorial administration and failing to deal with endemic corruption.

That government, formed after the first democratic parliamentary elections in 2014, is a multi-party cabinet of both independents, the secular party Nida Tounes (the largest party in those votes) and the moderately Islamist Ennahda. The protest against government austerity measures is being pursued by, among others, the left-wing opposition party Popular Front, the traditional trade union UGTT in Tunisia, not to mention thousands of non-party affiliated Tunisians.

In general, the international community praises Tunisia for being the only successful democratic experiment to date in the context o the Arab Spring revolutions. However, it is unclear how the government will continue to deal with the never-ending waves of protests? Polls indicate time and time again that the Tunisians are not protesting against democracy as political system. However they expect better quality from their administration and, above all, they want to see real economic achievements, failing which these protests are bound to become uncontrollable. 

According to figures revealed by the Arab Barometer academic research project, half of the Tunisian youngsters between 18 and 24 years old would like to migrate. Additionally, the country has also produced significant numbers of recruits for ISIS. Europe should, therefore, better monitor the situation closely as the Italian shores are only a couple of hundreds of miles away.

Also, the neighboring countries of Libya as well as to a lesser degree Algeria are already prone to intense Islamic terrorist activities. Libya is indeed a significant headache for the government authorities in Tunis as despite the inter-tribal agreements that have stabilized Libya's border the situation remains very fragile, making Tunisia vulnerable to economic and political repercussions of the lingering conflict in Libya. For sure, ISIS supporters are working with smuggling networks to try to export the Libyan unrest to Tunisia.

Understandably, the political community in Tunisia is obsessed with jihadism. If that grows in Tunisia, it will create conditions that favors either a vacuum of power or a return to authoritarianism. In the meantime, the government in Alger is also keeping a watchful eye on the Tunisian situation as it knows how to deal with Islamic civil unrest in its own country.