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After you…

[ By Charles Cameron — democracy, Tunis, Islamism, Ghannouchi ]

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From The Guardian, Tunisians flock to voting stations for first taste of democracy in 50 years, Tunis, 23 October 2011.

When An-Nahda’s leader, Rachid Ghannouchi, who recently returned from 22 years exile in London, arrived at his polling station to vote, followed by camera crews, he walked straight to the entrance. But he was jeered by crowds, who said: “The queue, the queue! Democracy starts there!” He swiftly took his place at the back, adding: “The people have a hunger for democracy.”

Here’s hoping…

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Book:  Azzam S. Tamimi, Rachid Ghannouchi: A Democrat within Islamism, OUP (2001).

This entry was posted on Monday, October 24th, 2011 at 4:37 am and is filed under Arab Spring, biography, book, Charles Cameron, democracy, ideas, islamist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

One Response to “After you…”

  1. Charles Cameron Says:
    October 24th, 2011 at 9:29 pm

    Well, here’s Michael Collins Dunn of the Middle East Institute on what looks like it will be a Ghannouchi-led coalition government:

    Al-Nahda leader and chief thinker Rached Ghannouchi has always insisted that he supports Tunisia’s traditional openness on women’s rights and points (as do other Islamists these days) to Turkey’s AKP Party as a model of a party of Islamic roots but functioning within a secular society. Partly educated at the Sorbonne, he once dabbled with Nasserism, Syrian Baathism, and European-style socialism; he is not a stereotypical Islamist anymore than Tunisia is typical of other Arab societies. And he spent his years of exile not in Saudi Arabia or Yemen or Afghanistan, but in London.
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    Skeptics note that not everyone in Al-Nahda has always spoken as liberally as Ghannouchi, and one can cherry-pick quotes from Ghannouchi to raise alarms as well. Also, at 70, it’s not clear whether the younger Islamists in the party, who grew to maturity during the years Al-Nahda was suppressed by the Ben Ali government, share his liberality.
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    The other point to make is that these being the first elections in Tunisia or anywhere since the revolutions of 2011, it is hardly surprising the parties that existed (albeit in opposition and without power) under the old regime have a better chance of success: after all, if Ben Ali represeed them, they must be on the right track. There is plenty of nervousness among Tunisian secularists about what a strong poll by Al-Nahda means, but that’s because no one is really sure.

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