Women's Rights Before and After the Revolution Monica
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1 Women’s Rights before and after the Revolution Monica Marks **NOTE: A version of this article appears as Chapter 10 in The Making of the Tunisian Revolution: Contexts, Architects, Prospects, ed. Nouri Gana. Edinburgh University Press (2013), pgs. 224-251. Those wishing to cite this article in peer- reviewed publications should refer to the above book edited by Dr. Nouri Gana. While Tunisians of all ages, class backgrounds, and religious persuasions united in opposition against Ben Ali’s sclerotic regime, their unity quickly collapsed when he fled on January 14, 2011. Simmering tensions between Al-Nahda and its secular rivals spilled into public debate, and dozens of new NGOs and political parties—some with just a handful of members—sprung up around the country. Amidst this clamorous atmosphere, Tunisian and outside observers struggled to predict how emerging political dynamics might affect women’s status. Women’s rights stood out as one of the most fiercely contested issues in the campaigning that preceded Tunisia’s October 23, 2011 elections, a somewhat surprising development given that economic malaise, corruption, and police brutality—not suppression of women—provided the impetus for Bouazizi’s suicide and the revolution itself. For competing political parties, however, women’s rights represented a useful wedge issue—one that could deflect attention from hastily constructed economic programs and isolate electoral opponents as either “too secular” or “too Islamist” to please the population at large.1 Despite the prominence of outspoken Nahdawiyāt (Al-Nahda women), flashpoint conflicts between Islamist and secular trends—over such issues as single mothers’ status and women’s supposed “complementarity” to men—have raised concern over the future of women’s rights. Seen through the distorting filter of Tunisian and international media, which focus heavily on such flashpoints, Islamism might seem to threaten Tunisian women’s rights more seriously than less discussed structural issues, such as the state’s historical monopolization of feminism or challenges arising from corroded legal and institutional frameworks. Press-oriented alarmist renderings have powerfully shaped the post revolution discussion surrounding women’s rights, overshadowing both historical context and critical institutional challenges facing Tunisian women. During the 2011 campaign, domestic media—largely untrained in the investigative arts of deep institutional or economics reporting—naturally tended to cover ideological conflicts more than substantive, platform-related differences.2 Western (meaning mostly French and English) media outlets similarly eschewed dryer coverage of socio- economic and institutional issues for comparatively marketable stories about whether Al- Nahda’s rise augured a setback for women. Though Western media generally applauded Tunisia as a regional leader on women’s rights before the revolution, coverage soured during mid-2011 as local campaign coverage grew more ideological in tone, Al-Nahda gained traction in the polls, and Tunisian feminist groups—stricken for a time by their proximity to the old regime— 2 recovered their voice.3 The deteriorating situation for women in Egypt also biased coverage on Tunisia. As Egyptian women began facing serious abuses in Tahrir Square during autumn 2011, Western journalists and analysts started giving short shrift to the specificities of Tunisian women’s situation, instead lumping them into an Egypt-centric narrative that characterized the Arab Spring as increasingly “bad for women.”4 Tunisia’s election results did not assuage such concerns. Instead, Al-Nahda’s 41% plurality, paired with Islamist victories throughout the region, stoked fears of bearded patriarchy for many local secularists and international observers.5 Ironically, 42 out of the 49 women elected to the 217-member Constituent Assembly represented Al-Nahda, in part because it was the only major party to fully respect the gender parity rules for electoral lists, and because it mobilized many female activists to win over undecided voters and get people to the polls.6 While female activists in Al-Nahda claimed the party’s victory opened doors for Tunisian women, critics warned it would wage an Iran-style war on women’s rights—mandating hijab and enforcing a separate spheres ethos aimed at returning Tunisia’s “femmes féministes” to their kitchens.7 Pitched competition between nahdawis (Al-Nahda supporters) and laicistes (supporters of a more aggressive French-inspired secularism, or ‘laicism’) has re-politicized historical narratives, blurring boundaries between fact and interpretation regarding Tunisia’s record on women’s rights.8 Some have painted Al-Nahda’s rise as a dramatic fall from grace—the tragic descent of a once secular, pro-women’s rights country into a backward regime run by Islamist misogynists. While the nostalgic appeal of this narrative remains powerful for many of Al-Nahda’s critics— particularly older feminists who remember the 1960s and 70s as unveiled decades—it oversimplifies a more complex historical reality in which Tunisia’s post-independence presidents manipulated women’s rights in conjunction with religious discourse to maintain one-party rule. This chapter seeks to contextualize the discussion regarding Tunisian women’s rights, injecting historical and institutional dimensions into what is often narrowly portrayed as a conflict between two supposedly dichotomous ideologies (‘Islamism vs. feminism’) . Special attention is devoted to the means by which Bourguiba and Ben Ali manipulated the intertwined discourses of religious authority and women’s rights long before the 2011 elections, as well as challenges posed by the weak state institutions they left behind. The first section explores three of the most salient themes that have characterized the modern Tunisian state’s relationship to women’s rights: pursuit of power, monopolization of women’s rights, and the performance-oriented nature of Tunisian state progressivism. Understanding these historical patterns will help contextualize contemporary, often politicized narratives and preview trends that may continue affecting the Tunisian state’s handling of women’s rights in the future. The second section focuses attention on challenges affecting women in post-revolutionary Tunisia, briefly highlighting six issues of importance to women’s rights in the transitional context: constitutional drafting, reform of the Personal Status Code, judicial reform, the rights of single mothers, transitional justice, and security reform. I argue that in the context of Tunisians’ efforts to forge a truly democratic polity, threats to women’s rights are more likely to stem from deeply embedded social norms and weak institutions than from deliberate machinations of Islamist ideology. 3 Religion and Women’s Rights: A Question of Ends and Means The divisiveness of the “woman question” during Tunisia’s 2011 election surprised many observers, but was not without precedent. Instrumentalizing women’s rights in service of political ends has been a hallmark of modern Tunisian power politics. As in many societies, women’s status and religious symbolism have represented intertwined repositories of traditional identity and legitimacy—compelling sources of cultural influence that politicians routinely draw upon in bids to shore up power. This section examines three crucial trends that have triangulated the relationship of state power, religious symbolism, and women’s rights in Tunisia: (1) state pursuit of political objectives; (2) state monopolization of women’s rights; and (3) the performance-oriented nature of seemingly progressive state policies. State Pursuit of Political Objectives The Tunisian state’s support for women’s rights and religious freedoms has tended to fluctuate as a function of shifting political objectives and threats.9 Presidents Habib Bourguiba (1957-87) and Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali (1987-2011) instrumentalized religious rhetoric and the women’s rights cause to consolidate power—a process that began even before Tunisia had won its independence. From the 1920s until independence, Tunisia’s nationalist leadership sought to maintain a unified front against the French, who had sought to marginalize veiling and other traditional practices.10 Modernists, such as Habib Bourguiba, made common cause with more religious nationalists like Saleh Ben Youssef and took a conservative approach to the women’s issue, emphasizing the importance of customs like veiling which, in Bourguiba’s words, constituted “the last defense of a national identity in danger.”11 Bourguiba encouraged women to wear the sefseri, a traditional white shawl drawn over the hair and entire body, as a means of consolidating cultural solidarity against the colonial occupier. The nationalist leadership likewise responded with swift condemnation when one woman, Habiba Menchari, attended a meeting unveiled, and exerted constant pressure on the women’s rights advocate, Tahar Haddad, to cease his activism.12 Nationalist leaders also made creative application of Islamic symbols and institutions. They routinely held meetings in mosques and zāwāyya (Sufi lodges) and urged Tunisians to pray for national martyrs five times a day.13 During this period, Habib Bourguiba adopted the religiously infused title al-mujāhid al-akbar (the supreme combatant) as he led Tunisians in a sanctified jihad, or struggle, against French colonial forces.14 When Tunisia became independent in 1956, however, Bourguiba gradually shifted strategy.