Tunisian Islamism Beyond Democratization
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Tunisian Islamism beyond Democratization Fabio Merone Dissertation submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor in Political and Social Sciences Promotor: Prof. dr. Sami Zemni 1 Acknowledgments This dissertation is the outcome of several years of work and research. Such an achievement is not possible without the help and support of many people. First and foremost, I wish to present my special thanks to Pr. Francesco Cavatorta. He met me in Tunisia and stimulated this research project. He was a special assistant and colleague throughout the long path to the achievement of this work. I would like to show my gratitude in the second place to a special person who enjoyed to be called Abou al-Mouwahed. He was my privileged guide to the world of the Salafist sahwa (revival) and of its young constituency. Thirdly, I would like to pay my regards to my supervisor, pr. Sami Zemni, that proposed to join the friendly and intellectually creative MENARG group and always made me feel an important member of it. I would like to thank also all those whose assistance proved to be a milestone in the accomplishment of my end goal, in particular to all Tunisians that shared with me the excitement and anxiety of that period of amazing historical transformation. Last, but not least, I would like to show my warm thank to my sweet daughter that grew up together with this research, and my wife, both paying sometimes the prize of a hard and tiring period of life. This research project was funded in several periods. In particular, I would like to show my gratitude to Gerda Henkel Foundation and the Baillet Latour fund that both generously granted me with scolarships. Without their care and funding, it was impossible to reach the goal. 2 3 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction 6 The academic debate and the research question 10 Understanding Islamism with Gramsci 20 The philosophy of praxis 29 Democratization as passive revolution 33 The Islamist modern Prince 38 Tunisianité as a conflicting frame of the nation 46 Discussing methodology 50 The practice of the research 59 Plan of the research and case-study 63 Data 65 Chapter 2: Nationalism and Islamism behind the Tunisian liberal compromise Introduction 68 4 Enduring class struggle in Tunisia: the fight for identity beyond political Islam 70 Post-scriptum 91 Chapter 3: The emergence of an Islamic Public and the reborn of Nahdha party Introduction p. 92 Moderation through exclusion. The journey of Tunisian Ennahdha from fundamentalist to conservative party” 94 Post-Islamism, ideological evolution and ‘la tunisianité’ of the Tunisian Islamist party al-Nahda” 122 Post-scriptum 145 Chapter 4: Rise and fall of the salafi-jihadi movement of Ansar al-sharia Tunisia Introduction 146 Between social contention and takfirism: the evolution of the Salafi-jihadi movement in Tunisia 148 Post-scriptum 175 Chapter 5: Nahdha party and the strategy of counter-hegemony Introduction 176 The new Islamic middle class 177 Chapte 6: Conclusion 198 Bibliography 205 5 Chapter 1: Introduction On 17 December of 2010, a young fruit seller set himself on fire in front of the Sidi Bouzid governorate’s building in protest against what he saw as police harassment. To the general surprise, Mohammed Bouazizi’s self-immolation triggered a widespread uprising across the country, which, within a few weeks, led to the overthrow of the long-serving president Ben Ali (14 January 2011). After the fall of the ‘dictator’, the political process of transformation began apace. Between January and February, a popular movement called the Casbah (I and II)1 placed the interim government led by Mohammed Ghannouchi under such pressure until a completely new government was formed and a new assembly created, replacing the parliament elected under Ben Ali. From March to October 2011, the political landscape began to take shape. For most of the political parties and civil society organizations, including the powerful trade union (Union Generale de Travailleurs Tunisiens - UGTT), revolution meant the final phase and accomplishment of the 1A general consensus was found once the RCD (the former party in power) was outlawed, a new assembly formed and a government under the leadership of Beji Caied Essebsi appointed with the mission of drafting a new electoral law and bringing the country to elections for the Cosntitutional Assembly. 6 political liberalization Ben Ali had promised in November 1987 when he came on power. It was the beginning of a transitional process to liberal democracy. After the elections of October 2011, the transition became instable, as a consequence both of the electoral success of the Islamist party al-Nahda and the rise of a radical Salafist movement in the streets of the country. The nationalist and left wing opposition questioned in fact the very legitimacy of the Nahda-led government. In 2013 episodes of street violence and the political assassinations of two left wing members of parliament further detsabilised the political scene. In July of the same year, the Egyptian military overthrew the elected Islamist president Mursi with the support of large sectors of the population. The following month, the Nahda party, fearing the same outcome in Tunisia, cut off its links with the Salafists and declared Ansar al-Sharia Tunisia (AST), the most important and embattled salafi group in the country, a terrorist organization, leading to its disbandment. With Nahda now firmly in the democratising camp, the new constitution was finally approved on January 2014 and the period of contention and constitutional transition came to an end with new parliamentary and presidential elections held according to the new rules.The anti-Islamist bloc came out on top in both percentage of votes and seats2 (Stepan, 2016). This period of change between 2011 and 2014 is the object of analysis of this research. Tunisia is here taken as a case study to illustrate and critically engage with the larger debates in the area studies of the Middle East and North Africa studies (MENA region) on the evolution of the paradigms of democratization and authoritarianism and to suggest how to go beyond them. This period of regime change, labelled ‘Arab spring’ or ‘Arab uprisings’, has renewed academic debates on the ‘politics’ in the region. After more than two decades of discussions on institutional politics focusing on state apparatuses, authoritarian power, ruling elites and traditional opposition forces, the re-politicization of the Arab scene brought back social actors (previously considered as passive or non-influential) to academic 2 Bourguibists together with liberal and left wing parties. The parliamentary election was held on 26 October 2014. The presidential election was first held on 23 November 2014; as none of the candidate won an absolute majority, a second round took place on 21 December. 7 attention (Pace and Cavatorta, 2012). This research goes in the direction of re- discovering politics in neglected spaces. While the actors considered are primarily Islamists, the place of the politics analysed is that public space where non-official actors engage in general. This period of contention and institutional re-building in Tunisia is one in which social groups arrive on the public scene and struggle for power and inclusion. This research, analysing Islamist movements at the time of regime change in Tunisia, asks the question of how to analyse correctly the political changes in the region and how to explain the ‘Islamization’ of politics in an open liberalised political space. Before going into the details of the academic debate and propositions of the thesis, however, some theoretical observations are necessary. First, the dissertation analyses the period from 2011 to 2014 as a period of democracy building. It considers however democratization in a rather different way from the traditional use in democratization studies. This brunch of political studies developed after the 1991 disintegration of the Communist block. Focusing on those countries ‘in transition’, they elaborated paradigms of political transformation that had as assumption the evolution of the political international system from authoritarian to liberal democratic. In my case, democratization means the inclusion of organized social groups into the public arena. As I will better develop later, democratization is better understood as a historical process of accomplishment of the national Tunisian project that accepts the social and political plurality of the nation- state. I see the most recent political transformation as one in which old historical mechanisms function again after being ‘liberated’ from an oppressive regime. Second, in order for this process to be accomplished, the inclusion of Islamist movements is necessary. Islamist movements in fact should be considered as a consequence and part of the process of nation building. Third, Islamist groups (salafist jihadi included), should be looked at as social- political actors. This is a logical development of the second premise, as Islamists movements play a key role in building the nation because they represent specific social groups. The research follows the evolution of the various Islamist movements (radical and institutional) for the period covered. The reason to focus on Islamists, and 8 specifically on Salafist-jihadis, is that they are the most significant social and political actor in terms of novelty and ability to bring new social groups on the post- revolutionnary scene. In order to understand social change in the country, Islamist movements have to be the focal point of study, without however falling into the trap of essentialism.This complex phenomenon in fact be placed into its context. A horizontal, sociological type of observation was necessary to analyse the social dynamics Islamist movements emerge from, accompanied by a vertical historical line to link the present to the historical path. The dissertation is divided in four sections.