The civil society in the transition

Souhayr BELHASSEN Interview with UNDP

Civil society played a prominent and remarkable role in the institutional and democratic transition triggered by the departure of on 14 January 2011. The reason why stakeholders independent of the State and separate from any political group were able to be involved in this process from the start was that all the conditions for them to exist and act were in place, despite the constraints under previous regimes.

The national movement had, from the beginning, been defined by the notion of Destour: the Constitution. Destour thought takes the Law as its basis and is rooted in the reformist movement, which significantly pre-dates independence and whose efforts to transform society relied on laws and the strengthening of State institutions. The fundamental choices of the first President of the independent Tunisian Republic, , were decisive in shaping that transformation. His ascent to power marked the victory of the movement he embodied – a movement that was modern and open to the West, particularly France – over that of his opponent, Salah Ben Yousef, a nationalist, conservative current focused on the Arab and Muslim world.

The change in women's status and the universal implementation of coeducation would, along with judicial reforms (in particular the dissolution of Sharia courts), be the levers Bourguiba used to make Tunisian society different from that of any other state in the Arab world. The Personal Status Code promulgated on 13 August 1956, before the 1959 Constitution had even been adopted, abolished polygamy and legalized divorce. It was the fruit of a brand of State feminism which lasted nearly half a century. Following the uprising of 14 January 2011, that feminism turned into a movement to secularize society.

Between Liberalism and Protest: The Origins of Civil Society

This framework produced an open, educated elite, which dominated the functioning of the political system from the earliest years of independence, with Bourguiba making French-educated Tunisians the key players in shaping the society he wanted. Since then, those elites have formed an agora that uses its substantial weight to prevent any challenging of Bourguiba's chosen social model, accepted by a large proportion of Tunisians.

The flaws in the Bourguiba model quickly became apparent, however. It excluded any forces or individuals perceived as troublesome and ousted any opposition, be it from communists, Arab nationalists, the far-left or elsewhere. The system began to crack from the inside, after the collectivist choice of 1964 was rejected at the 1971 Congress of the Socialist Destourian Party (PSD) in Monastir. Some of the single party's high-ranking members, such as Defence Minister Ahmed Mestiri and Party Leader Hassib Ben Ammar, dissented. Ben Ammar helped to launch the Committee of Freedoms, a precursor of the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LTDH), and founded the opposition newspaper Erraï (The Opinion). Those initiatives laid the foundations for contemporary civil society.

The young left-wing opposition activists labelled "Perspectivists" – who were in prison at the time – rejected these organisations, which had sprung from an opening-up of society sanctioned by the regime. But when they were released from prison, some of them ended up moving into these spaces. This idea of moving into spaces conceded by the regime is a recurring theme among the Tunisian elite. The Neo- Destour party (founded by Habib Bourguiba in 1934) might not have admitted the existence of other political forces, but it did always try to include them. That logic of inclusion and negotiation, too, is part of 's intellectual and political tradition. In the country's modern history, a search for consensus has always prevailed. And the actions of civil society have followed the same pattern. Civil Society Cut Off from the Population

But that model was tested by Ben Ali's police state, which instrumentalized the modernizing project, allowing just a few associations to survive as shop window dressings for its own agenda. Civil society, however – chiefly the AFTD (Tunisian Association of Democratic Women) and the LTDH (Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights), which was more exposed because its work concerned the actions of the State and because its network was active countrywide – refused to play the game. The police state under which Tunisia lived for nearly 23 years, suppressed freedoms and human rights. The ruling party, the RCD, moved onto civil society's turf, using fake NGOs (nicknamed AGOs, or Actually Governmental Organisations) to spread its propaganda in favour of the repressive and impoverishing policies of the government, while genuine human rights activists and the rare independent associations to be given legal recognition, such as the LTDH and the ATFD, were systematically hounded and prevented from operating freely. Several associations were unable to secure legal status even though their work was recognized nationally and internationally, such as the National Council for Freedoms in Tunisia (CNLT), the Organization Against Torture in Tunisia (OCTT), the International Association in Support of Political Prisoners in Tunisia (AISPPT) and the association "Freedom and Fairness". Professional bodies and trade union associations were obliged to make pacts with power to avoid being banned or reduced to mere window-dressing.

The regime's representatives, organized into satellite associations and overseen by the political police, began to tail human rights advocates in Tunisia and beyond, not to mention the shameful campaigns conducted to systematically denigrate such individuals by crushing any attempt at mediation through associations, trade unions or political groups. Any form of protest or demand was brutally repressed by imprisonment, torture or even assassination. Despite these constraints, the actions of true activists remained etched in the people's memory, leaving them with a desire to speak out and organize, and thus serving as an example of political engagement that they might follow in the future. Civil society may have been worn out by the time the revolution came, but it had a knowledge and understanding of what was really happening in the country, as well as a national and international network of contacts often cultivated at disproportionate personal risk.

Gafsa 2008: The Dress Rehearsal

The revolt in the Gafsa mining area in south-western Tunisia provided the mould for the 2010-2011 uprising. It sprang from a spontaneous protest against a list of appointments marred by favouritism in Redeyef in January 2008, a reaction that gave form to the exasperation felt by the population. Very quickly, the local leadership of the UGTT (General Union of Tunisian Workers), a powerful trade union organization which the government had always tried to keep in its bosom without necessarily succeeding 100% of the time, began to coordinate the movement. Videos spread the news beyond the usual circles of activists.

Lawyers were the first to get involved, especially after the arrests of a first wave of trade unionists in March 2008, who were released in April after pressure from demonstrations and, in particular, the wives of the imprisoned activists. In June, however, the government's attempts to quash the uprising left one person dead and twenty-eight injured and, following a second wave of arrests, thirty-eight trade unionists were sentenced in a group trial held in November, during which many lawyers rallied to their cause.

For the first time, the population and civil society were operating hand in hand, with the actions they took firmly rooted in reality. Having started out as a local situation, the movement had now become a challenge to the regime, following a series of injustices which had made it intolerable. That uprising was quashed, but it served as a dress rehearsal for those of December 2010 and January 2011.

From an Opening-up of Politics to an Institutional Transformation

When the uprising began in Sidi Bouzid on 17 December 2010, the first to grasp what the events meant and to get involved in the movement were local lawyers and trade unionists, who had learned the lessons of 2008. Social networks, too, immediately seized on the event, creating the huge impact we all remember. The young people who brought such networks to life quickly demanded that the regime be brought down and the authorities found themselves overwhelmed by a movement they could no longer control. The authorities were caught off-guard by this unprecedented means of self-expression, and a lack of structure prevented it from recovering. Traditional civil society was discovering a new form of mobilization via social networks, which began with the protest against Internet censorship, nicknamed "Amar 404", in May 2010. We had not fully appreciated the extent of its influence.

When former ATFD president Bochra Bel Haj Hamida was invited to appear on the Nessma TV channel on 31 December, on a programme devoted to Sidi Bouzid, where had set himself on fire a few weeks earlier, we understood that the authorities were taking the crisis seriously and that they needed to give a sign that they were opening up in order to put minds at rest.After Ben Ali's departure, Foued Mebazaa, President of the lower house since 1997, became President of the Republic in accordance with the Constitution. He kept Mohamed Ghannouchi on as Prime Minister and reappointed some of Ben Ali's ministers, thus preserving a sense of institutional continuity. The first government he proposed was even supposed to include a few figures from the opposition and from the UGTT, who ultimately changed their minds the next day.

Traditional civil society continued to hang on the coattails of the small opposition parties. A few hours after the dictator fled, the premises of the LTDH in Tunis and in inland towns and cities were finally free to open their doors after years of being obstructed and surrounded by the police. On 15 January 2011, the heads of the most representative NGOs were invited to Government headquarters by the Prime Minister to be consulted on the first measures to be taken. At their suggestion, the first laws adopted by the first post-Ben Ali cabinet meeting on 1 February 2011 concerned freedoms: a law establishing a general amnesty for all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, and laws approving Tunisia's accession to the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, the Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and the Optional Protocol to the International Convention Against Torture. A number of laws guaranteeing human rights and freedoms would follow.

At this stage, Ben Ali's departure had led only to an opening-up and to new power-sharing arrangements and the makeshift solutions Mohamed Ghannouchi attempted to introduce were untenable. Constitutional continuity was completely at odds with what was happening in the street, where the revolution continued. On 23 January, a "Caravan of Freedom" from an inland region converged on the Kasbah, in front of the Prime Minister's offices, to demand a government without any representatives of the old regime. That was secured on 27 January. After the Ghannouchi 2 government was formed, a National Council for Safeguarding the Revolution was created. It comprised 28 organizations, including the UGTT trade union, the PCOT (Communist Party of Tunisian Workers) and the Islamist party, Ennahdha. The Council was demanding a clean break from the old regime and began to float the idea of a constituent assembly.

On 22 February 2011, a second rally was held in front of the Kasbah to make those demands. Traditional civil society, however, did not subscribe to the aims of Kasbah 2, believing that Mohamed Ghannouchi's resignation would create a dangerous vacuum. In the end, the interim President, Foued Mebazaa, accepted Mohamed Ghannouchi's resignation on 3 March 2011 and appointed Béji Caïd Essebsi, who quickly came down in favour of electing a Constituent Assembly and dissolving the RCD. The constitutional continuity model had lasted no more than six weeks. The revolution was a movement without any organizational oversight: it was the street which dictated its agenda. But ultimately, the Law remained the tool that would make a transformation possible, through demands for a new Constitution.

The Higher Authority: From Institutional Change to Consensus

The National Council for Safeguarding the Revolution, which comprised members of Islamist civil society – now a political stakeholder – together with opposition figures such as Ahmed Néjib Chebbi and former Destour members such as ex-trade unionist and Bourguiba minister Mustapha Filali, had a political objective: to draw a line under the institutions of the First Republic. In this configuration, civil society was in danger of being marginalized. The Council could not be allowed to remain exclusively in the hands of the Arab nationalists, the Islamists and a few Destourians. It was in this spirit that the Higher Authority (or, to give it its official title, the Higher Authority for the Realization of the Objectives of the Revolution, Political Reform and Democratic Transition), was created. The Authority was gradually expanded to incorporate 155 members, including all the men and women who had led the ATFD and the LTDH, as well as representatives of Islamist civil society.

The Higher Authority was made up of twelve parties, around twenty associations, including lawyers' groups, the UGTT and prominent national figures. It was not guided by any programme or any political formation. But the prevailing idea within the Higher Authority was that there should be no hasty action to root out all the former RCD members, and that we should keep what had worked. In short, there should be a return to consensus. Yadh Ben Achour, who was initially responsible for the Higher Commission for Political Reform created in the dying days of the Ben Ali regime, was appointed as the body's chair. This eminent lawyer and moral authority formed a committee of experts around him to work on a draft Constitution. The fact that the people working on the country's future were lawyers from the Faculty of Law was ultimately fairly well received by most elements of the political sphere and in particular, civil society. For the first time, civil society was playing an active role in law-making. It was a driving force behind the main texts staking out the path to democracy during this initial period of the transition: historic decree-laws such as the one that created the first Independent High Authority for Elections, the one on the organization of the first free and open elections in Tunisia, those concerning the organization of associations, political parties and freedom of the press, and the one on the media which created the sector's first independent regulatory authority (INRIC).

Freedom of speech flourished. Six new television channels and twelve new radio stations were created. As of 24 September 2011, total freedom to form associations was guaranteed and such associations were free to finance themselves as they saw fit. As a consequence, several thousand associations came into being, covering virtually all fields of activity. They included NGOs for the defence of human rights, development, women, young people and the environment, cultural NGOs, and NGOs representing ethnic or religious minorities. A large number of international organizations set up a base in the country after the decree-law on associations granted foreign organizations freedom to found branches in Tunisia.

An unprecedented political construction, the High Authority was the legislative body, but also the strongest authority, because of the dual legitimacy it derived from being a product both of the revolution and of civil society. Its members could speak freely, and the microphones were certainly kept busy, though the debates were not always fully controlled. There existed a civil society that was ready to address any subject with a willingness to create something new. So it was that one of the High Authority's landmark decisions was the adoption of the principle of gender equality on electoral lists, nevertheless, the workings of the High Authority were dominated by wheeling and dealing among parties. Each part of the debate was chaired by one formation or another. The Islamists of Ennahdha, among others, stormed out when they were unable to take control of the High Authority.

The frustration of those who wanted a genuinely revolutionary new beginning was real. Neither civil society nor the opposition parties took responsibility for addressing this. Those who wanted to challenge the consensus were in the street, as was the case during the attempt to organize a Kasbah 3 rally on 15 July 2011.

Avoiding chaos and maintaining consensus has a price. It was undeniable that the High Authority reproduced the same exclusion mechanisms that had sparked the revolution in the first place. The young people who were the first to go out on the streets and protest had found themselves on the front line against repression, but remained excluded because they had no one representing their voice in civil society or in the parties. It was the political elites and the representatives of civil society on the High Authority, conscious of the economic and social stakes involved, who voiced the concerns of the underprivileged. As for social network activists, they were quickly marginalized either because they refused to take part or they did not properly understand how this assembly worked. The High Authority period ended with the first free elections in Tunisia's history, held on 23 October 2011 by the new Independent Authority for Elections (ISIE). The sixteen members of that Independent Authority as well as those of its regional branches were all drawn from civil society. The 217 members of the Constituent Assembly were elected to almost universal approval, without any notable challenges.

The Constituent Assembly: The Battle for a Civil State

The National Constituent Assembly (NCA) election of 23 October 2011 gave civil society the opportunity to mobilize in an unprecedented manner and to play its role in the field. Access to funding with the help of international experts enabled traditional associations such as the LTDH and the ATFD, and new ones such as Doustourna, ATIDE or the Tunisian Economic and Social Forum, among others, to form rapidly in order to observe the elections and pursue other tasks.

Obviously, however, it was during the drafting of the Constitution that civil society was to play a fundamental political role. Civil society rallied to defend a constitution that established a democratic, civil state, recognizing total equality between men and women and based on universal and indivisible human rights.

The draft Constitution produced by Yadh Ben Achour's group of experts was rejected, and very quickly, Ennahdha sought to impose its own vision, proposing from the very beginning of the constitutional committees' work that Sharia should be the source of the Law. Civil society sensed a real danger. It was fighting for survival, but the focus of its battle was to change. It was used to fighting for funding or for access to a meeting room. Now it had to fight for a modern and democratic Constitution in a daily struggle in which every inch of ground would be fiercely contested. It would have to be organized in order to face up to the theocratic threat and ensure a republican Constitution. During the committees' debates, some members of parliament, particularly those of El Massar, the former Communist party, alerted the outside world to some of the draft articles being considered for the Constitution. The press played an informative, explanatory role. Public opinion seized on the debates. Associations dissected the articles and made counter-proposals. The power struggle now transcended the walls of the Assembly.

The debate on freedom of speech was happening both within the text and in real life. While the Constituent Assembly were discussing limiting it by outlawing blasphemy or establishing rules of public decency, legal action was brought against newspapers such as Ettounsiya, which in March 2012 published a bare-breasted woman on its front page. The trial of the Mahdia atheists who shared a text on atheism on Facebook began at the same time. Meanwhile, Ennahdha wanted to control the media, and a sit-in was organized in front of the headquarters of the public television network to demand the sacking of certain journalists. This was a fundamental battle, as without the media, civil society would be denied freedom of speech and that would obviously have an influence on the drafting of the Constitution.

The power struggle was happening in the streets, too. On 25 February, a demonstration was held in support of the UGTT, which had become the opposition's driving force. In Islamist civil society, the boundary between citizen action and violence was never clear. Since their election victory, the Islamists had felt that they were in a strong position to impose their vision. This could be seen during a Salafist sit-in at the University of La Manouba, demanding that women be allowed to wear the niqab, which culminated on 7 March 2012 with confrontations with students from the UGET (the General Union of Tunisian Students) and a Salafist attempt to replace the Tunisian flag with an Islamic flag.

These movements hit their height on 23 March 2012, during a rally of Islamist civil society in favour of Sharia law on Avenue Habib Bourguiba. Hundreds of young people stormed the National Theatre. Shortly before that protest, had announced that his party was no longer demanding that Sharia be mentioned in the Preamble of the Constitution and would settle for a reference to Islam in Article 1. But the civil nature of the state had yet to be clearly established. The confrontation continued.

Following the violence of 23 March 2012, the Ministry of the Interior banned demonstrations on Avenue Habib Bourguiba. On 9 April, the day commemorating the quashing of the nationalist demonstrations of 9 April 1938, civil society and the opposition defied the ban and took to the streets for a march. The reaction of the police that day was brutal. It was a huge political error by Ennahdha. The government had gone too far. They understood that it would be impossible to silence civil society and street protests.

The debate then focused on the issue of women. The idea of a reference to the "complementarity" of men and women, mentioned in one of the Constituent Assembly's committees, would trigger one of the largest demonstrations of the period, on 13 August 2012, Women's Day, right in the middle of Ramadan. It took place in a calm atmosphere, and from then on, liberal civil society regained the upper hand.

Civil Society as a Source of Ideas

In this battle over the status of women, the secular nature of the State itself was at stake. The possibility of an Islamicized legal system could not be discounted. In December 2012, 650 organizations met in Monastir for the Civil Society Convention, where they debated the Constitution and proposed their own text. In a crucial moment of "institutional" visibility, a meeting was organized at the Assembly between elected politicians and representatives of civil society, and a national consultation then took place in the regions.

As soon as the NCA was set up, a coalition government dubbed "the Troika" (a coalition of Ennahdha, the Democratic Forum for Work and Freedoms (FDTL) and the Congress for the Republic (CPR)), reflecting the majority produced by the election of 23 October 2011, was formed and won the confidence of the NCA. The economic difficulties, the security challenges, certain partisan appointments in the senior civil service, and a patent failure to bring a halt to the violence of certain militias suspected of being the armed wing of the Islamist party were the factors contributing to an acute crisis between the ruling Troïka, the opposition and part of civil society.

The assassination on 6 February 2013 of the political leader and fierce opponent of the plans of Ennahdha and its allies, lawyer , shook the 2nd period of the transition to its core. The resignation of 's government and its replacement by a government led by Ali Larayedh and the Islamist party Ennahdha did not defuse the crisis, but exacerbated it, as a terrorist maquis established a lasting presence in the mountains of the west of the country, near the border with Algeria.

On 1 June 2013, the final version of the draft Constitution was submitted after a host of consultations between the various committees and the body responsible for harmonizing the entire text, and it bore the hallmarks of Ennahdha. The administrative appeal procedure introduced by the El Massar Assembly members to challenge Ennahdha's power to introduce innovations led to a political and legal impasse. A Consensus Committee was created to overcome these stumbling blocks. This new body reproduced the political balance of power that existed in the streets at institutional level, with all groups equally represented.

After Morsi was deposed in Egypt on 3 July and opposition member of parliament, Mohamed Brahmi, was assassinated on 25 July 2013, an impressive sit-in calling for the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly was held in front of the Assembly's headquarters at the Bardo Palace. This broke the deadlock and stabilized the balance of power. Four days after the assassination of Mohamed Brahmi, the UGTT launched an initiative "for national dialogue" with three other major organisations: historic employers' organization UTICA (the Tunisian Union for Industry, Commerce and Crafts), the LTDH, and the Council of the Tunisian Bar Association. The quartet established a roadmap which included the resignation of the Ennahdha government and its replacement by a government of independents, who would commit not to stand at the upcoming elections. The negotiations succeeded, just on 19 December, enabling the Constituent Assembly to get back to work. The quartet continued to make sure that all the points of its roadmap were executed and that all stakeholders were involved in the management of the country's affairs until the elections that would complete the transition.

The final part, the plenary debate in January 2014, was not exactly a walk in the park. Tribute must be paid to the work of associations like Al Bawsala, which provided real-time information about the Assembly's work, so that the media could report on the debates, and about the articles that were to be put to the vote, to rally MPs. When, for instance, an amendment was proposed to give the national education system the task of strengthening the country's Arab-Muslim identity, Yadh Ben Achour spoke to the media that very same evening to explain why such a provision was dangerous. Associations were able to work with members of parliament within the NCA, secure provisions on which citizen movements could build and achieve social progress, concerning the transparency of energy contracts under Article 13 of the Constitution, for example.

The big battle was over Article 45 (which became Article 46 in the final version) which not only establishes an obligation for the state to work to achieve equal representation of men and women on all elected councils, but also guarantees equality of opportunity in all fields, and provides for the strengthening and development of women's rights. "Horizontal parity", i.e. male-female parity among the top candidates on regional electoral lists, was not obtained during the drafting of the electoral law.

In the end, the constitutional text adopted on 26 January 2014 reflects the political divisions of Tunisian society. It rules out theocracy, but is full of ambiguity. In particular, Article 6, which deals with freedom of speech, mentions violations of the sacred and makes the state of religion. The Constitution leaves future legislators quite considerable room for manoeuvre, including the possibility of retracting on freedoms already granted. Civil society's struggle certainly did not end when the Constitution was adopted.

After the Transition: Challenges and Transformations

Civil society underwent fundamental change during the course of the transition. It diversified as new questions arose. Any subject and any sector of society could give rise to a mobilization. The creativity and responsiveness of civil society were both surprising and joyful. Surprising, because in the space of four years, a society that had been oppressed for decades literally exploded, affecting not only the civil and political domains, but all areas. We could mention the two World Social Forums held in 2013 and 2015, as well as action on the disabled, the environment, and the restoration of historic sites. And joyful, because it guarantees a more open and more democratic future through more equitable sharing of power.

The future of civil society at the end of the transition will also be determined by access to resources. Will the diversification of funding sources be sufficient to meet the surge in demand resulting from the proliferation of civil society organizations since the uprising? It is tragic to see how financial backers are forcing civil society organizations to compete with one another. After the revolution, funding was poured in a sometimes haphazard fashion. Those inflows will dry up, because Tunisia will fall out of fashion, and civil society will go through a crisis, just at the point when the harmonization of the country's laws with its Constitution looks like becoming an important battlefield.

Civil society has become more professional and can now realistically target its goals. Issues can now be tackled without having to raise the question of the political system. Civil society groups no longer need to surround themselves with an armada of lawyers and personalities in order to take action without risking police retaliation. Associations are no longer obliged to devote all their energy to defending their right to exist and their space to work. Independent players are no longer seen as a threat. Today, the state no longer tries to appropriate every initiative so as to prevent the creation of spaces for action outside of the single-party state. Associations no longer have to swear allegiance to the government. These are radical changes. Civil society, it should be noted, has often done the state's work for it, and it is high time the state took up the work of civil society through legislative reforms and new structures.

The state no longer defines the lines of citizen mobilization and civil society is now able to express itself autonomously. The first question is how the state will manage this freedom without impinging on freedom of association or distorting civil society. The danger is that associations could be formed to serve the interests of Salafists and even terrorist cells. The Islamists have been able to develop a number of associations linked to the Ennahdha party, which take on high-risk initiatives such as creating kindergartens with expose children to Islamist ideology from a very early age. And that is not to mention the "dummy" associations used by some parties to access funding they are prohibited from receiving or to act as fronts for jihadist organisations. The second question concerns the representation of marginalized groups. Civil society has achieved only very partial success in taking account of their demands: the issue of the martyrs and wounded of the Revolution, for example, finds very little support in civil society.

All the energy that civil society had to invest over the years in fighting to exist and negotiating to avoid being swallowed up by the state meant that it simply did not have the time to establish a presence on social issues. The lack of such a presence is rendered all the more crucial by the fact that the future influence and credibility of civil society depend on it. There is a danger that traditional associations, and even new ones, will not have the capacity to take on board radical demands. The fundamental change, then, could lie in the capacity of sectors that have so far been excluded to create organized spaces in which to make themselves heard and take action.