Kristine Goulding UNRISD, Geneva May 2011 Fear the Islamists, and the secularists too? Tunisian women in post-Arab Spring electoral politics Kristine Goulding United Nations Research Institute for Social Development Geneva, Switzerland

It’s Pavlovian—invariably, whenever democratization in the Middle East is discussed, the question of the role of women looms large, stirring the passions of the media and politicians alike. The question on everyone’s mind is: will democracy be good for women’s rights? Unfortunately for those who hope for a simple yes or no, the answer is—as always—far more complex.

While social movements like those currently gaining momentum in the Middle East and North Africa can help to open the door for democracy, ofttimes revolutions do not universally benefit women’s rights. While politically and socially Arab women doubtless have been crucial intermediaries in the revolutions that have shattered the status quo, their role in the future development of their own countries remains unsure. In contrast to startling—and vivifying—images of flag-waving, photo-burning female protesters taking over Avenue and Tahir Square in January and February, remarkably few women have been included in the transitional governments of and Egypt; two in Tunisia (fewer than the number serving under ousted strongman Ben Ali), and none in Egypt.

Auspiciously, the most recent winds of revolutionary change appear to be blowing in a favourable direction for Tunisian women. The high commission responsible for planning the elections in July has voted for parity between men and women in the candidate lists for the elections—the first step in establishing a clear-cut position for women to help build a nascent government and constitution. Yet questions still linger regarding the role that different political parties—notably the Islamist al-Nahda party—stand to play in the democratic transition. What will the council’s new decree mean for the rights of women under new (hopefully) democratic leadership? Will the last decade’s positive trends of progressive women’s rights persist, or will the rights of women emerge as a divisive issue that is at best bracketed, placed on a back shelf and left out of the debate?

This analysis will focus on the unsettled place of Tunisian women in post-Jasmine Revolution politics, and risks that both Islamist and secularism agendas bring for women’s rights in the upcoming elections. The fear is that Tunisian women will be sucked into an ideological tug-of-war over their rights, reducing the complexities of democratization into a binary secular/non-secular battle.

Historical Lessons Learned

Valentine Moghadam, an expert in social change and movements in the Middle East and North Africa, describes the first months in post-revolution Tunisia as an example of a “democracy paradox”—a post-protest period of democratic freedom that simultaneously witnessed the disappearance of women’s equality. The lack of female voices in Tunisia’s transitional government seemed to be an early warning sign of a lurking trend of exclusion. Moghadam argued that: "Unless women and women's groups are visible during the negotiations and invited to be part of the new leadership, Kristine Goulding UNRISD, Geneva May 2011 a nation's new sense of freedom may not be shared by all."1 Resolving such inequality would require a dual strategy, involving significant advocacy from women's organizations as well as a push from women already involved in the government. The post-revolution atmosphere in Tunisia, however, has not been especially conducive to such a rosy and clean-cut transition, nor to the participation of either individual women or coalitions; rather, the process has been messy, chaotic and wrought with pitfalls for women and their rights. Massive structural impediments hindered the political mobilization of many women, and it took time for them to catch up to the fast-moving political game. It seemed in the first weeks of independence that, despite the high hopes for nationwide democracy, the recognition of the interests of women was fast slipping away.

History has shown alarming numbers of examples of democratic paradoxes, cases in which progress on women’s rights experienced regressions or even full-blown reversals when revolutions occur. Before the revolutions in Central and Eastern Europe during the early 1990s, women were guaranteed seats in parliament through a complex quota system established by the Communist party. When the communist governments collapsed, however, women were not supported as candidates in the new democratic elections and the proportion of female officials declined from an average of 30 percent to less than 10 percent—a backlash against mandatory participation that observers have called an "allergy to feminism." 2 Post-revolution Iran witnessed a disastrous truncation of women’s rights, despite the pivotal role that women played throughout the 1970s anti-monarchy protests. Notwithstanding advances in education and vibrant street politics, currently women are nearly non-existent in Iranian state politics. In Algeria, women were active agents in the 1962 revolution, fighting beside men, planting bombs, carrying weapons, and nursing the sick and wounded on the fighting fronts. Yet the dictates of the 1984 Family Code, subsequent conservative amendments, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism slashed their rights and left them as minors under the law.3 Although women have played important roles in struggles for national independence and have been used as symbols of nationalism in countries from El Salvador to Nicaragua, and from Vietnam to the former Yugoslavia, often they have found that despite progress in the processes of “democratization”, their rights have been left behind.

Hopefully, this refractory pattern will not soon be repeated in Tunisia. Thus far, Tunisia has begun to buck the trap of democratic backsliding for its women, and hopes are high both domestically and internationally that Tunisian women will be able to reap the benefits of their struggles. Most recently, the High Commission for the Realization of Revolutionary Goals, Political Reforms and Democratic Transition— the coalition of more than 150 politicians and civil society actors tasked with examining the laws related to political organization to keep with the demands of the revolution—has voted for electoral list parity, with male and female candidates listed in succession and in equal numbers.4 This radical move will in essence guarantee 50 percent female political participation, a fresh kind of revolution for women in the Middle East. The council also provides for the invalidation of the list if parity is not achieved. Surprisingly, the decree was welcomed by all members of the High Commission, including representatives of the Islamist group al-Nahda.

Further constitutional guarantees of women’s rights and political representation will be discussed following the elections in July 2011. However, whether there will be a Kristine Goulding UNRISD, Geneva May 2011 constitutionally-mandated universal quota for women candidates, or individual party quotas (as was the case in the past), remains to be seen. Moreover, what these developments mean pragmatically for the future of women’s rights and political participation is still unclear, and stands to be influenced strongly by religion and outside political powers.

Tunisian Women, pre- and post-“Arab Spring”

Traditionally, the expansion of Tunisian women’s citizenship rights has happened at the whim of the state, with the ruling party acting as the chief agent of change in legislation and administration of gender equality. Rather than relying on popular mandate, the government made a policy of abolishing independent women’s associations, where they existed, instead setting up women’s organizations that were generally docile auxiliaries of the state (as was also the case with all other civil society bodies). The ruling RCD also eliminated the opposition ruthlessly—and none more stringently than grass-roots Islamist opposition movements like al-Nahda. Nonetheless, women’s juridical rights were expanded and their public presence gained greater legitimacy under the banner of national development.

As time passed, however, the “state feminisms” that underwrote the developmental agenda of the ruling party’s regime narrowed around an increasingly-restrictive agenda of economic development, secularization and regime re-entrenchment. Women who had previously occupied a broad spectrum of political positions found themselves operating in an increasingly restricted discursive field, faced with an institutionalized fear of the region-wide rise of conservative Islam. The phase of state- led development, nonetheless, left behind cadres of educated, professional women who continued to be active in women’s movements alongside a diverse and savvy younger generation of women, both religious and secular.

A final set of perverse incongruities was established when women’s movements encountered the so-called “democracy promotion” agenda of the international donor community (especially the US and France). Compliance with gender conditionalities—such as creating dedicated national machineries inside the state to monitor gender equality or increasing women’s political representation through gender quotas—represented a relatively soft option for Ben Ali’s authoritarian regime, instead of moving towards more genuine democratic participation and a social justice agenda. Progress on women’s rights issues could thus be deployed as the democratic facade of non-democratic regimes. In the process, it is possible that feminism and gender equality may have also become tainted by its association with an authoritarian regime (although it is too early to tell).

For three decades, women’s rights were former-president Ben Ali’s bulwark against Islamists at home, as well as his alibi with Western governments inquiring about human rights abuses—an alibi most were happy to accept. But it appears that this strategy came back to haunt him. “The men and women marching for democracy last month were all the children and grandchildren of women who had grown up with an education and a sense of their rights,” said Fatma Bouvet de la Maisonneuve, a Tunisian psychiatrist who lives in . “It’s no coincidence that the revolution first started in Tunisia, where we have a high level of education, a sizeable middle class Kristine Goulding UNRISD, Geneva May 2011 and a greater degree of gender equality,” she said. “We had all the ingredients of democracy but not democracy itself. That just couldn’t last.” 5

From the onset of the protests in December 2010, women played an active and visible role as bloggers, journalists, Tweeters and demonstrators. “Women massively participated in the [Jasmine] uprising to make sure their demands would be taken into account, that they would get to be represented in post-revolutionary political institutions,” says Souhayr Belhassen, president of the International Federation for Human Rights and herself a Tunisian.6 Rather than passively watching the revolution, women educated by the government, encouraged to become economically, socially, and politically active by the government, and with more tools of social media at their finger tips than any previous generation in Tunisian history, flooded the streets of Tunisia—much to the delight of Arab and Western media.

And yet, following the flight of Ben Ali on 14 January 2011, women and their interests were quickly sidelined. “Women strongly resent the fact that though they participated in the nationalist struggle against colonialism, they were largely forgotten once independence was obtained”, recounted Belhassen. The majority of the women in the pre-revolution government were RCD members and therefore tainted with the stain of Ben Ali’s RCD politics. Summarily, large numbers were excluded from early bureaucratic processes. Women’s organizations that had benefited from massive state patronage floundered in the first weeks of the Jasmine Revolution, and had to scramble to catch up. The largest women’s organization in the country (which provided aegis to the majority of other feminist movements), La Union Nationale De La Femme Tunisienne, was headed by the president’s wife Leila Trabelsi. When she fled, the union and its activities fell into disarray. Restructuring and creating a new leadership base took time, and as a result there were markedly few female candidates appointed to the transitional goverment. Consequently, critics worldwide echoed fears that that women's rights and reforms to gender discriminatory laws would be undermined if women were not part of the transitional commission. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned in an interview that, “The ability of Tunisian women to participate in the decisions that will shape their nations’ futures will go a long way toward determining whether democracy actually takes root in North Africa.”7

The new political roadmap unveiled by the transitional government - inclusive of women in unprecedented ways—has allayed some of the fears that had begun to poison the national discourse. And yet threats to women persist, none stronger than democracy itself. A genuine democratic system will have to include all contending voices, however ill-intentioned, radical or detrimental to women they may be—which means that the people of Tunisia will, for the first time, have to face the rising tide of conservative Islam that has permeated the country. Coming to terms with the battle between secularism and Islam—a dispute long complicated and exacerbated by Ben Ali’s rabidly secular policies—will possibly also mean a redefinition of women’s rights. What kind of re-edification, and what it will mean both for the new constitution and the future of electoral politics, is not yet certain.

The Spectre of Islamism

The Islamic bogeyman that has haunted policymakers and partially defined Tunisia’s one-party state agenda since independence in 1956, poses a particular challenge to the Kristine Goulding UNRISD, Geneva May 2011 post-revolutionary state and its women. Al-Nahda, the once-banned Awakening Movement made popular by its exiled leader Rachid Ghannouchi, has been re- legalized and will stand in the upcoming elections. Ghannouchi, a respected moderate Muslim scholar and human rights lawyer who has spoken in favour of women's rights and democracy, is a far cry from Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini or the Taliban—a point he was quick to make upon his return from exile on 30 January 2011. Yet fears persist that a rise in political Islam could endanger women's rights, especially given women’s early marginalization during the nascent stages of democratization.

Inspired by the influential Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, al-Nahda is a moderate Islamist party that historically was persecuted more because of its potential to challenge then-president Ben Ali’s ruling RCD than because of its religiously conservative beliefs. In 1989, despite the fact that the vote was heavily falsified, the Islamist-backed coalition marshalled by al-Nahda won 17 percent of the vote (in arguably the last “free” elections held in Tunisia); this led to a crackdown on the movement. About 30,000 activists and Islamist sympathizers were arrested in the 1990s and many (including Ghannouchi) went into exile. Hundreds of supporters— including cadres of veiled women—met Ghannouchi at the Tunis airport to celebrate his return in late January 2011, and early election polls show tentative but broadening support for al-Nahda’s candidates. Currently, the party supports the country's ban on polygamy, although they are urging the government to lift the prohibition on wearing headscarves in schools and universities. Ghannouchi has repeatedly and publicly pledged to safeguard women’s rights in recent weeks, and al-Nahda political bureau senior official Noureddine Bhiri vowed that the movement stood with women "to protect their rights completely and without exception"8.

As Deniz Kandiyoti9 pointed out, it is important to stress that what is at issue here is not the amenability of Islam qua religion to more egalitarian and pluralistic interpretations, but rather its concrete means of insertion into specific politico- juridical contexts. Supporters of democracy are right to be concerned about groups which claim a monopoly on truth, cultivate sectarianism or ethnic tensions, smear and bully their opponents or reject minority rights - but these negative tendencies are neither universal to nor exclusive of Islamist groups. If elected legitimately, an Islamist group could be as successful—if not more so—than a secular group to implement a progressive political, social and economic agenda.

Thus far, al-Nahda has seemed disinclined to promote an exclusionary or polarizing agenda, as have most other groups fielding candidates in the upcoming election. Observers have compared al-Nahda to the Turkish AKP as an example of a new “soft” Islam—quite different from the ruling Islamists in Iran or even the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Some have even gone so far as to make comparisons between al-Nahda and Christian Democratic parties in Europe, who claim to abide by democratic rules and to respect human rights and women’s rights. Yet decades of harshly enforced political secularism has left many Tunisians understandably gun-shy of including an unknown, potentially unpredictable Islamist party in the upcoming elections. The question of how hard-line—and how popular—al-Nahda will be worries critics, especially women. A knee-jerk phobia in the West, and throughout the Middle East, persists around the idea of an Islamist party campaigning in open and fair elections. Some fear the electoral process, which could rally more middle-ground Kristine Goulding UNRISD, Geneva May 2011 supporters to the Islamist cause. Others fear the electoral results, in which an Islamist agenda could—like in Iran—bulldoze the advances made in women’s rights.

There is a great deal at stake for Tunisian women: the (still uncontested) Code of Personal Status, promulgated by decree under Bourguiba and put into effect in 1957, breaks with Shari’a law in important respects, notably by introducing a ban on polygyny, requiring juridical divorce and marriage by mutual consent. Rights to education, employment and political participation—also outlined in the CPS—have been identified as crucial to the development of younger generations of Tunisian women, and many are prepared to fight to maintain those liberties. Whether or not an Islamist party will look to contest or amend the CPS remains to be seen, but as a Mounia, a student in Tunis confessed in an interview with the author, she would rather be “safe than sorry” and thus hopes the popularity of al-Nahda will fade as the election date approaches.

The Secular Uncertainty

Beyond the more straightforward Islamist threat lays a hidden hazard: a secularist agenda that could be equally dangerous for the future of women’s rights. While secularism and “modernity” have been associated with religious diversification, plurality and tolerance—especially in the pursuit of women’s rights—secularism and gender equality are not the same. Rather, Tunisia’s state-sponsored secularism has had a historical tendency to be used as a strategic political tool to codify and regulate the actions of women, at times violating women’s bodies, regulating their sexual behaviours and limiting their socio-political role in the state. During the height of Ben Ali’s power, scores of women were arrested and incarcerated in the name of secularism, for instance, for wearing hijab in public spaces or marching in favour of Islamist political parties. While Ben Ali and his cronies are gone, and while the state seems to be progressing in a more inclusive and unifying direction, the threat to women’s rights still persists if ebullient secularists are democratically elected to power.

Although Bourguiba’s and Ben Ali’s progressive secular policies led to marked improvements in education, employment, family law and political participation, the means through which those developments were achieved were hardly laudable. Autocratic mandates, absolutist demands on state infrastructure and overly-righteous decrees that dictated women’s rights did produce results. However, because many of these edicts were never institutionalized in law or codified in the country’s constitution, the threat of backsliding for feminist policies is remains poignant if secularists take power. Most notably, the system of parliamentary gender quotas that Ben Ali first established in 2007 to sanction 30 percent female participation within the RCD, was never codified government-wide—so when the RCD was dissolved on 9 March 2011, so too was its gender quota policy.

This is not to say that emerging political parties will not utilize quota systems; to the contrary, the High Commission’s recent agreement to alternate male and female candidates on all party lists is a positive step forward. Rather, feminists’ concerns surround the universalization of male-female parity or gender equality in general. Party lists that do not conform to standards of gender equity will be invalidated, according to the High Commission’s agreement. Yet loop-holes and technicalities are Kristine Goulding UNRISD, Geneva May 2011 already springing up—in many cases understandably. Tunisian interim-prime minister Beji Caid El Sebsi stated that he recognizes that not all regions will be able to meet the requirement for gender parity - risking the invalidation of party lists. He submitted instead the option of adopting a quota of 30 percent, a more “feasible” number.10 The shifting scale of priorities has prompted uneasiness amongst feminists and women’s organizations, wary that even before lists are created, parties are looking for ways out of their obligations.

While El Sebsi’s concession is a reasonable move—much of the government’s focus on job creation and economic diversification centres on the under-developed inner regions of the country where social indicators (including women’s rights) lag behind coastal regions—the implications are problematic. The very regions where the government should be concerned about instituting gender parity in party lists are the regions where the rules are being bent.

Given historical reluctance on the part of even well-established secular parties like the Party of People’s Unity or the Ettajdid Movement to institute gender quotas, the apprehension is perhaps justified. In an interview, a prominent member of Ettajdid and the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women (AFTD), Hedie Jrad, argued that opposition parties had to worry primarily about getting elected in the first place, and only then could they come to grips with gender parity. There is a very real concern that this self-interested reasoning—a spill over from years of persecution under Ben Ali’s regime—could prompt a majority of opposition parties to sidestep broad-based quotas or other women-friendly political reforms. It seems, then, that women’s interests cannot be considered “safe”, even in the hands of secularists.

Hope or Fear? Transition and the future for women

As is the case in most post-revolutionary environments, the political landscape of Tunisia is changing at a remarkably rapid pace. Tunisia has been transformed, seemingly overnight, from a backwater, oft-overlooked quasi-dictatorship to a media darling of democracy and women’s rights. One can hardly be surprised that politicians and civil society actors alike are feeling a bit shell-shocked by all the attention. Seemingly, the July elections hold the potential to play out the West’s fondest dream: an open and fair election that will pit Islamists against secularists, with the future of women’s rights as the prize.

One cannot underestimate the capacity of Tunisian politicians and civil society to promote moderation and restraint in the polity. Despite the legacy of autocracy and totalitarianism under both Bourguiba and Ben Ali, Tunisia has never been a hotbed for extremism. Up to his final days, even Ben Ali was seen as a “benevolent dictator”; while self-serving, nepotistic and corrupt, he never condoned—or tolerated—the kind of sectarian strife that has torn apart other states in the Middle East. Likewise, the tradition of women’s rights that he inherited and helped to nurture will not disappear overnight. Too many women (and men) have a vested interest in preserving the advances that have been made, and too many outside forces are bolstering domestic feminist movements. Tunisia will never become the next Afghanistan.

And yet the High Commission’s attempt at gender parity underscores a curious tension in the women’s rights discourse: a conflict between a “thin” notion of Kristine Goulding UNRISD, Geneva May 2011 participation and gender equity focused on merely the numerical representation of women in politics; and a “thicker” notion of equality that includes access to jobs, decent income, participation in decision-making and bodily integrity. Universalized gender quotas and gender-equitable party lists are examples of the former, but the latter, a more substantive type of change which facilitates gender-egalitarian policy outcomes, is far more challenging—and beyond the scope of the High Commission’s vote for simple gender parity. Substantive gender-egalitarian change is about more than just numbers. Instigating change from the top down is a start, but fostering an underlying ideological transformation will require more than only quotas.

The same sorts of overarching transformative political and social policies will be necessary to promote sustainable growth and development throughout post-revolution Tunisia. People's grievances and frustrations have been bubbling for the past decade because of widening social inequality, unemployment, and persistence of poverty, because of the suppression of any dissent, and because of a lack of social and economic justice—not just because of a harshly-secular president. A successful political party will have to address all of these concerns head-on in order to be victorious in the July elections. Sacerdotal band-aids and hyperbolic assurances of religious freedom will not be enough to ensure Tunisia’s economic and political growth. Rather, a comprehensive set of social policies that prioritize equitable job creation, social protection and inclusive development must be adopted by the incoming government to allow Tunisia to prosper.

Clearly, neither secularism nor Islamism alone offers a clear way forward for the women of Tunisia. It is important to recognize the hazards inherent to both extremes and to develop strategies to overcome the risks, rather than viewing the equation as “either/or”. Such an outcome is plausible given Tunisia’s moderate past. The future of women’s rights will be crucial to the success of revolutions, and post-revolutionary politics, in the Middle East. It is therefore important that everyone - Tunisians, Islamists and Westerners alike - put any outdated views they may have on women aside. Women will take a front-seat role in building the political future of Tunisia, despite their rocky start. While there are certainly many reasons to fear for the future of Tunisian women’s rights, there are just as many reasons for unadulterated (and unprecedented) hope.

1 Purdue University, March 25, 2011 2 Einhorn, Barbara, 1993. Cinderella Goes to Market: Citizenship, Gender and Women’s Movements in East Central Europe. Verso: London 3 Charrad, Mounira M., 2001. States and Women’s Rights: The Making of Postcolonial Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. University of California Press: Berkeley 4 Tunis Afrique Presse, April 16, 2011 5 New York Times, February 22, 2011 6 Christian Science Monitor, March 8, 2011 7 AFP, March 11, 2011 8 AFP, March 8, 2011 9 Open Democracy, March 8 2011. “Promise and peril: women and the ‘Arab Spring’”. 10 Agence Tunis Afrique Presse, April 16, 2011