Protests in Tunisia reflect Arab Spring’s unfulfilled promises

What Arabic writers are saying about the crisis in North Africa.

A Tunisian police officer shout slogans during a protest in Tunis, Tunisia. Several thousand Tunisian police marched in protest to the presidential palace on January 25 to demand more pay in a latest Show more

According to World Bank figures, the general unemployment rate in Tunisia is stagnant at 15.2 per cent, but it’s 37.6 per cent among youth and 62.3 per cent among graduates.

"The crisis, then, isn't an insignificant matter," noted the columnist Hazem Saghiya in the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat.

Commenting on the nationwide protests over the past week over the deteriorating economic situation in Tunisia, he noted that it hadn’t taken “malevolent forces or external powers” for trouble to flare up.

The protests were triggered by the death of Ridha Yahyaoui, a young man from Kasserine who, unable to secure employment in Tunisia’s floundering economy, killed himself in a public act of protest. The demonstrations that started in his home town soon spread to other cities.

Meanwhile, Tunisian president Beji Caid Essebsi and his prime minister Habib Essid have been reiterating calls for calm and cautioning that there is “no magic wand” to solve unemployment and the country’s other economic difficulties.

But these calls did little to appease the growing, frustrated crowds. On Monday, several thousand police officers staged a protest to demand more pay. They peacefully marched towards the presidential palace, where the presidential guard blocked the road.

It is now five years since the onset of the Arab Spring. Tunisia is the birthplace of the movement and its revolution has been regarded as the most successful of all. But now protesters say that their new rulers are acting much like the ousted government of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

The writer said the new president’s response to the protests was defensive and harsh, attributing the cause of the country’s problems to chronic issues inherited from the former ruling regime and, at the same time, accusing “malevolent hands” of fuelling the protests.

Also writing for Al Hayat, Samir Al Sadawi wrote that the renewed protests had revived arguments about whether the 2011 revolution had been derailed.

He noted that it had failed to bring about much-needed change in terms of fair distribution of resources, nor had it addressed unemployment or created a more effective role for young people in the reconstruction of the country.

In addition to its war on terrorism, the political class in Tunisia has had to deal with many challenges, not least of which was the sharp divide within the ruling party, which had cost it a parliamentary majority.

“There is no doubt that the Tunisian crisis is due to bad planning,” the writer said.

He claimed that the majority of the unemployed had refused to work in menial jobs, forcing employers to rely on foreign labourers.

At the same time, while some 1,600 doctors were incapable of finding a job in Tunisia, the government had decided to open new medical universities, which would inevitably compound the plight of the jobless.

For his part, the columnist Samir Atallah wrote in the London-based daily Asharq Al Awsat that the reason for the renewed frustration was that the revolution didn't bring forth an alternative project.

When Ben Ali’s regime fell, Tunisia’s lucrative tourism industry went down with it.

“A revolution isn’t mere fires and slogans,” the writer said. “It is an immense responsibility.

“A revolution that doesn’t offer a better alternative is in fact a failed adventure. The Arab peoples must accept that they, too, are partners in responsibility and they must realise that riots and protests that bring the country to a standstill have grave repercussions.”

* Translated by Racha Makarem