With a speed that astonished the world, Tunisians succeeded in driving Zine al-Abedine Ben Ali from power. Now the more difficult part of the nation's political transition has begun, and there is no guarantee that it will bring the pluralistic government demanded by pro-democracy activists, according to two U.S.-based analysts.
In a conference call with reporters hosted by the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations on Thursday, the two analysts spoke about the Tunisian revolution, the role technology played in the uprising and what it might mean for the region. They say the United States is walking a fine line of supporting political change without alienating its traditional Arab allies.
Protests against unemployment, the high cost of food and repression of basic freedoms escalated into a broad-based call for honest, accountable governance. Since Ben Ali fled to Saudi Arabia on 14 January, demonstrations demanding that former officials be removed from Tunisia's transitional government have continued.
Late Saturday, as many as 1000 people marched and rode buses to the capital, Tunis, from the provincial town of Sidi Bouzid where the first protester was killed last month. Al Jazeera and the BBC reported that even police joined the demonstration. Sunday was the final national day of mourning for those who have died in the unrest.
Unclear Future
Steven Cook, a Hasib J. Sabbagh senior fellow for Middle Eastern studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Tunisia's future path is not yet clear.
"Transitions from one type of political system to another are not linear," he said, and they may not necessarily end up as liberal democracies. They could end up as a narrower, nastier dictatorships,"
Jared Cohen, adjunct fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, echoed that sentiment: "The next chapter of this hasn't actually been written yet. Tunisia could end up better off, it could end up worse, it could end up in a state of chaos."
Cook said that how the interim leadership and military establishment in Tunisia deal with the transition will be a good indicator about the future trajectory of the country. On Friday, the nation's transitional prime minister vowed to leave politics after polls that are promised within six months. Tunisia's main trade union has called for the government to be replaced by one without links to the former regime.
There is speculation that Tunisia's example could trigger revolts in neighboring North African countries with similar problems and closed political systems.
"Clearly, the Tunisian situation is being watched very, very carefully," Cook said. "Opposition groups in places like Algiers, Cairo, Amman and others are seeking to learn lessons from the Tunisian uprising."
But he said it was difficult to predict who might be next. "Revolutions are exceedingly rare and all the factors and variables have to come together, including major mistakes on the parts of leaders and defenders of these regimes."
Technology Accelerant
Cohen agreed, saying "the technology factor" was an important variable to understand when looking to predict the next revolution.
"We know that in the last 10 years the number of people that have access to cell phones has risen from 907 million to over five billion. The number of people who have access to the Internet has risen from 361 million to more than two billion." Cohen said. "The question we need to be asking as we think about this new variable … is where does the sudden influx of technology … potentially have the most impact?"
He said it would likely be in countries where there is a weak central government, a history of an organized civil society, dire socio-economic conditions, a large youth bulge and a huge Diaspora population in developed, democratic nations.
"Those are the types of countries I would watch for as opposed to the sudden influx of technology potentially changing the game," Cohen said.
The use of cell phones, Facebook and Twitter were widespread in Tunisia's revolution, but both analysts said they would not say their use caused the uprising.
"Everyone wants to label this as … a Twitter revolution," Cohen said. "The reality is this is just what revolutions look like now. In a revolution, a smart movement uses smart tools. We've entered into a situation in which revolutions are just using more sophisticated tools than the ones we remember from 1989 or even early 2000."
He said technology could act as an accelerant when people decide to go into the streets to protest, by helping spread the word to garner more support. Also, Cohen said, technology can pick up where the main-stream media might be slow to respond or doesn't have the capacity to respond, allowing anyone on the ground to be a "citizen journalist".
International Response
The international response to the Tunisia uprising was largely supportive, except from former colonial ruler France, which offered to send troops to support Ben Ali to suppress last week's uprising.
"One of the reasons the United States is treading softly here is we are concerned about what potentially the spillover might be for our own strategic interests," Cook said. "[France] got caught on the wrong side of the issue." He said the United States had sent signals that it would not take the opportunity presented by Tunisia's revolt to press its North African or Middle Eastern allies to undertake democratic reforms, because Washington does not want to be a "contributing factor" if the regimes were to unravel.
"It was very, very interesting that after [U.S. President Barack] Obama released that statement in support of the Tunisian people he called [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak," Cook said. "That was, the way I read it, somewhat of a signal to the Egyptians that the United States wasn't going to turn around and press the Egyptians on this issue in a public way … about the state of politics in Egypt, which are quite honestly terrible."
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Cook said it was clear that opposition groups from other North African countries would be seeking to learn lessons from the Tunisia uprising. One place to watch, he said, will be Egypt next Tuesday, 25 January, when massive protests have been called to mark National Police Day. A group of young Egyptians has used Facebook to call for using the Tuesday demonstrations to protest poverty, corruption and human rights abuses, according to the New York Times.
"It will be interesting to see whether events in Tunisia have given these protests a certain added momentum," Cook said. "I expect that they would."
News reports on Saturday said several people had been injured in clashes with security forces in the Algerian capital, Algiers, during pro-democracy rallies. Several hundred people gathered in downtown Algiers, the capital, despite a ban on demonstrations under a state of emergency imposed in 1992. Some of the protesters, draped in Tunisian flags, chanted "A free and democratic Algeria," according to the BBC.
On Sunday, police in Yeman arrested Tawakul Karman, the president of Yemeni's Women Journalists Without Chains following a demonstration at the university, provoking further protests from hundreds of students and other young people. Karman had been profiled in the Huffington Post two days earlier. The French news agency reported that Yemeni students carried banners saying "learn from the Jasmine Revolution," alluding to the Tunisian uprising.
For special coverage of the Tunisian uprising by bloggers, see Global Voices Online.
