Former Tunisian President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali (second left) visits Mohamed Al Bouazzizi (right) at the hospital in Ben Arous near Tunis on December 28, 2010. Source: Handout from Tunisian Presidency of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali.
The Philippines has its Marcos family, the Congo Mobutu Seseseko, Saudi Arabia its royal family, and now we can add to the picture the Ben Ali-Trabelsi family clans of Tunisia. Tunisia had two opposite families. One was that of the former President Zine Ben Ali, and his wife, Leina Trabelsi (formally a hairdresser) – who were accumulating wealth at a breath-taking pace. It has been reported in the media that Ben Ali has squirreled away more than $5 billion in foreign bank accounts.
The other family presented a more sober picture of Tunisia’s so-called `economic miracle’. A precious few were making a fortune at the expense of the multitude whose situation was deteriorating as a generalized impoverishment grew. With young people committing suicide, social protests spreading through Tunisia's interior, how did Tunisia dealt with its economic crisis in the desert. For that is where Tozeur is located, they built a golf course.
The social explosion in Tunisia reinforces the opinion of those voices in the Tunisian opposition who have argued that Zine Ben Ali’s government was facing a full blown socio-economic and political crisis, one which it was questionable the government could survive.
However, one particular figure has played a pivotal role in the tumultuous events that have swept through Tunisia during the past few weeks, resulting in the fall of President Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali and his regime after 24 years.
Muhammad Al Bouazizi did not live to see the historic outcome of which he was a key part. Al Bouazizi was a poor 26-year old Tunisian who could not find a job after finishing college. He refused to join the "army of unemployed youth," as it has become known in Tunisia, and instead started a small business as a street vendor, selling vegetables to support his family.
Bouazizi was an unemployed college graduate. To earn a living, he started a fruit and vegetable stand in the streets of Sidi Bouzid, central Tunisia. But he did not have a permit, and local police came after him. It has been reported that the police not only seized his goods and confiscated his stand, but they also beat him up.
The exact reasons behind Al Bouazizi's subsequent outrage are not clear. Some observers allege that the police officer slapped him across his face; others that Al Bouazizi tried to complain at a center for unemployed graduates -- but that no one listened to him and he heard only laughter and insults.
On December 17 last year Mohammed Bouazizi poured a can of gasoline on himself and then lit a match in front of the police station there. He remained in hospital for 18 days, fighting severe burns over his entire body. At one point he was visited in hospital by President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali and a photo above was released of the meeting by the presidency.
Whatever his intentions, Muhammad Al Bouazizi's actions changed Tunisian history.Khadija Cherif, who works for the Paris-based group Federation of Human Rights Leagues, said he was a "symbol for all the young college graduates who were unemployed, and Bouazizi was a sort of catalyst for the violent demonstrations which followed in the Sidi Bouzid region."
Tunisian friends relate that this is the third young Tunisian in about six months, who chose to protest the grim economic and social prospects in the country by burning themselves to death. In December 22, 2010, another despondent Tunisian unemployed youth, Hussein Naji, climbed a lamp pole near the Cafe Ittihad near the offices of the Union General Tunisien de Travail (UGTT – Tunisian trade union federation) and electrocuted himself by touching high voltage wires, this in front of a crowd protesting the Tunisian government’s lack of response to the economic and social crisis.
Rioting followed not only in Sidi Bouzid -- a traditional stronghold for opposition against authoritarianism in Tunisia -- but across the country as young and unemployed Tunisians took to the streets to protest against living conditions and the economy. Al Bouazizi died of his injuries on January 4: 10 days later Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled with his family to Saudi Arabia.
There were more than 50 others, in Tunisia and in Europe who were on hunger strikes, also protesting both the socio-economic situation in the country as well as the overall repressive atmosphere. And all this came after what it can only be called the `social uprising’ in the Gafsa region centered around Redeyef in 2008, which was a `warning shot’ to Ben Ali that there are deep, structural economic problems in Tunisia that need addressing. However, the Government did not address these problems.
There is something else, though, concerning the corruption and economic developments which is related to the current crisis in Tunisia that deserves mention and thought. Since the early 1980s, Tunisia has been one of the most faithful pupils to World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programs, and has frequently been praised by the Bretton Woods institutions for their fiscal discipline and market economic policies which is supposed to result in making the country attractive to foreign investment.
As a part of this economic approach, Tunisia has been encouraged, if not pressured to privatize different state holdings and to lift subsidies on food and other basic needs as is typical of loans given with structural adjustment provisions.
Among the results of this has been that Tunisia’s process of privatization and joint ventures has exacerbated the gap between rich and poor in an interesting fashion. Privatisation and joint venture processes were dominated by the two ruling families, the Ben Alis and the Trabelsis who more and more monopolized all the contracts and were first in line when the Tunisian government sold state resources at bargain basement prices.
As long as the families had control of the process, be it in the banking sector, the media or in education, privatization and joint ventures with foreign capital were supported. As a result, these two families became extraordinarily wealthy.
But there has been another consequence: independent Tunisian entrepreneurs, small, medium sized and even some big investors have been driven from the field, either by hook or crook, by the crude methods of the brother of the then first lady, or by more refined but equally self-serving approaches.
Then, TuniLeaks, the Tunisian equivalent to WikiLeaks, exposed the corruption. While the WikiLeaks documents are embarrassing and evidence that the United States embassy was aware of the scope of the corruption – there was not much there that was not known to Tunisians or close `Tunisia watchers’
Certainly the cables verified the word `on the street’ and much that has been published on line and in the French press. However, if this corruption had been going on for so long and had been so pervasive, why did it take until now for Europeans and the US ambassador to Tunisia to take note of it?
It appears that, despite all their talk of `transparency’, foreign economic interest can and does tolerate rather substantiate rates of corruption in Tunisia without much complaining. At what point has the level of corruption reached such heights that even Tunisia’s Western partners have finally said `enough is enough’ and `we need more caution in our economic relations with Tunisia?' Well, they haven’t said it yet – but it appears they will rather soon.
This article is based on CNN editorial: How a fruit seller caused revolution in Tunisia and an Interview with Professor Rob Prince, University of Denver; Part Two made by Colorado Progressive Jewish News
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4SCngrLNDc
More at: http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/2/8/4032/World/Region/Libya-protest-over-housing-enters-its-third-day.aspx
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