Tunisia Islamic destiny
Il Giornale, march 27, 2012
Now we will hear it again and again from journalists and politicians: the Arab spring was a great success, as shown by the choice of Ennahda, the Tunisian ruling party. In fact notwithstanding the risks to put a strain on its electorate, decided not to change article I of the 1959’s Constitution. That is, as in the text that Tunisia is "a free, independent and sovereign State: its religion is Islam and its regime is republican."
In short, Ennahda kept the right to be again quoted by the international press as an "Islamic Democratic Party," because the Islamic law, the sharia, was not included in the first article, even if immediately after Islam is declared the religion of state. In fact the Tunisian drift toward the Muslim Brotherhood (Ennhada is a branch of it) is a very important matter even if tries to declare moderation. Everybody knows that, more than an Arab spring what we witness is an Islamic spring all over the Arab countries and Egypt, for instance, is a good example. Here too the "moderate" branch plus the Salafists got 72 per cent in the parliament, while Islamism wins also in Morocco, where only yesterday an Israeli diplomat besieged by the crowd, necessarily had to run away. In Tunisia, if Ennahda will ever want to choose the soft way, we can easily predict that the Salafists will take the streets, no one knows with which result. Meanwhile yesterday in Tunis 8000 people took to the streets to ask the application of sharia, shouting, "We want an Islamic republic. "
The problem is that the episodes of Islamic pride, not opposed by Ennahda, have been quite a lot: for instance an Islamic militia has been legalized. The expert Anna Mahjar Barducci, on the Gatestoneinstitute website, reports that the Minister of the Interior legalized the "Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice," a religious police force established after the revolution. The police is composed of three committees controlling the religious observance, science, and the legal affairs. The police lash out against women who do not wear a veil, occupy mosques, and persecute liberal journalists and professors. Moreover Ennahda, fearing the Salafi power, gave them the opportunity to occupy and control small towns, as Sejnane with its five thousand inhabitants, in the northwest of the country. According to the Tunisian media, about 250 people talebanized the city imposing sharia with uncountable episodes of intolerance and violence towards wine (a seller had his fingers broken), tobacco, the sale of cakes for new year’s eve because it’s a Christian holiday, women's clothing. The government, local media say, permitted the Salafists to do their local experiments of harsh sharia. They also allowed an officially banned party, Hizb ut Tahrir, or Party of Liberation, organize in the past days an international women conference entitled "The Caliphate, bright example for the rights and the political role of women." There were five hundred participants from all over the world. They agreed that democracy failed, and that "the Caliphate, historically tested, may give a better future for Muslim women" (the British delegate said so). The conference held in the luxurious palace of Gammarth, in the northern suburbs of Tunis had a festive feel. Certainly Ennahda seemed to have nothing against women spending all of their energies to explain how good Caliphate is.
In short, although Rachid al Gannouchi, the leader of Ennahda who received forty per cent of the votes, held the soft line from the beginning to demonstrate his willingness to dialogue with the West, yet it is difficult now to imagine that he will stop the Salafists that can become very aggressive and will blame him very much for abandoning the Islamic road, after all the Muslim Brotherhood road. If you look at the interviews of Ennahda’s leaders to the Tunisian newspapers, they admit to watch carefully and with "caution" the Salafi movement, to avoid worsening the divisions. Therefore in the next few days we can expect Salafi protests while Ennahda in a more or less obvious and gradual way will comply.