In Tunisia (as elsewhere in the Middle East) are the military better than the Islamists?
It is not easy to judge the confused situation that Tunisia is currently experiencing. Has President Kais Saied, among other things known for his balanced positions, really started a coup d'état by relying on the armed forces? Or is it just trying to prevent radical Islamist components from prevailing in the North African country, with the danger of having another “Libya case” even closer to our shores?
Obviously, no one denies that the popular protests were triggered by real and very serious problems. To mention, for example, the disastrous management of the Covid-19 pandemic. Tunisian hospitals, already in trouble in normal times, are now collapsing due to lack of oxygen and intensive care stations.
To this must be added a growing poverty, aggravated by the increase in consumer prices, and by the increasingly accentuated difficulty in finding basic necessities.
While it is, as always, difficult to draw a precise distinction between extremist and moderate Islamists, it must be said that in Tunisia extremists have a considerable – and now increasing – weight in national political life. The same Ennahda party, which until now was part of the government, officially presents itself as a "moderate". But some of its components – which to many appear to be majority members – actually have radical positions.
The impression is that, once again, the powerful Muslim Brotherhood , to which leading representatives of Ennahda have traditionally been close, is playing a fundamental role in pushing Tunisia into chaos.
With the support, moreover, of Erdogan's Turkey, Qatar and the Hamas "brothers" who dominate the Gaza Strip. If so, the decision taken by President Kais Saied appears, more than a coup d'état, a preventive move to curb the takeover of power by the fundamentalists.
The question is always the same. Did the military in Egypt do well to take power to avoid the fundamentalist drift towards which former President Morsi – himself a leading exponent of the "Brotherhood" – was leading the nation? Or should they have let Islamic radicalism take over all levers of power, transforming the largest country in the Arab world into a bastion of the "Brotherhood" itself?
Among other things, it should be noted that the left always has a sympathetic attitude towards radical Muslims. Even if the latter, as soon as they come to power, are immediately concerned with repressing and outlawing the left parties themselves.
It is known that, in this regard, opinions diverge sharply, but the writer believes that, in any case, the army is preferable to the fundamentalists. As I have already said, the Tunisian scenario is still too confused to allow precise opinions to be formulated. Without forgetting that the Tunisian armed forces are certainly not comparable to the Egyptian ones in terms of power and efficiency.
For now it seems that the militants of Ennahda have given up the street clashes, thanks to the firm attitude of the armed forces and the support that the main unions have offered to President Kais Saied.
It is only worth noting, to conclude, that it is not worthwhile for Italy to have other fundamentalists at the door: there are already enough of them. And, as far as we are concerned, it can be said without fear of denial that one Libya is more than enough.
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This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/in-tunisia-come-altrove-in-medio-oriente-meglio-i-militari-degli-islamisti/ on Thu, 29 Jul 2021 03:54:00 +0000.