'Secret' video stirs fears of Islamist radicalism in Tunisia
A video leaked this week of a conversation between Tunisian ruling Ennahda
party leader Rached Ghannouchi (pictured) and a group of Salafists has
exposed the divide and lack of comprehension between Tunisia’s Islamists and
secularists.
By <
http://www.france24.com/en/category/tags-auteurs/leela-jacinto> Leela
JACINTO (text)
11/10/2012
As the “cradle of the Arab Spring,” Tunisia enjoys a symbolic status across
the region, with the ideological debates gripping this tiny North African
nation widely viewed as a harbinger of more salubrious or ominous things to
come.
So, when a secret video of a tête-à-tête between the leader of Tunisia’s
ruling Islamist party and radical Salafists surfaced on the Internet earlier
this week, it sparked a storm across the region.
The nearly eight-minute video showed Ennahda party’s intellectual leader
Rached Ghannouchi engaged in a rambling lecture on Islamist strategies with
a captive audience of select Salafist youths. (Click
<
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aFECUkDyug> here for the video clip in
Arabic.)
Over a cup of tea, the 71-year-old scholar-politician advised his Salafist
interlocutors to consider a more measured approach to an Islamisation
process.
"I tell our young Salafists to be patient... Why hurry? Take your time, to
consolidate what you have gained," said Ghannouchi before advising them to
"create television channels, radio stations, schools and universities."
The septuagenarian politician - who was rated one of
<
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2111975_2111976_
2112133,00.html> Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People this year -
also warned of a resurgence of the old regime among Tunisia’s security
establishment.
"The army and the police are not safe and the RCD supporters are coming
back,” said Ghannouchi referring to ousted Tunisian dictator Zine al-Abidine
Ben Ali's dissolved Rally for Constitutional Democracy (RCD) party.
A viral video and an alarmed press
Within hours, the video went viral on social media sites such as Facebook
and Twitter as well as the blogosphere. Not to be outdone, Tunisia’s major
dailies minutely examined the text of the incendiary address. The Arabic
daily, “Le Maghreb” warned that the “video scandal” displayed “the real
agenda of Rached Ghannouchi’s Salafist project”.
On Thursday, opposition parliamentarians held an emergency meeting to
discuss the latest Ghannouchi video
Responding to the scandal, Ennahda officials maintained that the
conversation, which occurred in February, was taken out of context. But the
explanation has failed to assuage the fears of Ennahda’s critics across the
region.
Tunisia was not just the first Arab country to oust a longstanding dictator.
It was also the first post-Arab uprising nation to deliver an Islamist poll
victory – when Ennahda won a majority in the October 2011 constitutional
assembly elections.
Ennahda officials have repeatedly defended the party’s moderate Islamist
credentials. Proof, they claim, lies in the governing coalition the party
formed with two secular parties following the October 2011 polls.
‘Double discourse’ meets ‘near-total ignorance’
But that was a year ago, and as Tunisians prepare for general elections -
scheduled for March 2013 - Ennahda’s opponents are suspicious of the party’s
intentions.
Critics have long warned that Ennahda employs a “double discourse” – sending
one message to a secular audience while engaging in a hardline discourse
with their Islamist base.
In a country polarized between secularists and Islamists, the latest
Ghannouchi video appeared to reinforce deep-seated fears among some segments
of Tunisian society that the so-called line between Tunisia’s moderate and
extremist Islamists is an artificial one and that the terms “Ennahda” and
“Salafists” are interchangeable.
It’s an opinion Monica Marks - a doctoral candidate in Middle Eastern
Studies at Oxford University’s St Antony's College who has been studying
Tunisia’s Salafists – disparages.
“The accusation of interchangeability is a conspiracy theory that
demonstrates near-total ignorance of who Tunisia’s young Salafis are, and
what Ennahda stands for vis-a-vis Salafi goals,” said Marks in an emailed
response to FRANCE 24. “All political parties couch and package their
message differently in order to appeal to different audiences — this is
nothing new: it’s why we tend to think of politicians as silver-tongued
liars. Ennahda wants to rope in the right-wing vote, and is very afraid of
losing the mantle of Islamic purity.”
Ennahda’s patronising tone with young Salafists
Opinion
<
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2012/09/tunisia-islamist-ennadha-p
arty-losing-popularity.html> polls have shown that Ennahda’s popularity has
plummeted by more than 30% amid rising unemployment and the party’s
perceived failure to deliver on its electoral promises. Last month’s attack
on the US embassy in Tunis by angry mobs protesting an anti-Islam film has
done little to rejuvenate Tunisia’s vital tourism sector or to allay foreign
investors’ fears.
The growing popularity of a new secular party, Nidaa Tounes, led by veteran
politician and former Tunisian Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi has also
seen Ennahda struggling to secure its conservative base.
Experts familiar with Tunisia’s Salafists maintain that far from being
interchangeable, Ennahda and young Salafists sometimes have a rocky
relationship.
“The Salafi young people whom I’ve been interviewing are picking up on a
kind of paternalizing Ennahda discourse,” said Marks. “Ennahda constantly
refers to them as ‘our children’ and says things to the effect of how young
Salafis need to be re-educated in ‘good school’ of Ennahda activism and
moderate Tunisian Islam.”
It’s a tone that Marks finds replete in the latest video of Ghannouchi’s
discourse with a group of young Salafists.
“Ennahda has repeatedly attempted to address the Salafis in inclusive,
almost pacifying terms, stressing that they are part of the fabric of
Tunisian society, and entreating them to consider a more patient, gradualist
approach to Islamizing reforms,” said Marks. “Ghannouchi’s language in that
video is very much in this vein and I don’t find it surprising in the
slightest. I’m surprised that the video has been so controversial.”
Scoring political points
Like Marks, Salem al-Abyad, a political scientist at the University of Tunis
El Manar, also maintains the latest video is hardly surprising.
“It’s not astonishing because right now, there is an electoral battle raging
in Tunisia,” said al-Abyad in an interview with FRANCE 24’s Arabic section.
“The fact that this video was leaked is really part of the larger game that
different political parties are playing to try to discredit each other and
to score political points against each other.”
Proof of the political score-settling, according to al-Abyad, lies in the
timing of the latest video leak. While the Ghannouchi conversation occurred
in February, the video only came to light earlier this week.
If the aim of the video leak was to discredit Ennahda, al-Abyad believes the
Islamist party’s opponents could well have inched closer to the goalpost.
“This discourse could cause a loss of confidence in Ennahda’s democratic
intentions and could bolster the claim that Ennahda has a double discourse
which could affect Tunisia’s democratic transition," said al-Abyad.
"This is a party in power that should represent all Tunisians. Ennahda has
always tried to portray the country as split between Islamists and
secularists. But in fact there is a wide diversity of political inclinations
in Tunisia. As a governing party, Ennahda should refrain from conducting
charm offensives with the Salafists and stop denying the existence of a
diverse society.”
http://www.france24.com/en/files/element_multimedia/image/ghannouchi-EM.jpg
Screen-grab of the video of Ennahda leader Rached Ghannouchi’s conversation
with Salafist youth leaders
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Received on Thu Oct 11 2012 - 18:20:48 EDT
