Neila Hachicha speaks out in Tunisia
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Authoritarian states come in many shapes and sizes. Today in Tunisia, Neila Charchour Hachicha is battling a government apparatus that has ushered in sweeping reforms and improvements in living standards, while still stolidly quelling political freedom.
Since 1987, Ms. Hachicha has dedicated her life to speaking out for democratic reforms in Tunisia. Over the years she has become adept at communicating her message to the outside world. Today she is a prolific blogger and e-mailer, leads the perpetually illegal Parti Libéral Méditerranéen (PLM) in Tunisia, and participates in worldwide forums and discussions on democracy. Ms. Hachicha pulls no punches in her criticisms of the government and calls for reform. Several times, she has called point-blank for dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s resignation.
Recently, Tunisia’s autocrats have begun to take notice of Ms. Hachicha’s growing success. Late last month, police cracked down on the budding freedom activist: confiscating her car; severing her internet connection; threatening her family members and jailing her husband on dubious charges, via even sketchier legal procedures; tracking her visitors; and generally launching a full-fledged campaign of intimidation against Ms. Hachicha.
Clearly, the Tunisian autocrats are feeling threatened and/or simply embarrassed. And they have plenty cause to be. Current President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali won his fourth reelection in October 2004, extending his seventeen-year reign for at least another five years. Ben Ali’s margin of victory, claiming 94.5% of the vote, is a telltale sign that real political freedom is lacking in Tunisia’s version of “democracy.” The ruling Constitutional Democratic Rally imposed so many restrictions on competing political parties that they don’t stand a chance. Political protests for greater freedom are immediately disbanded by police forces.
Ms. Hachicha’s plight is made stickier by Tunisia’s mixed and colorful history. Today, Tunisia is well ahead of its Middle Eastern and North African neighbors in public health and education. A budding tourism industry and not wholly-incompetent economic management have allowed the Tunisian economy to grow at 5% per year throughout most of the past decade. Tunisia’s governors are eager to highlight their nation as an economic success story: a modernized and liberalized beacon amidst a sea of backwardness. Unfortunately, Western governments have been all too willing to overlook Tunisia’s political repression while offering praise for its economic advances.
It is a pattern we see in similar muted or non-existent criticism of China and Russia. It seems all too easy to assume that economic progress must lead eventually to increasing democracy, yet history offers plenty of disturbing exceptions to that “rule,” among them Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.
In a summer 2005 Middle East Quarterly (MEQ) interview, Ms. Hachicha recalled: “When President George W. Bush received President Ben Ali at the White House, Bush insisted on the necessity of freedom of speech and political freedoms. Almost simultaneously, [French] President Jacques Chirac talked about the Tunisian miracle and said that the primary human right is to be able to eat and drink. Recently, the Italian defense minister cited Tunisia as an example of democracy in the region.”
Ms. Hachicha and the PLM will happily accept any support they can garner, but she emphasizes the need for Europe to break with its tradition of supporting the Tunisian regime for stability’s sake. In the same interview, she says “because of geography and history, Europe’s political impact is much stronger on a country like Tunisia than is that of the United States with whom we share no vital interests.”
On the flip side, Tunisia’s unique history offers encouraging prospects for a successful secular democracy to take hold. Ms. Hachicha explains to MEQ that, in the absence of the current dictatorship, Tunisia’s Islamist political party Al-Nahdha is not likely to step in to fill the power void. Women’s education and civil rights have advanced far enough to provide strong resistance against an Afghan-style Taliban. Additionally, Ms. Hachicha explains Tunisia’s tourism-based economy offers less incentive for Islamic autocrats to seize power, “since, unlike our neighbors, Algeria and Libya, we have no oil or gas”.
After almost twenty years of speaking out, Neila Charchour Hachicha is now clearly in serious trouble. She is probably hoping that her efforts have touched enough Tunisians that they might rally to her aid, as well as take action to advance their own cause of freedom.
