I have been unable to post for a few days as my time has been taken up with a project at the University of Manchester to digitise a 14th/5th Century Qur'an. Interested parties can read more about this project here. The Qur’an in question is one of the largest in the world and was commissioned by Sultan Qansuh al-Ghuri , the last but one of the Mamluk Sultans who eventually met his death in 1516 in Syria fighting the Ottomans and never got to be buried in his lavish Mausoleum in Cairo (on which he spent a tidy fortune). In the chronicles of Ibn Iyas, al-Ghuri is portrayed as an arbitrary despot who tortured his subjects and others at will. Not much changes it seems.
Now back to politics and Tunisia. I'm not going to say too much right now as the political tussles begin to unfold but rather highlight a couple of articles on the subject. Nadia Marzouki has an interesting and fairly lengthy article in MERIP in which she analyses the reasons behind the uprising, as well as recalling ironically some of the praise over recent years that has been heaped on Tunisia by Western powers and international financial institutions for its ‘Miracle’ economic progress. Dealing with the combination of factors that led to the uprising she says:
“The corruption and bad governance of Ben Ali’s reign have contributed to the increasing pauperization of this middle class and the dramatic rise of unemployment, especially among university graduates. Forty-six percent of youth who have university degrees, as Bouazizi did, have no jobs commensurate with their education. The avarice of the president and his wife’s relatives gradually alienated Tunisian and foreign investors, who were tired of paying a tithe to the reigning family, and preferred relocating to the more transparent Gulf countries. The so-called economic success story of Tunisia became a nightmare for the Tunisian people.”
Meanwhile , Foreign Policy has just posted and article titled ‘ The next Tunisias', listing 5 states at risk of a Tunisian-style revolution. Make what you will of it. Personally, I would say the most likely may be Algeria, but things there are complicated by the Islamist presence and the recent civil war. I noticed Jordan is also on the list and the above quote from Marzouki in relation to the shrinking middle class rings true there also. But I think the buck stops there. Although socio-economic and demographic factors are slowly tearing away at Abdullah II's support base, a Tunisian-style uprising is still a fair way off. The King retains the support of the military and intelligence services and has distributed funds just about well enough to keep the ship sailing. The situation there is also highly complicated by the Palestine issue. Nonetheless, the FP piece makes interesting reading with some nice comparisons.
Changing tack slightly, Brian Whittaker has different take on the Tunisian issue in the Guardian and on his blog poses the question: Is the uprising a sign of a post-Islamist Middle East? I wouldn't quite count on that just yet but nevertheless what took place in Tunisia did go some way to countering the usual stereotype of the Islamist bogeyman lurking in the background waiting to take power and impose Sharia law by force. It also represents a green shoot that will hopefully grow - but is still just a green shoot.
If anything, the past decade has witnessed a resurgence of Islamism across the region (not just at the political level but even more so at the personal level) and the fact remains that Islamist organisations/political parties, both legal and illegal, remain the only real organised alternative in the majority of the Arab states (that does not mean they have widespread appeal) to the status quo. They have simply had a better head start as they were able to successfully fill the void - sometimes encouraged by the ruling regimes - left by the absence of political parties which were easier for the regime to crack down on.
Here are some interesting video clips on the issue of political reform in the Arab world with former Jordanian Foreign Minister, Marwan Muasher.
