Tunisia’s security nightmare long predates the Arab Spring
After the fall of Ben Ali in 2011, many Salafi leaders came out of jail or returned from exile abroad. In the new security vacuum their groups flourished, appealing to young, frustrated and unemployed Tunisians who saw there would be no quick solution to the deep socio-economic crisis that triggered the revolution in the first place. The chaos in Libya next door only served their cause.
The Islamist movement Ennahdha, which won the first elections in October 2011 and led a coalition government, thought at first it could coax the more extreme Salafi elements onto a path of moderation but later had to admit its naivety. The government blamed the two political assassinations of 2013 on the group Ansar al-Sharia and banned it, but it is still not clear who was really behind the attacks.
Eventually, Ennahdha was forced out of power in January 2014, in large part because of its security failings. And since then, the situation has scarcely improved.
Groups including al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb continue to operate in Tunisia. Until now, Islamic State was not thought to have made headway in the country, but it is as yet unclear whether the group played any role in inspiring or orchestrating the Bardo attack.
Crackdown
Tunisia’s new government, which won elections in October 2014 by promising security, will now be under pressure to launch a tough crackdown. In that spirit Tunisian president, Beji Caid Essebsi, whose party Nidaa Tounes leads the government, said after the attack: “We should mobilize the Tunisian people to get rid of [terrorists] totally.”
Even as the shootings unfolded, MPs were meeting in the historic parliament building next door debating a new draft of the anti-terrorism law. Tunisia’s tourist industry, which is a major source of income and which was beginning to revive after the Arab Spring, will be badly affected for many seasons to come, and won’t recover until the country feels much safer.
There are real risks of a slide back into authoritarianism. Until now rival Tunisian politicians have resolved their differences and drafted a new constitution through dialogue and consensus-building. That dialogue together with the lack of interference from a weak, apolitical military explained the success of Tunisia’s transition.
But under the new government, a tough new tone is already being struck. Essebsi campaigned at the last elections by promising to install “respect for the state” and by frequently criticizing even the moderate Islamists of Ennahdha.
His challenge now will be to provide the Tunisians with the security they deserve without resorting to the authoritarianism that is so rapidly re-emerging across the countries of the Arab Spring.
Rory McCarthy is DPhil Candidate in Oriental Studies at University of Oxford. This story is published courtesy of The Conversation (under Creative Commons-Attribution/No derivatives.
