Almost two years after the Arab Spring got its start in Tunisia, Salafists are intimidating women, artists and intellectuals. Many fear that the government is tacitly supporting the radical Islamists in their efforts to turn the young democracy into a theocracy.
It was a Friday in February 2011 when the Jasmine Revolution reached the prostitutes on Impasse Sidi Abdallah Guech, a dead-end street tucked away in the dingiest corner of the medina in Tunis, the Tunisian capital. The women leaning against the walls there are registered with the government and pay taxes. The red-light district on this small street is only a stone’s throw from a large mosque in the heart of an Islamic country.
On that Friday, the military stepped in and police fired warning shots into the air to fend of the Muslim moralists’ attack on the women. A militia of pimps, porters and day laborers barricaded the entrance to the lane. After the incident, the sign “Impasse Sidi Abdallah Guech” was removed for security reasons. A gate was installed, and the women posted a sign above it saying “Closed on Fridays and during Ramadan” in an effort to accommodate the Islamists.
Maisons closes in other Tunisian cities were not so lucky. In places such as Sousse, Médenine, Sfax and Kairouan, brothels were set on fire, and women were hunted down and beaten.
The attacks of February 2011 marked the beginning of a development that has grown to become a cultural revolution and a model for the post-revolutionary countries of North Africa: the government-tolerated offensive of Salafist fundamentalists against aspects of modern secular society, even if they amount to nothing more than the bleak activities of prostitutes and their customers on a small street in Tunis.
In April 2011, the filmmaker Nouri Bouzid was beaten with an iron bar after he had spoken out in favor of a secular constitution.
A few weeks later, in June, a gang of Salafists forcibly entered the AfricArt art-house cinema in Tunis, sprayed tear gas and roughed up the management. The cinema was planning to show what the Salafists viewed as a heretical film about religion in Tunisia. The police only intervened after prolonged pressure. AfricArt has been closed ever since.
In October 2011, a few hundred Islamists tried to set the house of the owner of the private television station Nessma on fire. The station had broadcast the animated film “Persepolis,” by Iranian exile Marjane Satrapi, in which Allah is briefly depicted. In June 2012, morality police attacked the exhibition “Spring of the Arts” in the El Ebdellia palace, destroying about a dozen paintings.
Controlling the Mosques
The offensive by the ultra-conservative group has been most successful in the mosques. “It’s an invasion. They control most of the mosques in Tunis. They demonize the old imams and berate them as accomplices of the old regime,” says Sheikh Ahmed Touati, the imam at the large Zitouna Mosque until recently, and the head of a group calling itself the “Party of Conservatives.”
He describes the day the Islamists first turned up at the large mosque, a week after the overthrow of former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. They demanded different prayer positions and didn’t want the Koran to be recited out loud by the congregation. Within a year, the chief imam had been driven out. “Why? They have the money and the satellite dishes,” Touati say. “Their message appeals to the practicing faithful, especially the younger ones. The others keep their distance. Our mistake was that we waited too long.”
Touati was slapped when he removed an Islamist treatise from the wall of his mosque. He also received threats, with the Islamists telling him things like: “Get out of here and don’t come back — or someone will slit your throat.”
Charges of Government Duplicity
Many of the Islamists are also involved in militant activities. The Leagues for the Protection of the Revolution collect donations and allegedly recruit young men to fight in Syria’s civil war.
The ruling Nahda Party has yet to distance itself from the radicals. Nahda founder Rachid Ghannouchi even encouraged “our young Salafists” to patiently embark on a long march. “Why the hurry?” he said in a video of a meeting with Salafists. “The Islamists must fill the country with their organizations, establish Koran schools everywhere and invite religious imams.” The video was secretly recorded and posted online, but Ghannouchi claims his words were taken out of context.
The opposition accuses Nahda of duplicity, saying that while it publicly encourages tolerant discourse, it also uses the young radicals to intimidate independent voices in what seems like a joint effort.
Nahda bridles at the accusation and claims it is being misunderstood. “We support tolerance and freedom of expression in the arts. After all, Nahda means renaissance, right?” says Ajmi Lourimi, a member of the party leadership in charge of educational and cultural matters.
Lourimi is wearing a cap backwards. He turns his computer around and points to the screen, where there is a YouTube interview with the Jewish philosopher Emmanuel Levinas: “You see? I’m a philosopher myself,” says Lourimi. “An Islamic philosopher.”
Spiegel has the full article
