Revolution in Tunisia

[Libertarian Muslim]

I spent 6 hours last night having a conversation with two Tunisian sisters that are in Tunisia right now, one of whom was teaching at the university there.

They both told me that the people there are really happy and jubilant, that they're all finally allowed to say just what they want and right now it's just an explosion of happiness and profanities towards the old regime..

They dismissed the idea that this is the 'Jasmine Revolution' like some had wished and stated that this has nothing to do with poverty, increased prices for goods and not anything to do with money (though this is also a concern of the people).. It's a 'Revolution for Dignity'.. The Tunisian people are absolutely fed up with living in a police state, having their government spy on them and being limited from what they could say..

The final straw for the young brother that set himself alight was not increased prices or the lack of jobs.. No.. He was humiliated and had his dignity taken away when a female police officer slapped him in the face in front of everyone.. The reverberations of this amongst his tribe were earth shattering, in his tribe, if a man is slapped by a woman he should either wear a dress or kill himself.. And so he did, as a sign of protest and to demonstrate how humiliated the Tunisian people were all feeling and have been feeling for the last 23 years.. They are fed up with all of the corruption of public officials, the oppression by the secret police and the lack of a voice that the people could express..

So the people protested and bin Ali directed the head of his armed forces, General Rashid Ammar to order his soldiers to turn their guns onto their own countrymen, and General Rashid Ammar refused, saying he would not do so as they are his brothers and sisters..

So the people of Tunisia protested and took bin Ali out of power.. In his wake he directed the head of his internal security General Ali Seriati to get his secret police to put the whole nation into chaos by positioning secret police marksmen everywhere to kill innocent civilians and to bomb places to make the people beg bin Ali to return to govern them..

But that's not what happened, whilst the people were indeed fearful of the marksmen shooting them, they still protested.. These savages with rifles positioned on the tops of buildings killed many, even my friend's next door neighbor was shot dead.. Below is a picture from his Janaza as the people were protesting.. My friend's mother can be seen in the white hijab on the right mashaALLAH.

And so they started protecting their neighborhoods, with very few weapons, sticks, stones and on the rare occasion swords and created roadblocks around.. My friend refers to her suburb as ghetto like Chicago.. The young brothers stood guard, catching looters on the streets and criminals, they even caught a few of General Ali Seriati's shooters on the roofs and they were lynched, they were beaten and their throats were cut.. Were they given a fair trial like they should have? No they weren't... However they were found with the weapons and identifications on them and in such angry times of revolution, sometimes the people feel the need to hand out some revolutionary justice..

General Ali Seriati has been arrested, and the attacks by his minions have all but ended.. The people have gone to the streets demanding that all remnants of the former regime step down and they are protesting and having sit ins. General Rashid Ammar, who had previously refused bin Ali's orders to fire on his own people addressed the sit ins and protests, he promised the people that the army would remain neutral and not become political, that it would be there only to guarantee their rights and protect their rights to protest and demand change..

So what will happen next? Who knows.. Tunisia is witnessing a major revolution here and right now and it seems that the people just want to express themselves, their hate for the previous regime and their aspirations of the future..

Elections should be held within 6 months, and if a government is elected then that would be good, there's a wide range of candidates from across the spectrum, some of which have already been chased away.. My friend is very doubtful that any Salafist Islamic political parties calling for their own puritan style Caliphate will be successful because Tunisians in general have no interest in being dictated to by yet another oppressive system that restricts peoples' rights and freedoms, rather they seem to be wanting to remove all censorship in the media and allow for an exchange of ideas so that the Tunisian people can be completely free and choose their own destiny..

Edited January 26, 2011 by Libertarian Muslim

[Libertarian Muslim]

Tunisia: The Army ''faithful to the Constitution and guarantor of the Revolution''

AfricanManager

The Chief of Staff of the Tunisian Army, General Rashid Ammar, assured, on Monday, that the Army "will not go beyond the Constitution" in Tunisia, speaking to hundreds of protesters who gathered, at the Government Palace in Kasbah. "We are faithful to the Constitution. We protect the Constitution. We will not get out of this framework," he said during an impromptu response on the esplanade of the Kasbah. General Rashid Ammar also promised that the Army will be "the guarantor of the revolution" in Tunisia. He also warned that a "power vacuum" in the country could lead to a dictatorship. "Our Revolution, your Revolution might be lost ..., others could appropriate it. There are forces that want a vacuum, a vacuum of power. The vacuum brings terror, which leads to dictatorship, "said Gen. Rashid Ammar.

[Selene]

Shayne: OOPS - it did seem an odd post.

Hello my friend...good to see that you are well.

Thank you so much for an excellent view of the reality on the ground.

My best wishes go out to your friends, their families and to all the freedom loving folks in Tunisia.

Adam

Edited January 26, 2011 by Selene

[Libertarian Muslim]

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Shayne:

Adam,

That ain't Shayne.

They both use the same avatar.

Michael

[BaalChatzaf]

The French Revolution started out with the joy of wrecking the Bastaille and ended up with 40,000 decapitations and the tyranny of Napoleon.

Good luck. You will need it.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

Shayne:

Adam,

That ain't Shayne.

They both use the same avatar.

Michael

Michael:

Thanks. It did seem to be a peculiar source. Of course, it would have helped to actually read what was above the avatar!

I corrected the post.

Adam

chuckling to himself for "assuming" and posting on the run

Edited January 26, 2011 by Selene

[bmacwilliam]

The final straw for the young brother that set himself alight was not increased prices or the lack of jobs.. No.. He was humiliated and had his dignity taken away when a female police officer slapped him in the face in front of everyone.. The reverberations of this amongst his tribe were earth shattering, in his tribe, if a man is slapped by a woman he should either wear a dress or kill himself..

Too bad it's not customary for all of the men of the tribe to follow suit.

EDIT: These clowns might fight to the death for their own "rights and freedoms" yet, even if they win will continue to oppress half the population.

Bob

Edited January 26, 2011 by Bob_Mac

[Libertarian Muslim]

The final straw for the young brother that set himself alight was not increased prices or the lack of jobs.. No.. He was humiliated and had his dignity taken away when a female police officer slapped him in the face in front of everyone.. The reverberations of this amongst his tribe were earth shattering, in his tribe, if a man is slapped by a woman he should either wear a dress or kill himself..

Too bad it's not customary for all of the men of the tribe to follow suit.

EDIT: These clowns might fight to the death for their own "rights and freedoms" yet, even if they win will continue to oppress half the population.

Bob

How do you mean they'll oppress half the population?

[anthony]

The final straw for the young brother that set himself alight was not increased prices or the lack of jobs.. No.. He was humiliated and had his dignity taken away when a female police officer slapped him in the face in front of everyone.. The reverberations of this amongst his tribe were earth shattering, in his tribe, if a man is slapped by a woman he should either wear a dress or kill himself..

Too bad it's not customary for all of the men of the tribe to follow suit.

EDIT: These clowns might fight to the death for their own "rights and freedoms" yet, even if they win will continue to oppress half the population.

Bob

How do you mean they'll oppress half the population?

The women.

The incident you relate inadvertently reveals a tribal or cultural prejudice against women.

Tony

[Libertarian Muslim]

The women.

The incident you relate inadvertently reveals a tribal or cultural prejudice against women.

Tony

You're referring to a small tribe, the Tunisian people, both men and women rallied around the person who set himself alight not because it was a female that hit him, but because it was a police officer and the people were sick of suffering the indignities that they had been by agents of bin Ali for the past 23 years..

If you think the Tunisian people would somehow oppress females you're mistaken..

[Brant Gaede]

Shayne:

Adam,

That ain't Shayne.

They both use the same avatar.

Michael

Michael:

Thanks. It did seem to be a peculiar source. Of course, it would have helped to actually read what was above the avatar!

I corrected the post.

Adam

chuckling to himself for "assuming" and posting on the run

They don't use the same avatar. Similar, but not the same.

LM: Thank you for your post. I love factual reports.

--Brant

[Richard Wiig]

So there's a small tribe in Tunisia that treats women as inferiors by virture of being women, but all the rest of them treat women as equals?

You're referring to a small tribe,

[william.scherk]

So there's a small tribe in Tunisia that treats women as inferiors by virture of being women, but all the rest of them treat women as equals?

You're referring to a small tribe,

We should let Lib-Musl admit a mistake in using the word tribe here. The way he wrote "in his tribe, if a man is slapped by a woman he should either wear a dress or kill himself" allows a lot of misunderstanding to grow. It was not a slap that led to self-immolation, but seizure and destruction of his means of survival.

Perhaps the only remaining 'tribes' in Tunisia are Berber-descendent. The town in which L-M's nameless fellow (Mohammed Bouazizi) had his vegetable cart seized by officials of the state is far from the capital, Tunis, but tribal demarcations are not the most important part of the story. As a red herring, very useful. As an aid to understanding events in Tunisia, useless.

For a short look at how Bouazizi's confrontation with the state led to Ben Ali's departure, Al-Jazeera has an intriguing story here that shows how Tunisians beat the odds against the success of their uprising.

The slapper was not a policewoman, but a municipal employee, and the sexual/gender humiliation is oddly played up in L-M's story to a degree not found in most reports. If you want a reasonably complete story of the spark of revolution, see Wikipedia's article on Mohammed Bouzizi; no need to rely on L-M's unusual gender/tribe framing.

Women's equality in Tunisia is covered by the Code of Personal Status, which swept away sharia-based conventions on dowry, divorce, polygamy, custody, and other female subjugations. It dates from 1957 and is unlikely to be changed under any new regime, as Tunisia has the highest participation of women in the labour force of any Arab nation, with women in medicine, law, armed forces, police, etcetera.

Edited January 27, 2011 by william.scherk

[Libertarian Muslim]

We should let Lib-Musl admit a mistake in using the word tribe here. The way he wrote "in his tribe, if a man is slapped by a woman he should either wear a dress or kill himself" allows a lot of misunderstanding to grow. It was not a slap that led to self-immolation, but seizure and destruction of his means of survival.

No, that's not true at all.. Get your facts right before you start talking.. He did it because he was humiliated in public, was spat on and slapped by a police woman who also insulted his dead father.. Was the issue of his merchandise being taken a factor, perhaps but it wasn't the major issue..

Perhaps the only remaining 'tribes' in Tunisia are Berber-descendent. The town in which L-M's nameless fellow (Mohammed Bouazizi) had his vegetable cart seized by officials of the state is far from the capital, Tunis, but tribal demarcations are not the most important part of the story. As a red herring, very useful. As an aid to understanding events in Tunisia, useless.

Perhaps tribe isn't the correct word, his family yes, and his town were all humiliated by it.

For a short look at how Bouazizi's confrontation with the state led to Ben Ali's departure, Al-Jazeera has an intriguing story here that shows how Tunisians beat the odds against the success of their uprising.

The slapper was not a policewoman, but a municipal employee, and the sexual/gender humiliation is oddly played up in L-M's story to a degree not found in most reports. If you want a reasonably complete story of the spark of revolution, see Wikipedia's article on Mohammed Bouzizi; no need to rely on L-M's unusual gender/tribe framing.

She WAS a Police woman, what I've related is accurate to what I've been told by two people, both of whom teach at a university in Tunisia. Even the wikipedia article and other raises the woman's gender as an issue which added further humiliation to the issue.

A man being slapped by a female in any culture is humiliating, especially in public.. Why is that? Because if a woman hits you, you don't hit her back because she's a female and according to the ideas of disparity of force, it would be unreasonable for him to hit her back.. Women are not the same as men.. And therefore, it's humiliating because women are generally physically weaker and you can't hit them back. So to say that her gender had nothing to do with it is just rubbish.

Women's equality in Tunisia is covered by the Code of Personal Status, which swept away sharia-based conventions on dowry, divorce, polygamy, custody, and other female subjugations. It dates from 1957 and is unlikely to be changed under any new regime, as Tunisia has the highest participation of women in the labour force of any Arab nation, with women in medicine, law, armed forces, police, etcetera.

First of all, the Shariah laws don't subjugate women, your referral to dowry is a perfect example of your ignorance.. Unlike in Hinduism, in Islam the man pays the dowry to the woman, so it's not something that puts her at a disadvantage at all..

So as I said, no, there won't be any type of Wahhabist state there so the rights of women will be protected.. Tunisians aren't like Saudis.

[bmacwilliam]

A man being slapped by a female in any culture is humiliating, especially in public..

No, no it's not. You could describe it as many things, but 'humiliating' is a specific choice that tells quite a story.

You simply don't get it. You simply cannot see through your misogynistic fog of ignorance.

Bob

[Richard Wiig]

Tribal would be the right word for that. If someone slaps my brother and humiliates him, I dont' feel humiliated too, least of all my entire family, or my entire town. We are more individualist in our thinking than that. If that mentality (and it's a distinctively Islamic flavoured mentality) is indicative of the broader Tunisian mentality, then it's truly difficult to see how freedom will arise.

Perhaps tribe isn't the correct word, his family yes, and his town were all humiliated by it.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Actually that kind of mentality was prevalent in the USA South where feuds (like the Hatfields and McCoys) were started by one member insulting another. They used to resolve their honor differences by duels, too.

It took a while, but the good ideas eventually infiltrated. That was even before the Internet.

With modern media being what it is, I think we will witness the death-throes of major fundamentalist regimes in our lifetime.

Of course, other fundamentalists on our end don't see it that way. They prefer genocide at worst and "preemptive war" at best. But A is A and the effect of modern media will not go away by wishing. It will grow instead as it has done and is doing.

The only way to permanently rule a man's mind with force in an entire society (like a country) is to control access to other ideas and kill off the naturally independent people. If the ruling class folks want their cool toys like personal computers, broadband and mobile phones, they have to let other ideas in. There's no way not to. And ruling class folks always want their toys.

From what I see, it's just a matter of time.

In the Muslim world, after the explosion of the Great Clash which is gathering and looming (Shiite contra Sunni), with the resultant impact on oil prices the world over (and the economic mess that will entail), I predict the fundies will be out of power in major Islamic countries and stay out. Maybe there will be a surge or other during the dust settling, but I believe the game is over for them long-term.

Michael

[william.scherk]

The way he wrote "in his tribe, if a man is slapped by a woman he should either wear a dress or kill himself" allows a lot of misunderstanding to grow. It was not a slap that led to self-immolation, but seizure and destruction of his means of survival.

No, that's not true at all.. Get your facts right before you start talking.. He did it because he was humiliated in public, was spat on and slapped by a police woman who also insulted his dead father.. Was the issue of his merchandise being taken a factor, perhaps but it wasn't the major issue.

Here is my point, dude -- you fixate on a slap and make the slap the most important part of the story. You leave out the man's name, the man's situation, the aftermath of the encounter in the market.

Your focus on the slap distorts the story for those who do not know any other details of the events in Tunisia.

By focusing on the slap and the gender humiliation and by adding your own interpretations, you invite readers to further misinterpret the story as an Islamic Honour tale and thus to dismiss the spark of the uprising as crazy Islamists.

By leaving out the other details and context, you fail to reach your aims of celebrating the uprising.

In addition to the focus on the slap you salt the tale with a vague notion of tribalism -- I am saying your story pulled out a detail and made it paramount.

So to say that her gender had nothing to do with it is just rubbish.

Wow. No one here said the municipal inspector's gender had nothing to do with it -- your insistence that gender and tribe was most important, that the seizure of the means to his family's livelihood was not a major issue -- these are the elements that I take issue with.

Perhaps tribe isn't the correct word

Exactly. Invoking tribe in such a vague manner doesn't do justice to the situation. It's a red herring, dude. You have Bob Mac and Richard Wiig running with it, making it a point of contention, and allowing them to cast the Tunisian uprising in strict terms of Muslim honour, to see the uprising as a mere nutty Islamic fooferaw.

I understand that you support the Tunisian efforts to throw off the Ben Ali dictatorship and achieve that which we in the West take for granted. It is too bad that your reporting and righteousness becomes the story here . . . if you cannot understand and admit your mistakes, you run the risk of appearing to be an Islamist kook.

Edited January 27, 2011 by william.scherk

[Richard Wiig]

Actually that kind of mentality was prevalent in the USA South where feuds (like the Hatfields and McCoys) were started by one member insulting another. They used to resolve their honor differences by duels, too.

It took a while, but the good ideas eventually infiltrated. That was even before the Internet.

With modern media being what it is, I think we will witness the death-throes of major fundamentalist regimes in our lifetime.

Of course, other fundamentalists on our end don't see it that way. They prefer genocide at worst and "preemptive war" at best. But A is A and the effect of modern media will not go away by wishing. It will grow instead as it has done and is doing.

Michael

You expect people to accept those ideas just as you have? What makes you think that the devoutly religious will accept them? One consequence I've noticed from the Islamic crackdown on freedom of speech in the West - that is through such things as rioting and murdering - is that the devoutly Christian are becoming more emboldened to speak out against freedom of speech themselves. They're beginning to push more and be more accepting of the idea of a ban on blasphemy, and most people don't give a damn about that. What did the West do in the face of the cartoon fracas? It rolled over and stuck its arse in the air. Those who actually didn't stick their arse in the air were denounced as bigots by people such as yourself. If there is a movement for freedom then it's only a glimmer of a movement.

[Richard Wiig]

How does it distort the story if it actually was considered the most salient point by the actors involved? Libertarian Muslim has told you that it was the most salient point to them. He knows the actors involved, and you don't, so why do you step in and tell him he's got it all wrong when you don't even know the people he's talking about?

Your focus on the slap distorts the story for those who do not know any other details of the events in Tunisia.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What did the West do in the face of the cartoon fracas? It rolled over and stuck its arse in the air. Those who actually didn't stick their arse in the air were denounced as bigots by people such as yourself. If there is a movement for freedom then it's only a glimmer of a movement.

Richard,

What a load of BS.

You really should read before you make that kind of claim. I know it takes effort, but that's the way rationality works.

What you just did is another example of judging, then claiming facts to fit it without any kind of verification.

Here on OL, we actually did the contrary of what you claimed about the cartoons. We even posted the images. Robert Bidinotto was active at that time and the pertinent copy of The New Individualist was amply discussed. I've even discussed this issue with LM from a freedom of speech stance.

Do you need to be baby-spoon-fed or can you look that stuff up on your own?

Don't worry about any feelings of shame of being wrong. (That's what people normally feel when they are caught serving up BS to themselves, then loud-mouthing it to everyone else.) I don't expect a retraction, at least not until you start adopting a more correct thinking sequence.

But I will expose incorrect crap for what it is.

Michael

[Richard Wiig]

What did the West do in the face of the cartoon fracas? It rolled over and stuck its arse in the air. Those who actually didn't stick their arse in the air were denounced as bigots by people such as yourself. If there is a movement for freedom then it's only a glimmer of a movement.

Richard,

What a load of BS.

You really should read before you make that kind of claim. I know it takes effort, but that's the way rationality works.

What you just did is another example of judging, then claiming facts to fit it without any kind of verification.

Here on OL, we actually did the contrary of what you claimed about the cartoons. We even posted the images. Robert Bidinotto was active at that time and the pertinent copy of The New Individualist was amply discussed. I've even discussed this issue with LM from a freedom of speech stance.

Do you need to be baby-spoon-fed or can you look that stuff up on your own?

Don't worry about any feelings of shame of being wrong. (That's what people normally feel when they are caught serving up BS to themselves, then loud-mouthing it to everyone else.) I don't expect a retraction, at least not until you start adopting a more correct thinking sequence.

But I will expose incorrect crap for what it is.

Michael

I knew when I said "people like you" that I didn't know your stance on those who held the cartoons on high, but I took a wild stab that you probably would have. You come across as PC enough to be capable of it. I still put you in the league of those who are enabling Islam.

P.S. The rest of it, btw, is not bs. The West did roll over. Very, very, very few people actually stood up to it. It's funny how you spend so much time on non-essentials, such as my off the cuff comment. By all means, deal with it, but not at the expense of what's truly important.

Edited January 28, 2011 by Infidel

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I believe in freedom of religion.

That's not negotiable.

To negate that in a package-deal concept like "enabling Islam" is oversimplified and disgusting.

There are only two ways to "disable" Islam or any other body of thought (whatever the hell that means).

1. Kill off everyone in the culture and burn all the books.

2. Present better ideas and learn how to communicate them persuasively to practitioners.

Everything else is just macho-sounding hot air. It does nothing in reality except waste the time of people who actually do stuff.

I loathe genocide, so I opt for the second.

And I am tired of the hot air.

More much later.

Michael

[bmacwilliam]

I believe in freedom of religion.

That's not negotiable.

To negate that in a package-deal concept like "enabling Islam" is oversimplified and disgusting.

There are only two ways to "disable" Islam or any other body of thought (whatever the hell that means).

1. Kill off everyone in the culture and burn all the books.

2. Present better ideas and learn how to communicate them persuasively to practitioners.

Everything else is just macho-sounding hot air. It does nothing in reality except waste the time of people who actually do stuff.

I loathe genocide, so I opt for the second.

And I am tired of the hot air.

More much later.

Michael

What about:

3)Rationally discredit and reject the nonsensical/violent/dogmatic/misogynistic elements of the religion?