Tunisia: Ten years after the ‘revolution’ the social and economic issues that provoked it remain unaddressed.
From an old article I have selected some points that are still relevant today after 10 years of the beginning of the Tunisian ‘revolution’. In fact, the situation today is worse than in 2014.
None of the social aspirations that sparked its December 2010 uprising have been fulfilled.
Was bringing the Islamists into the political fold a gamble that paid off? Yes for those who maintained that their coming to power would not be irreversible. Yes also for their enemies, who predicted that once they were in power, they would reveal their obsession with identity and religion, and the limitations of their economic and social policy. “With [the Islamists] we are pre-Adam Smith and David Ricardo,” Hamma Hammami, spokesman for the leftwing Popular Front, told me. ‘The Muslim Brothers’ political economy is a rent-based economy; it’s about parallel trade. It isn’t about production, or wealth creation; it isn’t about agriculture, industry or infrastructure; and it isn’t about reorganising education for strategic aims, whether economic, scientific or technological.’
It is clear that a ‘development model’ (to borrow a term from Ennahda’s 2011 election manifesto) requires more than empty slogans.
The stormy political times we’ve been through,’ said economist Nidhal Ben Cheikh, ‘were notable for the discussion of subjects that are relatively taboo in Tunisia: religion, belief, the sacred, sexuality, homosexuality, the role of women. The fundamentals of our political economy, however, have never been debated, let alone questioned. As a result, the governorates [provinces] where the revolution — the political and social uprising — took hold, Kef, Kasserine, Siliana, Tataouine and Kebili, are still suffering from an appalling lack of local economic activity.’
After Ennahda, came a figure from the old regime, Beji Caid Essebsi. ‘Rather than capitalise on his own popularity and the enthusiasm of the first few months (with all the talk of a Jasmine Revolution) to sweep away his predecessor’s neoliberal policies, he surrounded himself with orthodox ministers who preserved the old economic model, to the delight of the IMF. Consequently, Caid Essebsi acknowledges, “in some regions which have been marginalised for a very long time because there’s been so much more focus on the coastal regions, there has been no improvement.’
Since 2011 there has been no deviation from course: integrating Tunisia into the international division of labour by offering foreign investors a skilled workforce and miserable wage levels. This model can only perpetuate the huge regional inequalities. It doesn’t offer development that prioritises the country’s own needs, driven by state investment and sustained by local demand that isn’t fuelled by debt. So the grey economy and smuggling are likely to grow (reducing tax receipts), the state to roll back and jihadist cells to exploit the situation. ‘The US, that great advocate of neoliberalism, allowed the nationalisation of its banks [in the crisis in 2008], but Tunisia in its revolutionary period ruled out revolutionary measures,’ said Economist Nidhal Ben Cheikh ruefully.
Servicing its debt is a heavy burden for this poor country: it is the third largest item in Tunisia’s budget (4.2bn Tunisian dinar, $2.66bn, in 2013). The second largest item, at 5.5bn dinar ($3.48bn) in 2013, is the Caisse Générale de Compensation (CGC), a subsidy scheme for food and energy. Everyone would like to reduce it, but no one knows how, and on this there is little to choose between the Islamists and their opponents. Their caution is understandable: it is an incendiary subject.
Ben Cheikh pointed out that the main aim of the CGC ‘was making politically sustainable a neoliberal strategy to encourage industry by providing low-cost labour. To attract investors, Tunisia accepted that the state should fund some of the living costs of workers. So for over 40 years, workers in textiles and mechanical and electrical industries have not received a decent salary but have been able to buy subsidised flour and petrol.’
Then in October 2019 a professor with no party affiliation became president. He too has no economic plans different from his predecessors. ‘Ten years after the ‘revolution’, the social and economic issues that provoked it remain unaddressed?’
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