WORLD WORLDWIDE ITALY TUNISIA News Journal Update - (en) Italy, UCADI #170: Tunisian bankruptcy (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The ongoing debate on immigration has drawn attention to the ongoing crisis in

Tunisia which risks bringing the country to collapse, prompting a large part of
the population to emigrate, with a possible exodus estimated at 10% of the
population (1 million). If one looks at the data relating to immigration in Italy
it can be noted that the majority is made up of men, women and children who
arrive on Italian territory with autonomous means, small boats, fishing boats
mostly coming from the Tunisian coast, while the share of migrants attributable
to NGOs does not exceed 12% of the total number of those arriving in Italy. The
migrants are obviously not all Tunisians, but most of them are now made up of
poor peasants, young unemployed people who leave that country in the throes of a
very deep economic crisis, generated by the failure of policies which have seen
the interests of one of the country, that made up of the coastal population, to
that of the very poor peasant population who live within the country.
To understand the Tunisian situation it is necessary to take into account the
fact that out of approximately 1700 km² of territory, 40% is occupied by the
desert; the rest is dedicated to agriculture, while the coastal territory in
which the cities are concentrated and the majority of the population resides has
a different economic structure. Until the outbreak of the pandemic, this area was
the one with the greatest development thanks to tourism and most of the
industrial initiatives were concentrated here. The pandemic has put tourism in
crisis, which for the country represented the almost only possibility of having
foreign currency available necessary to purchase food and consumer products of
which the country is lacking. This is one of the reasons for the country's
economic crisis, together with the repercussions of the Ukrainian war which, by
raising the prices of foodstuffs, has further impoverished the country which
largely depends on imports for its food needs. Today the crisis is so dramatic
that the most widely consumed foodstuffs such as milk, white sugar, coffee, rice
are rationed while the prices of meat, eggs and oils have to deal with inflation
that exceeds 12%.
But to understand the Tunisian crisis it is necessary to take a step back in
time, starting from the premise that the country has a tradition of social
struggles like few African countries and that it has known the struggles of
miners and peasants. Looking at the current situation, it is necessary to start
at least from independence to understand when it is happening.

The "Jasmine Revolution" and the so-called Arab Spring

Tunisia gained independence from France on March 20, 1956. Prime Minister Habib
Bourguiba. A year later the Republic was proclaimed and Bourguiba became its
President; he remained in office until 1987 when a coup, supported by the Italian
secret services, led by Ben Ali did not assume power after a long illness of the
"father of the country." During the years of the Ben Ali dictatorship, the ruling
elite, sub-agent of multinationals, especially the French, appropriated enormous
wealth, stolen from the state and the people. This social block has kept in
office a Head of State wholly hostage to the Secret Services.
The revolution had its starting point on December 17, 2010, in Sidi Bouzid, the
capital of a rural region par excellence. The immolation by fire of Mohamed
Bouazizi, a graduate, itinerant and poor farmer, bears witness, beyond personal
motivations, to the failure of the national development model which has penalized
the predominantly agricultural regions whose economy has not known any
diversification; the agricultural sector as a whole has been exploited by
development policies to the advantage of other sectors, which has led to its
marginalization together with that of the inhabitants of the countryside and
inland areas of the country.
Despite the reduction in the demographic weight of Tunisian rural areas (the
rurality rate fell from 60% in the 1960s to 33.8% in 2011, according to the INS),
the deterioration of living conditions in some predominantly rural areas it was
at the origin of the revolution which had deep rural areas as its starting point,
given that the city of Sid Bouzid or that of Kasserine is urban only in name. The
two delegations that comprise the agglomeration of Sidi Bouzid are in fact
predominantly rural, since according to the population census carried out by the
INS in April As of 2004, just 35% of the population was urban. Furthermore, if we
consider the agglomerations of Menzel Bouzaiène, Regueb or Meknassi who were the
first to broadcast the revolt of Sidi Bouzid, these are all small rural centers
lacking the socio-cultural fabric that sustains the cities. The revolt then
spread to the poorest regions of the country, which find themselves in an even
more marginalized and more depressed situation than Sidi Bouzid. These include
the neighboring governorate of Kasserine, but also that of Gafsa which had
experienced a first revolt in 2008.[1]The revolution mobilized many unemployed
young people who demanded work, the dignity it offers and freedom, and led to the
removal of Ben Ali and part of his mafia court. linking itself to the populations
of the suburbs of the cities inhabited by those excluded from the development
process which involved the leading tourist sector of the coast and the national
bourgeoisie. This union allowed the protest to spread to the big cities and in
particular to Sfax and Tunis and therefore to the success of the so-called
"Jasmine Revolution".
The role played by the Trade Union Center (in particular its regional trade
unions) and by social networks on the Internet was also decisive on this occasion.[2]
However, just a few months after the revolution, the debates shifted from
questions of dignity, social justice and freedom (which were the slogans of the
revolution) to questions of identity and gradually, towards questions of a
political-religious nature. The different political forces and the country split
into two opposing groups: on the one hand, the Islamists and on the other the
secular or so-called modernists, with the result that the demands of the rural
populations at the basis of the revolt against the regime, which constituted the
majority of the populations of the internal regions (central and western Tunisia)
e aspire to more justice and more balance in the distribution of wealth both
between the social and productive sectors and between the regions, have faded
into the background.
The result was the progressive loss of strength of the movement and the
affirmation of Islamist parties in the 2011 elections, first of all the moderate
Islamic party Ennahda. This phase of the political confrontation resulted in the
election of the Constituent Assembly and the launch of a new Constitution with
which the country became an Islamic republic.
The difficult constituent path, characterized by tensions also between the
parties, ended with some agreements, which made it possible to maintain a
political-institutional framework. On January 26, 2014, a new Constitution came
into force which nonetheless contains guarantees of freedom and equality,
principles of protection of traditions and a "revolutionary introduction" of the
"new rights". The legislative elections for the allocation of the 217 seats
foreseen for the Assembly of the People (the Tunisian Parliament) were held
without incidents and disputes on 26 October 2014. The presidential elections
recorded the victory of Beji Caid Essebsi, who remained in power until upon his
death on July 25, 2019.
In the post-revolutionary decade, the country grew socially, despite a thousand
contradictions, but its economy and in particular tourism suffered an initial
collapse after the Islamist attacks of 2015, opening the door to the country's
economic crisis accentuated by the outbreak of the pandemic.

The presidency of Kaïs Saïed and the current crisis

On 17 October 2019 Kaïs Saïed, independent university professor of law, was
elected President of the Republic. His first choice is to appoint his brother
Naoufel, also a professor of constitutional law, to appoint the advisers and
members of the presidential cabinet. In his investiture speech, the President
undertakes to fight terrorism and its causes, to guarantee the conquests of
Tunisian women, strengthening their economic and social rights and refuses to
stay in the presidential palace of Carthage, preferring his villa in Mnihla,
located in the governorate of Ariana on the coast of the country.
The new president has to deal with the Islamist parties and above all with Rachid
Ghannouchi (former president of Parliament) at the head of Ennahda, the best
organized party on the African country's political scene. With 54 deputies out of
217 seats, the movement that calls itself "Muslim Democrats" is the first
political force in the Assembly of People's Representatives and has influenced
the work of the Constituent Assembly; Ennahda advocates a Tunisian path to
Islamism is against gender equality, pursues the country's Islamization. During
the previous decade, when the government was governed by the so-called "troika",
the result of the agreement between Ennahda-Ettakol-Congress of the Republic,
Tunisia risked sinking into chaos and civil war. Chokri Belaid, leader of the
leftist al Watan party, was shot dead February 6, 2013 in front of his home in
the El Menzah district, in Tunis, and Mohamed Brahmi, another exponent of the
Tunisian left, assassinated on July 25, 2013. The instigators of the murders
remain unknown to this day, but the judiciary is investigating the alleged
involvement of the "parallel" secret service of Ennahda which has demonstrated
what methods can be adopted to secure power.
In 2016 Ennahda declares that it is taking a moderate turn. Satisfied with having
Islamized the order through the constitutional reform, Ennahda now defines itself
as a "democratic and civil" movement, whose reference values draw on Islamic
civilization, but also on modern civilization; in reality its ties with the
Muslim Brotherhood are firm and the party remains on Islamic fundamentalist
positions.
The secular Tunisian front, which had consolidated around the figure of Beji Caid
Essebsi, split up to the point of almost completely disappearing from the
political scene, thanks to the strategy of Ghannouchi, leader of Ennahda. In
October 2019, when the second post-revolution parliamentary elections were held,
the Tunisian electorate suffered a deep fragmentation following the severe
economic crisis (still ongoing) and growing concern about corruption.
Ennahda lost 17 seats, but was - as has been said - the party with the most votes
by Tunisians in a context characterized by a historic abstention rate of almost
90%, also because the elections were boycotted by the opposition parties.
The negotiations for the new government ended with the formation of the
government chaired by Elyes Fakhfakh of the social democratic party who remained
in office for just 5 months, overwhelmed by an accusation of corruption: the
government took office on 27 February, after months of fruitless consultations
and post-election political stalemate and after a tug of war between Saied and
Ennahda Rashid Ghannouchi, which ended in favor of the President who had
threatened to dissolve Parliament. In the months that followed, Ennahda, which
holds a relative majority of seats in Parliament (55 out of 217), never gave up
demanding the inclusion of Qalb Tounes and El Karama, Islamist parties, in a
government coalition in which it complained increasing marginalization, also
seeing his influence in Parliament diminish, where he had opposed the transfer of
"special powers" to the executive to deal with the Covid-19 emergency. Fakhfakh's
resignation came after the government contained the spread of the coronavirus,
but could not avoid the economic and social fallout of confinement measures and
border closures.
On July 25, 2020, in the midst of a political crisis, Saïed nominated Hichel
Mechichi. An independent technocrat head of government, instructing him to form a
government in a month and gain the confidence of the Assembly of People's
Representatives: the president in charge on August 11 formed a government
composed entirely of independents. The composition of his government, which
included eight women, as well as a visually impaired aroused reservations from
Ennahda and other Islamic parties. The following 2 September, the government won
the confidence of the Assembly of People's Representatives with 134 votes against
67. But after just 10 months, on July 25, 2021, after strong protests by the
population against the government, the President ousted Prime Minister Hichel
Mechichi, fired the ministers of Defense and Justice, and suspends the work of
Parliament. In mid-December 2021 he announces a referendum on the constitutional
reform and suspends Parliament until the end of 2022 and invoking art. 80 of the
Tunisian Constitution assumes full powers and declares a state of emergency. He
confers the post of prime minister on Professor Najla Boiden, the first woman to
become prime minister in Tunisia and throughout the Arab world.

Kaïs Saïed places the country under guardianship

In the face of the decisions taken by President Ennahda denounces a coup d'état.
His thesis is shared by political scientists and jurists, in particular as
regards the suspension of parliamentary work, all the more so because the
President suspends the current Constitution in September 2021 and decides to
submit a new version of the fundamental law to a referendum; on 22 September
2021, it confirmed with an extension the resolutions relating to the dissolution
of the Provisional Body for checking the constitutionality of bills and suspended
the salaries and benefits of the President of the Assembly of People's
Representatives and its members; the power to govern by decree is attributed,
effectively recovering the legislative power; makes a sharp criticism of the role
of the parties. The appointment of the government presided over by Bouden is
therefore only the latest act of an institutional coup d'état, supported by
popular demonstrations and in December she denounces that the referendum on the
new Constitution will be held on 25 July 2022. In February, a presidential decree
dissolved the Superior Council of the Judiciary to replace it with a new
provisional body. These measures are accompanied and supported by a growing
repression, by arrests by severe restrictions on freedom of the press and by the
imposition of censorship; Many of those arrested are accused of "conspiracy
against the state". In February, a presidential decree dissolved the Superior
Council of the Judiciary to replace it with a new provisional body. These
measures are accompanied and supported by a growing repression, by arrests by
severe restrictions on freedom of the press and by the imposition of censorship;
Many of those arrested are accused of "conspiracy against the state". In
February, a presidential decree dissolved the Superior Council of the Judiciary
to replace it with a new provisional body. These measures are accompanied and
supported by a growing repression, by arrests by severe restrictions on freedom
of the press and by the imposition of censorship; Many of those arrested are
accused of "conspiracy against the state".
There seems to be no doubt that Kaïs Saïed's political choices seem to be
inspired by the anti-parliamentarism of Karl Schmitt when, identifying the root
cause of the country's political and economic crisis in the endemic conflict
between political parties, he starts from the actual reality of the conflict of
interest of which the different parties are the bearers to identify the
categories of the "political", bring them back to the opposition of the "private"
conflict and the "political" conflict to propose himself as arbiter and judge,
outside of morality and law, assuming on if the burden of the political
"decision" to which it gives the form of a personal dictatorship.
Having said all this, are there the conditions for the World Bank and
international organizations to satisfy Tunisia's request for a 1.7 billion loan
to deal with the crisis that is leading the country to collapse? The regime
established by Saïed will succeed in preventing the collapse and in controlling
the country, preventing the feared mass exodus; will he be able to secure the
southern border of Europe to deal with migrants? Meloni turned to Saïed and his
government, offering Tunisia international support and the benefits of the
so-called Mattei plan.

Contradictions and risks of the Tunisian "card".

In fine-tuning its anti-immigration strategy, the Meloni government is betting on
the Tunisian "card". Consequently, he declared that he is working to ensure that,
in order to support the loan request in front of the international banking
institutions worried about the authoritarian turn taking place in the country and
the consequent political instability: in fact, the US State Department has lined
up against the loan .
As for the so-called Mattei plan, Meloni who proposed it thinks of a
"non-predatory model of cooperation, in which both partners must be able to grow
and improve", but little is understood as to how this formula can be applied to
Tunisia .
Interventions in favor of Tunisian agriculture, the sector of greatest suffering
for the country's economy, collide with the difficulty that its productions are
competitive with those of southern Italy with which they contend the European
market for lower prices due to the cost lowest of the workforce in Tunisia and
the same happens for any subsidies and aid to Tunisian tourism, a direct
competitor of that of southern Italy. Where would the hairy nationalism and
sovereignty of the governing majority end up then?
Since the countries are competitors in both sectors, the only choice that Italy
could make is to open up to selective immigration, starting with the emigration
of skilled labour, given the good degree of cultural and professional training of
part of the population or again through the opening of places and opportunities
for vocational training, which is then followed by emigration visas: but these
choices do not seem to be within the reach of an emigration-phobic government
like the current one.
Another more probable choice is to finance, with the help of the European Union -
as happened for Turkey - the country. to contrast emigration by monitoring and
militarizing the coasts, guarding the borders with southern Africa in order to
block arrivals on the coast, moving the barrier into the desert. It goes without
saying that this choice would support the militarization of the country and would
contribute to further compressing internal civil liberties. All this while much
stronger interests take the field: China, also through Algeria, is working to
penetrate the country economically by linking its market and production to its
trades.

[1]On 6 June 2008, hundreds of unemployed took to the streets in Redeyef, in the
Gafsa area, at the gates of the Sahara, to ask for work above all in the
phosphate mines of which the region is rich. To disperse the demonstrators, the
police opened fire, killing a 25-year-old boy and wounding another 18. The revolt
failed due to lack of support in the large coastal cities.[2]The 2010-2011
revolution is linked to a Tunisian tradition where the revolts against the
central power often had rural origins. Suffice it to recall the revolt of Abou
Yazid "Sahib El Himar" (the man with the donkey) in the X century (originally
from Tozeur in Djérid), or that of Ali Ben Ghedhahem in 1864 (from Kasserine);
peasant revolts against the central state and against its unbearable tax burden.
Since the mid-1990s of this century, agricultural policy choices have favored
consumers and the market to the detriment of agricultural producers, increasing
the precariousness of rural populations, which was at the origin of the revolution.

http://www.ucadi.org/2023/04/18/la-bancarotta-tunisina/
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