The insurrection in Tunisia and the future of the Arab revolution¶
Core Argument¶
The Tunisian revolution of 2011, ignited by Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation, overthrew the twenty-three-year dictatorship of Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali. This was no sudden eruption but the culmination of decades of economic decay, mass unemployment, systemic corruption, and unrelenting repression. When the masses finally shed their fear, the regime’s attempts at repression and concession—sacking the interior minister, releasing detainees, promising jobs—proved futile. The army, distancing itself from the dictator and fraternising with protesters, forced Ben Ali to flee to Saudi Arabia. Prime Minister Mohammed Ghannouchi, a regime insider, then declared a state of emergency and banned gatherings, a transparent stalling tactic to restore elite control.
Western imperialists, particularly France and the United States, are condemned for their hypocrisy. They had propped up Ben Ali’s dictatorship until its final hours, only to call for democracy and calm once he fell. Sarkozy had praised Tunisia’s human rights record, and France offered security forces to suppress the uprising. The revolt, however, spread rapidly to Algeria, Jordan, and Morocco, puncturing the psychological barrier of fear across the Arab world. Satellite television and the internet fused local frustrations into a broader movement.
The uprising was a spontaneous mass movement, not the work of a weak opposition. Its strength lay in this spontaneity, but its weakness was the absence of a clear political perspective. Bourgeois ‘friends of democracy’—Western governments, NGOs, and trade union fronts—now descend on Tunis to restore order, whether through democratic or dictatorial means, aiming to return workers to their lathes and students to their studies. The ‘national unity government’ is a trap; the legal opposition is compromised. The masses must not demobilise but intensify their struggle, demanding a revolutionary constituent assembly, an end to the state of emergency, and a people’s trial for torturers. A nationwide general strike, led by the working class, is needed. Action committees must be formed, workers should fraternise with soldiers, establish soldiers’ committees, and form a people’s militia for self-defence.
The revolution resembles Russia’s February 1917: it has overthrown the old regime but not yet replaced it, and could be defeated without revolutionary leadership. The idea that only Islamic fundamentalism offers opposition is false; the Tunisian revolution flies the red flag of socialism, not the black flag of Islamism. Stalinism’s ‘two-stage’ theory destroyed Arab Communist parties, creating a vacuum filled by CIA-backed fundamentalists. The socialist tradition is reviving; a new generation is learning Marxism. The Arab Revolution will triumph as a socialist revolution or not at all.