This sunny and warm country has been ruled by a family over more than a decade. The regime speaks about the people and empowerment and modernization and gives lots of visible role to women. Yet rampant corruption is reported at all levels and even more at the level of the presidential family and its entourage. In fact through wikileaks the local US embassy reports how the president's family and entourage muscle they way into any private prosperous business. Eventually popular protests became so strong that eventually the president was forced to flee the country for an Islamic country willing to hoist him. Which country am I talking of?
If you answered Venezuela you were wrong, it is Tunisia.
OK, OK, so I admit that I forced my hand a tad here. But did I? Are we not seeing in Venezuela the sudden rise to riches of too many people who in 1998 had to take public transportation? Is it not corruption an everyday affair now? Are we not seeing more and more public protests? Add a decade more and some more wikileaks releases and you are almost there.
May this serve as a warning to Chavez and his corrupt entourage: reckoning always come.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
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On the other hand, Tunisia will likely become a terror-sponsoring nation. Al-Qeada has endorsed the revolution.
ReplyDeleteUCC
ReplyDeleteThis is not certain. Algeria where fundamentalism has been rife for quite a while, were Al Qaeda is very present, has not fallen.
Tunisia is over all more educated and secularism is more implanted. Tue, it may fall the Islamic way but it is not a certainty.
Besides, what do we care? you can have Al Qaeda cells in London bombing the subway already. Why would be Tunisia so essential?
No matter what, I can assure you that half a decade more of corruption in Tunisia would have fostered much more Islamic fundamentalism than a revolution that has a chance of bringing forward a better system.
Iran would be the next Tunisia before Venezuela.
ReplyDeleteThe one thing that stood out since the Tunisia events started to pop up was the official story. It stated that Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was elected in October 2009 with 89% of the vote.
ReplyDeleteMuammar Gaddafi comments also show he scared that the same thing could happen to him and his family in Tripoli.
Once a country finds itself at the bottom and its people see how far they have fallen behind other countries their leader get toppled. Sooner or later the leaders of all failed states fall.
Alejo, VZLA Paraiso Perdido
UCC,
ReplyDeleteDaniel is right: there is a little chance for Tunesia. People there are more secular (I know some), it is a small, ethnically and religiously more compact country, it has much more contact with the West.
What about Saudi Arabia? Not just Wikileaks but the normal press has talked about this for many years: Islamic fundamentalism has been promoted for ages by the Saudis big big time. And what about Pakistan? And where did the terrorists who committed those atrocities in the USA get their training? They trained in the US, they trained in Germany, they trained in Pakistan, more than in Afghanistan. They came from Yemen and Saudi Arabia.
There are loads of people now opposed to a multiparty, pluralistic society for Tunesia. Chances are Ben Ali will be replaced by another softer strongman, one as in Algeria.
Still, there is a chance Tunesia could become a model for Arabic countries.
Unfortunately, I don't think the hardliners in many places, not only in Arabic countries, want that.
Let's see.
And it only took a little over 20 years to can the autocrat. Coincidentally, one of Ben Ali's first acts was to eliminate the one 5 year term limit. Sound familiar? And about his high re-election vote count, running a police state seemed to go well with running unopposed. If we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it, i.e., it's happening in Venezuela. The democrat to dictator model is now well established.
ReplyDeleteI'm waiting for Eva Golinger to blame the Tunisian revolution on U.S. funded NGO's.
ReplyDelete