Tunisia? Tunisia! Who would have thunked it!

Old Slaughter

Link???

canonalberic

Spot on as ever Nick.

I note that the egregious Rupert Wingfield-Hayes ("..the trouble is that one side thinks god gave them the others land..." no prizes for guessing who?) is covering the story for the BBC whilst (perhaps mercifully) Mr Bowen files simpering travelogues about Chateau Musar. Inevitably, "moderate" Islamists are being glossed as voices of democratic protest.

The quality of foreign correspondence has simply collapsed and our leading media organisation exemplifies it perfectly: there is no realistic political coverage of the EU its all just rebates and triviality - Carla Bruni or Silvio and his hookers; the reporting of the Obama administration is like a 1970's Jackie on David Essex; and there does not appear to be any coverage of the whole of Asia beyond natural disaters and Jerry Andersons North Korea.

No wonder the population at large is increasingly ignorant, prejudiced and fearful.

Old Slaughter

Really? A week between posts and when it does come it is a reprint of an article form elsewhere. You don't really seem committed to this whole Speccie thing Nick.

(Sorry bout the link comment, didn't show on the device.)

Ruby Duck

What Tunisia teaches is that it isn't the attention of the media that rights wrongs and overthrows tyrants. People do that.

Dr Michael Salt

Yes, it is strange to learn that for the last 2 decades Tunisia has been a festering cesspit of torture, violence, corruption and totalitarianism.

One does wonder why the BBC, with its 8263046745 Middle East bureau staff, have missed this. Too busy trying to delegitimise Israel, of course.

I still can't quite figure out.... why.

David Lindsay

Rachid Ghannoushi is on his way back to Tunisia, to re-establish An Nahda there. Of course, it is "only" comparable to its close friends, his translators, the ruling AKP in Turkey. So that's all right, then. Isn't it?

Israel, Egypt, Turkey, the Gulf monarchs, the Saudi proxies in Lebanon, and now Turkey's little helper in Tunisia, whatever the unreconstructed Communists who actually staged the uprising there might have wanted: the Middle East is being turned into what most people in the West have been conned into believing that it has always been, with no indigenous Christians, and with no place of safety for Jews unless they sign up to Zionism. Even the sort of ghastly regime that the West used to indulge, and continues to indulge elsewhere in the world, simply has to go.

At Israeli, Egyptian, Turkish and Saudi instigation, the large and previously secure Christian minority in one of the most populous Arab countries has been used as bait with which to attract jihadis, a country with reserved parliamentary representation for Jews and Christians must be nuked, a country with Christian festivals as public holidays and which is busily restoring Jewish holy sites is next in line, and a Christian-Muslim alliance which is restoring an historic synagogue is not recognised as the respected Opposition within a pluralist and Westward-looking democracy, but rather is demonised as a gang of Islamist terrorists. The aim seems to be to hand over Lebanon to the Saudis' sponsorees in order to prove the Likudnik and neoconservative point. Something very similar is happening in Tunisia.

From the Marxist flags on the streets of Tunis, to the Islamist leaders wending their merry way back to the place, we never learn, do we? Merely because the former regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq were dreadful, we backed any and everyone against them, no matter how bad any or everyone might have been. We had pursued the same strategy against the Soviet Union even while, in like manner, cheering on the Soviet puppets in South Africa and in Latin America, although we were actually allied to the regimes themselves; in South Africa, we sold out the non-violent, non-racial, non-Marxist, pro-Commonwealth opposition. Against Ian Smith, we managed to side with the Soviet Union and with China simultaneously; again, too bad for those who still looked to Britain.

We gush over the Cuban pimps and drug barons in Miami. We back any old Stalinist, Nazi, Islamist or whatever against a Russian regime which, next to those alternatives, is not really all that bad. We adopt a similar approach to China, even while prostrating ourselves to her economically. In Iran, we support both the Sunni Islamists and the Ba'athists, the latter practically the only terrorist organisation that was supported by Saddam Hussein. In Belarus, we do not even bother to ask who or what the "Opposition" is. And so on, and on, and on, and on, and on.

And now, Tunisia.

Stephen Rothbart

Come on. Have you watched or read how much advertising comes out of the Middle East lately? Football clubs, banking, financing, hotels, airlines, holiday destinations, well as far as CNN, BBC World and CNBC are concerned is probably 70% funded by Islamic bnations, and now the World Cup for 2018!

Is it any suprise that journalistic efforts are more focused on those nations nemisis rather than their own short comings?

Augustus

The Iranian revolution brought forth a whole set of Islamic militant movements; Hamas, Hezbollah, and countless terrorist groups in Egypt, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Algeria. Now, the Green movement in Iran has
brought forth another wave of (democratic?)
unrest in Islamic countries. For the first time an Arabic population has succeeded to overthrow a dictatorship in Tunisia. That's a pretty scary thought for most rulers in
other Islamic countries. North Africa has been torn open. Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco are culturally French. Tunisia is ruled by a form of laicite, i.e. a strict division between religion and state, with the judicial system heavily based on the
French system, and the French still have a lot of influence there.

The cost of living has been rising steeply in most Islamic countries, and there have been many made jobless. Social unrest has taken hold and people like lawyers and intellectuals have demonstrated, which attracted many supporters. It didn't take long to depose the tyrant Ben Ali, who was
really just a petty dictator. It'll take a bit longer to get rid of the Iranian devils,
after all, Hitler and Stalin weren't got rid of quickly. No doubt the French will do their best to prevent anarchy and chaos in Tunisia, not least because they don't want the country falling into al Qaida's hands.

Hexhamgeezer

Nick, you're right to highlight the disconnect between what Tunisia seemed and what it actually is. I suspect it's image, such as it was, served to show that you could have an Arab country that was a little dull, stable, quiet and moderate - you know, not too alien and therefore a bit like us. The Ivory Coast sometimes served the same purpose when a similar example was required for West Africa.

I would also make the point that your analysis could be applied a lot closer to home. You mention Turkey but I would say that a proper focus on, say, Greece or southern Italy would show how little the media and us understand the world we're in.

Nick Cohen

That's a very interesting point Hexham. The Euro crisis is pushing Portugal, Greece and Spain into a 1930s debt trap. As late as the mid-1970s all three countries had fascistic dictators and an armed revoltionary left. The 1970s weren't that long ago

Andy Gill

I agree with every word. Arab and Muslim countries get a free pass from the liberal media.

I suppose the campaign to demonize Israel would be derailed by reporting anything negative about the enemies of the Jewish State. Or they may be genuinely fearful that any serious criticism of Islamic countries might incite violent retribution from UK Muslims. We've seen what a few cartoons can do.

AY

"..The cost of living has been rising steeply in most Islamic countries.."

..well, we feel it in the UK, too!

David Lindsay

Andy Gill, enemies of Israel? The former regime was a friend of Israel, as are those in Turkey, Egypt and the Gulf.

Our media do, of course, demonise the enemies of Israel: Iran, with more women than men at university, and with reserved parliamentary representation for Jews and Christians; Syria, with Christian-majority provinces, Christian festivals as public holidays, and a significant government programme of renovating synagogues and Jewish cemeteries; that side in Lebanon which is not favoured by Israel and bankrolled by Saudi Arabia, but which is a Christian-Muslim alliance busily engaged in restoring Beirut's historic synagogue; the old Iraq, in which women and Christians were a lot better off than they are now, as was almost everyone else, even if not necessarily to the same extent; and so on, and on, and on.

For his own sake, let us pass over where it is that Augustus imagines something like, say, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood to have come from. I'll give him a clue: it certainly wasn't Iran. In fact, perhaps he should ask the Muslim Brother what they think of Shi'ism?

Richard

Plenty on Algeria, though.

Augustus

The deep-rooted problem of tyranny is that it breeds an authoritarian culture. This culture has been nurtured in the whole Arab/Muslim world over many centuries by rulers in the palaces and preachers in the mosques. The culture of liberty, of respect for the individual based on freedom and equality, is alien across the Islamic world.
Hence the irony - While Arabs and Muslims yearn for freedom, there are many among them
fearful of how it might unravel their culture. And it is with this fear of when tyranny dissolves into freedom that anarchial men in military uniform and religious robes together, or seperately, strive to maintain the untenable status quo.
It will be premature to assume that Ben Ali's flight heralds true democracy in Tunisia, as the path from tyranny to democracy is not a straight and unimpeded line of progress. But his ignominious flight
may mark the beginning of the end of Arab
geopolitical exceptionalism.