The End of the Tunisian Regime?

Amidst a media blackout imposed by the authoritarian Ben Ali regime, Tunisian protests continue for nearly a month now since the attempted suicide and subsequent death of an unemployed 24-year old who set himself on fire in an attack of desperate dissent.

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Long known for their passivity, the Tunisian people have shaken off a fear of the security services and now openly confront them. In typical fashion the regime has responded with brute force and over 20 civilians have been shot and killed in recent days, including 14 over the weekend alone. The regime has also resorted to hacking the Facebook accounts of dissidents. Even the army has been sent in in some regions. The only images available it seems are ones recorded and uploaded by Tunisians. The scene in the coastal city of Soussa:

The government has indefinitely suspends all high school and university classes until it claims an investigation is made as to who or what is inciting student riots.

And the president has made only two public addresses on the protests, and in both incidents dismissed and attacks the rioters as "mercenaries" and "masked gangs" acting on behalf of unnamed foreign agents and even responsible for "terrorist acts". There is an unwillingness to frankly acknowledge that this is a domestic uprising consisting of normal people against a corrupted and incredulous regime. Instead the state shows further contempt for the people by dismissing their very grievances as "terrorism" and the courageous protesters, many of them killed, as pawns. Hoping that it will just go away. This utter disregard and disconnect was best exemplified when the Tunisian president made his first address to the nation and during his speech his phone started to incessantly ring. The klaxon that shattered any lingering illusions about the 23-year regime and may mark its inevitable demise.

The near silence of the U.S. government is predictable and telling. The most the U.S. has done is summon the Tunisian ambassador to raise concerns about the government's hacking into American internet firms. But not much of an official statement has been issued and no condemnation of the violence employed by a regime considered an American ally. The EU isn't much better and the French state has naturally been worse, offering praise of Tunisia's economy while protests emerged due to the very economic situation exalted. This stands in contrast to the fierce criticism of the Iranian regime's less bloody crackdown on protests in 2009. But it is predictable because Western regimes are all nearly opportunistic in their pious feigning of concern over human rights: if the regime is antithetical to Western interests then they pretend to care about the people, but if it is a client regime then it is free to suppress its own people. The morally corruption of the Western political elite is beyond supercilious.

While hypocritical Western states stay silent, the Arab people have united in endearing solidarity over what has been dubbed the Jasmine Revolt:

A stream of tweets, all including #Sidibouzid (Bouazizi’s hometown), flows through my Twitter feed every day in Arabic, English and French, carrying links to Tunisian blogs, video filmed by protestors (which provided much of Al Jazeera’s coverage) and live updates from solidarity demonstrations in other Arab cities.

My friend, the Boston-based Mauritanian-American activist Nasser Weddady, has become a one-man information feed. He re-tweets the latest from Tunisian activists and bloggers and — 140 characters be damned — provides context and analyses.

When activists in Cairo protested in solidarity with Tunisians, they made that connection: “Revolution till victory. Revolution in Tunisia. Revolution in Egypt,” they chanted (and then told the rest of us via Twitter).

How could they not make the connection? Corruption, nepotism and unemployment taunt them in both countries. Activists in Jordan and Lebanon also held solidarity protests.

And that’s why Tunisia counts.

Mohamed Bouazizi died on Tuesday night. I found out through Saudi journalist and blogger Hasan Almustafa, again on Twitter.

As he lay dying of severe burns, Bouazizi inspired not just compatriots fed up with unemployment and repression but young men and women in neighbouring countries who could identify all too well.

As it should be: only the Arabs will liberate themselves. al Hurriyeh il-3lam il-3rab.