'War Is The State': The Case of Tunisia

Yesterday I wrote a post on Tunisia, and today comes new news that the Ben Ali regimes remains as thuggish as ever. Scratch that. The Ben Ali clique has not always been this brutal. In the late '80s and early '90s, the regime was nascent and still establishing legitimacy after a medical coup against the loved and charismatic independence president Habib Bourguiba. Then Ben Ali allowed for some measure of democracy and his rhetoric in support of democracy - which he reiterates now in empty fashion - has some sincerity to it.

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Ben Ali stated, for instance, that no president should remain in office until death. That there would be no more 'president for life' as Bourguiba had the puppet parliament declare him in the 1970s. As a prime minister who disposed his superior because he had fallen into senility (Bourguiba once declared in a televised speech that he had one testicle), there was a sincerity in his call. There was a hope that freedom could finally be expanded if not firmly established in Tunisia after decades of dismay. Intellectuals were allowed to breath and Tunisia become the first Arab country to host an Amnesty International branch. It was a responsible view to hold that Tunisia was on a irreversible course toward democracy and liberty.

Unfortunately, the early 1990s also saw the presence of violent political Islam which undertook terrorist attacks - some incredibly graphic like tying up police officers at a station in Sfax once and burning them alive - and although their plan would never had worked there was an elaborate scheme to overthrow the regime. The Ben Ali government then unleashed massive state force against the extremists Islamists which were threatening internal peace and seeking the end of the government. Most Tunisians - liberal and middle class - supported the regime's crackdown. Even democracy activists turned a blind eye toward the mass arrests of anyone associated with al-Nahda, the radical Islamist party, and the show trials that immediately sentenced them to jail without due process. The rule of law should not be suspended even in the face of a violence internal presence. The neighboring civil war in Algeria between the secular state and like-minded Islamists, broadcast to Tunisians daily, and the horrors of that war convinced many democracy activists that better some state repression than Islamists bring chaos to the country. Arabs have been stuck in their 'devil you know' fears and precautions for a while now: between the authoritarian and inept secularists they deplore and the Islamists they know would be worse. Tunisians were happy to let the authoritarian state grow in the name of stability.

But, regrettable, as a wise man once noted: 'War is the State'. It is rare that state power expanded voluntarily retracts after a completed objective. And nothing expands the power of the state than armed conflict - internal or external. That expansion of state power is very dangerous because while the initial victim of it is the hated 'terrorist' or 'foreign nation', it can after the fact be used against the people who in the beginning cheered such power. And that is what happened in Tunisia. The Islamists were defeated - killed, in jail or in exile - but the regime now felt emboldened, it had matured quickly and amassed a huge secret police which now was used to crash any and all dissent. The regime began to see all critics - not just violent extremists - as dangerous to national interest - no matter how trivial the critique and inconsequential the critic - and began to violently repress dissent. It was easy to do now, and the regime began to like the idea of universal power.

A slow course toward democracy was reversed and the nation is more authoritative today then, say, 20 years ago. Tunisians continue to suffer from this tyranny that they initially acquiesced to. That is a lesson others should take in: never lose the rule of law and never allow for unchecked government no matter the pretext. The claim of security is not enough to suppress liberty.

He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security. He who sacrifices freedom for security deserves neither.

Benjamin Franklin