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player ready...When I first visited here five years ago, I called this lovely spot on the northernmost coast of Africa “a country that works.” It was beginning to do that–and much more.
Returning, I find something even more astonishing. Tunisia has been so successful in destroying one of the most rabid Islamic fundamentalist movements that it has become the first Middle Eastern country to sign a free-market agreement with the European Union. But its “rationalism above nationalism” approach was not always fashionable.
Only 10 years ago, first the Arab socialist Marxists and then the radical fundamentalists were going to win over the whole area, starting with little Tunisia. To them, the country of 9 million people was a ripe fruit that would fall into their laps with little violence and lots of shouting.
Instead, the extraordinary success of Tunisia–and the remarkable optimism of its people–is captured in the words of Nejib Ben Lazreg, a remarkable young historian and archeologist. He declared with a big smile, “Today, we are the real progressives!”
And that is what Tunisia is celebrating Nov. 7, the 10th anniversary of the ascension to power of a new form of democratic government in North Africa and, indeed, the whole Middle East.
Look at the practical economic indicators here, and you can easily see why the country is often called the “Tunisian miracle.” It started out modestly with high investment in agriculture and close cooperation with France, the former colonial party here, in off-shore industries.
Today, the indicators are going wild: a stable annual growth rate more of than 5 percent; a poverty level that systematically has dropped until 60 percent of the society is today considered middle class (World Bank figures); a carefully monitored population rate that is deliberately kept low enough for the progress to take root; 40 percent of women working in virtually every field; 1,000 foreign companies working freely in Tunisia and 5 million tourists a year; and the historic 1995 agreement with the European Union.
M. Sadok Chaabone, director of the Tunisian Institute for Strategic Studies, is initiating the country’s new “Culture of Strategic Thinking.” Speaking of the former one-party system of the state after colonialism, Dr. Chaabone reminisced with me how “the one-party states (typical of all of the Arab states at that point of historic development) left a political vacuum, so any democratic transition has to be carried out carefully or extremists movements jump in to fill the vacuum.”
Because President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, former head of intelligence, is so successful, the opposition parties until now haven’t had a chance–and indeed, dutifully support his policies. But then, this country, perhaps because it has always been a meeting place of so many cultures, has long had cohesion and consensus.
That is why most policies are hammered out not through conflict, but through national dialogue. After Ben Ali became president 10 years ago, the leaders drew up a “Document of Consensus of National Unity” subscribed to by all the parties, unions and civic forces in the country. That was followed by another ongoing dialogue among 100,000 young people and ideas such as forming a “permanent reflection group” in the parliament to constantly reassess and readjust policies.
Tunisia represents a different model in the perilous process of development, but it is surely a successful one. Indeed, in their enthusiasm, the Tunisians themselves sometimes call it a “small Enlightenment.”