The world gazes at us and chuckles at our disbelief. In fact, it has been long since it ceased looking at us. The astroid Tunisia no longer appears to interest anyone. The great “Arab Spring” laboratory has been abandoned for some time. Ten years later, the failure has been verified. There are, in our view, at least three reasons.
- If the graft had not taken place, it was because the alchemy, once out of the big lab, had lacked a Tunisian leader to conduct it. The grand mistake of the alchemists was that they did not first adopt the needed time to prepare a leader. In the absence of a leader, the Tunisian revolution was doomed from the commencement. It was also not Tunisian, that is to say, no Tunisian soul, psychology and sociology.
- The revolution was going to break because it had the incorrect ambition to be a bloc. All at once: political, social and economic revolution. Ten years later, in the face of endemic political instability and repeated institutional crises, one cannot diminish a political revolution to the mere fact of having brought down a political regime, nevertheless dictatorial. As for the social and economic revolution, it doesn’t take a great genius to acknowledge that it is downright regression, the fiasco in terms of social justice, social progress and economic growth.
- The rapid retreat of the Tunisia lab and, above all, once the great euphoria has passed, the “desertion ” in the middle of the ocean of the Tunisia boat. Without going into too much detail, it need be remembered that all the calls for a Marshall Plan for Tunisia have been unsuccessful and that the vows of the legendary Deauville summit have remained rigidly at the stage of promises. Let us be fair in this regard: the European Union was not so tight towards us; on the opposite, it supported the Tunisian “democratic transition”.Its great fault, nevertheless, is that it may not have been adequately careful about the destiny and the real use of the allocated funds.
The free world today laughs at our tremendous disbelief. To give us a small pleasure on the eve of January 14, it takes the trouble to give us a furtive glance. In the time of Covid-19, it is run for your life and every man for himself. For us, for many Tunisians, January 14 has been a non-event for some time. Do not ask others to be more Tunisian than ourselves!
Jawhar CHATTY, Editor-in-chief La Presse.
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