Yet another article on the Salafist protest in Tunis

Tunisia's Islamist Ennahda edges away from Sharia

Some 10,000 demonstrated in favour of Sharia in Tunis on Sunday

Continue reading the main story

Officials from the largest party in Tunisia's governing coalition have said they will not support moves to enshrine Islamic law in the new constitution.

Senior members of the moderate Islamist Ennahda Party said the wording of the old constitution, which proclaims Islam as the state religion, would remain.

A group of ultra-conservative Muslims known as Salafis had demanded the introduction of Sharia.

Ennahda has been under growing pressure to declare its position on the issue.

The BBC's Jon Leyne says that the news will disappoint the increasingly vocal conservative minority, but it will bring relief to liberals and secularists who fear a tide of Islamism sweeping across the region.

"Ennahda has decided to retain the first clause of the previous constitution without change," senior Ennahda official Ameur Larayed told local media.

"We want the unity of our people and we do not want divisions."

The article from the 1959 constitution states: "Tunisia is a free, sovereign and independent state, whose religion is Islam, language is Arabic and has a republican regime."

Another senior figure, Ziad Doulatli, said he hoped the decision would help Tunisia to "serve as a model for other countries going through similar transformations".

Some 10,000 Salafis took to the streets of the capital, Tunis, on Sunday to express their support for the proposal that the country's legislation should be based on Islamic law.

The Tunisian uprising last January, which unseated long-time President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, inspired a wave of pro-democracy movements across North African and the Middle East.

Another article on the Salafist protest in Tunis

Several Thousand Salafists Demonstrate for Islamic Law, Attack Dramatists in Tunis

Ahmed Ellali | 25 March 2012 | 35 Comments

Salafist demonstrators wave Caliphate flag on top of Tunis clocktower

A group of several thousand Salafists and their supporters demonstrated in downtown Tunis today in support of the Koran, claiming that the Muslim holy book was under threat by more secular elements of Tunisian society. Demonstrators climbed the clock tower of Tunis to fly black caliphate flags from the top of the tower and chanted slogans such as “the people want a new caliphate.”

At the same time and on the same street, the Tunisian Association for Drama Arts held a celebration for the upcoming World Day of Theater (usually March 27th) in front of the Municipal Theater. As the Salafist protest came to a close, a number of Salafist demonstrators attacked the Theater celebration.

According to Yassine Ouni, a student from the Higher Institute for Drama, the Ministry of Interior was responsible for the confrontation because they gave permits for both events knowing there would be a conflict. “The Tunisian Association for the Drama Arts event and the Salafist demonstration was held at the same time. We want to hold the Interior Ministry accountable since it gave permission to the two movements on the same day and the Ministry knew there would be tension since Drama is sacred for all artists and religion is sacred for every citizen.”

Salafists gather in front of the Municipal Theater

The permit given to the dramatists was supposed to allow them to celebrate theater in the space between the municipal theater and the Africa Hotel while the Salafists had a permit to demonstrate by the Tunis clock tower. While the Salafist organizers agreed to separate the events at first, a group of  Salafists later came and damaged equipment, disrupted outdoor performances and threw eggs, empty bottles and sharp objects at those celebrating theater.

Fawzi Guara, one of the demonstrators at the Salafist organized event for supporting the Koran blamed the theater celebration organizers for the confrontation. “Some Tunisians are not respecting our religious sanctity, campaigns against our religion confirm that there are elements here who want to provoke us. They don’t respect our views.”

Members of the Tunisian Association for Drama Arts in front of the Municipal Theater

Guara admitted that the Tunisian Association for Theater had received permission to hold an event first, but he said the Koran was more important than theater. “We knew they got permission before us, but they should give priority to defending the Koran and our religion. Anarchy can happen at any time, and simply by calling themselves ‘Theater of Resistance’ they are provoking us, resistance to whom? Did we sell out our country?”

For Guara, his demonstration was necessary because he sees Islam as being under attack. “Today Tunisia is witnessing a historical day. Tunisians went to the street to show their disapproval against the desecration of the Koran in Ben Guerdene, against the six pointed star on the wall of the Al-Fateh Mosque.”

He added that opponents of Salafists have been making a big deal out one Salafists’ desecration of the Tunisian flag at Mannouba University, just to give them a bad name. “We do love our country and our flag but the priority is for our religion and what is sacred. Islam does not oppose civility. We are here today to express our love for the Koran, for the prophet, for our holy sites. Our slogans are in support of the Koran, defending that which is sacred and rejecting discord and strife between Tunisians,” Guara said.

Salafist Protest in Tunis

Here are some articles about the Salafist protest in Tunis on Sunday, March 26 that I found myself in the middle of. I will post my own take on these events when I get a chance.

Tunisia: Thousands of Salafists Rally for Sharia Law

by Anna Mahjar-Barducci
March 21, 2012 at 4:00 am

"Tunisia, by opening to democracy, changed its face, and now the country's main components are Islamist and extremist."

Thousands of Salafists calling to include Sharia Law in the new Tunisian Constitution gathered in front of the National Constituent Assembly on March 16. As reported by the Agence France-Presse, the slogans called to have the Koran as the country's only constitution. "The people want the application of God's Sharia," "Our Koran is our constitution" "No constitution without Sharia," and "Tunisia is neither secular nor scientific, it is an Islamic state," the demonstrators cried. Revealing that Tunisia's government supports Sharia Law in the Constitution, two MPs, Sahbi Atig and Habib Ellouze, members of the Islamist party, Ennahda, were among the protesters.

Following are excerpts from an op-ed that appeared in the North African magazine, Le Courrie de l'Atlas, reporting on the Salafists' "show of strength" during the demonstration in the streets of Tunisia:

"On this sunny afternoon, Bardo [Tunisian city/suburb west of Tunis] looked like Afghanistan. Following a call launched by Salafists on social networks, a flood of people, around midday, gathered in Bardo to put pressure on Tunisian MPs and demand that Sharia be included as the only source of law.

"[…] According to Salafists' Internet pages, there were 30.000 protesters. Never before had Bardo Square been so filled with people. The crowd was compact and excited. When all the protesters started shouting together "Allahhu Akbar!" [Allah is the Greatest!"], they sent shockwaves through the floor. […] The event was marked by a strongly missionary spirit […].

"The few foreign media that attended this event were astonished by the separation between men and women in the demonstration [Organizers of the protest had arranged separated sections for men and women]. However, the men incited the women systematically to repeat slogans, such as "The people want the enforcement of Sharia…" […]. There were also many slogans […] very hostile to secular people and meant to demonize them".

Some worrisome abuses

"1. Zitouna FM Koranic radio, a radio station that was put under judiciary control after the revolution, and which belongs to the state, had launched a call to demonstrate a few days earlier. This is an unprecedented decision […]

"2. […] Each and every demonstration [after the Revolution] had been followed by a counter-demonstration conducted by pro-government elements, with the exception of this one. […]

"3. [Protesters were intimidating journalists] when our camera was taking longer shots of somebody, it was not rare that this person came immediately to us asking for our papers and for whom we were working.

"4. […] Ennahda's most radical base was represented. This allows predicting that, considering the increasing popularity of the Salafist movement, the Islamic party Ennahda will have to compromise more and more with these movements that are harming the image of moderation that the party, ever since it came to power, is trying to promote. […]

"Today was a black day [for Tunisia][…]. Tunisia that belongs to a non-secularized region, by opening to democracy, changed its face […], and now the country's main components are Islamist and extremist."

Iran: Cartoonists Rage Against Khatami for Voting in Election

Posted 9 March 2012 0:12 GMT

Written byFred Petrossian

How you can be the “biggest loser” in an election just for voting? ProbablyMohammad Khatami, the former reformist president of Iran can answer this.

Khatami voted in the parliamentary election on Friday, March 2, 2012 ignoring preconditions he himself had formulated for his participation: “Freedom of [political] prisoners and creation of a free atmosphere for everyone and all groups, the authorities respecting the Constitution and creation of the logistics for conducting a healthy and free election.”

Given the popular calls for boycotting the elections, many reformists were disappointed to see Khatami go back on his word.

He later justified his actions by expressing hope that his vote did not disrupt “reformist solidarity.” He has reportedly stressed the “complexity” of the internal as well as the international affairs and called for, “understanding of these complexities by everyone.”

Several satirical cartoons published on the internet display anger and disappointment with the once popular Khatami.

Nikahang, a leading cartoonist and blogger, considers that Khatami ignored the blood shed during the 2009 protest against regime.

Mana Neyestani, another leading cartoonist, shows one of a character breaking a window on the head of Khatami.

An unnamed guest cartoonist on Khodnevis.org took part in a “cartoons against Khatami” campaign with this entry:

Culture war brews between new Islamist movement and secularists in post-revolution Tunisia

 

By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, March 9, 9:53 AM

TUNIS, Tunisia — Every Friday, bearded men in shin-length robes demonstrate in Tunisia’s capital against perceived insults to Islam in a country once known for its aggressive secularism. They have occasionally turned violent, attacking secular intellectuals and harassing women for their style of dress.

This emerging movement of believers known as Salafis has seemingly appeared out of thin air — and prompted fears of a culture war in this North African country of 10 million.

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( Hassene Dridi, File / Associated Press ) - FILE - This Friday Jan. 20, 2012, file photo shows Tunisian Salafist women demonstrating near the French embassy in Tunis, Tunisia, in support of a Muslim woman who was fined in France for wearing a niqab Muslim veil. An emerging movement of believers known as Salafis has seemingly appeared out of thin air _ and prompted fears of a culture war in this North African country of 10 million. Since the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011 unleashed a string of Arab uprisings, Islam has blossomed in Tunisia in a way it wasn’t allowed to do for half a century.Sign reads: Allah is the Only God, and Mahommed is his Prophet.

Since the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011 unleashed a string of Arab uprisings, Islam has blossomed in Tunisia in a way it wasn’t allowed to do for half a century.

New religious freedoms have also opened the way for the Salafis, who are now in a daily battle for hearts and minds with equally hardline secular elements entrenched in the media and the elite. Television stations, Western embassies and government offices have all felt the conservatives’ wrath.

In the middle are the moderate Islamists who won Tunisia’s first free elections and are trying to build a democratic model for countries that followed Tunisia down this still uncertain revolutionary path.

The Salafis say they are just reclaiming rights long denied.

“Tunisians are thirsty for religious knowledge,” said Mohammed Bedoui, a young adherent of the Hizb al-Tahrir, or Liberation party, which calls for the return of the Islamic caliphate. “The regime of Ben Ali neglected the religious universities and the Tunisian imams just can’t answer to the demand.”

The war of words is taking place against a backdrop of armed radical movements just over the porous borders in neighboring Algeria and Libya, and there are worries that Tunisia’s aggressive demonstrations could evolve into an armed struggle if the competing demands are not handled carefully.

Secular intellectuals describe the Salafis as backward and engaging in a wholesale assault against freedom of expression and Tunisia’s progressive traditions. The religious conservatives — distinctive with their mustache-less beards, short robes and sneakers — counter that their religion is under daily attack.

“The demonstrations are a response to the provocations of the secularists and the leftists, particularly the polemic against the niqab (face-covering veil) in universities,” said Bedoui.

The Salafis cite the broadcast of blasphemous movies, publication of seminude photos of models in newspapers and bans on women wearing the veil as attempts to target and provoke them. They call the secularists leftover supporters of the old dictator.

In one of their most high profile sit-ins, demonstrators stalled exams at a university near Tunis for weeks protesting a ban on female students wearing the niqab during exams.

In October’s elections, the moderate Islamist party Ennahda dominated the polls, though most believe that people voted for them not out of religious conviction but because they trusted them to do away with the old system and get the country back on track.

Said Ferjani, a high ranking member of Ennahda, told The Associated Press that the last thing they wanted right now was a culture war between the Salafis and what he calls the “secular fundamentalists.”

“We are dealing with the business of government, we have floods in the north, a sinking economy and these people are talking about the burqa and the hijab (headscarf),” he said with exasperation. “I don’t think they are very grown up.”

During the election campaign, leftist parties tried to paint Ennahda as closet conservatives seeking to drag the country back to the Middle Ages. Voters didn’t agree, but now with the rise of the vocal Salafi minority, secularists have found the “bearded menace” they have been looking for.

The secularist opposition maintains that Ennahda not only sympathizes with many of the Salafi positions, but may be actually promoting them.

“Sometimes the line between the Salafis and Ennahda’s activists are a bit blurred,” said Kamel Labidi, a former journalist now heading the committee rewriting the country’s media law.

Under Ben Ali, some of the Salafis joined armed groups that were quickly squashed. But now with Libya next door flush with weapons from the civil war, the means for a new armed rebellion are easily at hand.

On Feb. 2 border guards stopped a car in the south filled with three bearded men at a checkpoint who opened fire with assault rifles before fleeing into nearby olive groves, sparking a major police security operation. Two of the men were shot dead; the third, who was captured, revealed the existence of a violent network with dozens of members across the country.

While such incidents are rare, elements of the Salafi movement have shown a disturbing tendency toward bullying behavior, such as harassing women in smaller towns for not abiding by conservative dress.

In one incident a prominent secular intellectual and a newspaper editor were punched and kicked by a crowd of Salafis protesting outside a courtroom.

Ferjani of Ennahda said that the government is trying a lenient approach with the Salafis so that they aren’t further radicalized, attempting to address their concerns with education and religious debate rather than just denouncing them as backward.

“If you push these people, you are empowering them,” he warned.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Toda Institute Music, Power and Liberty Conference

In early February this year I presented at the Toda Institute's Music, Power and Liberty Conference in Paris. The Toda Institute is infamous in my mind for publishing the first academic book on the subject of Music and Conflict Transformation entitled, funnily enough, Music and Conflict Transformation, edited by the director of the institute, Olivier Urbain. Due to the leading nature of such a publication I have naturally analysed pretty much every page in depth and I unfortunately found it generally wanting in terms of empirical and theoretical rigour or practical application. So it was with some trepidation that I accepted the invitation for this conference. I am happy to report that my fears were unfounded. I found the papers presented at conference stimulating, utterly relevant, and the approaches significantly more grounded and realistic than in the previous 2008 publication. There is a slight danger of perhaps too much cynicism, but there still seems to be enough drive and optimism to keep the momentum going.
The papers presented in Paris will eventually make their way into a book to follow the original Music and Conflict Transformation book, and since I will most likely be involved in this project to one degree or another, I will not comment on each paper just yet. Suffice it to say for now that there were three broad categories that were addressed:

1) Music, Power and Social Change: Music has been actively engaged with in the socio-cultural arena to influence the status quo; either to keep it static or to challenge and overturn it. There were many presenters from North Africa and their talks were completely resonant with my current research on the role of the arts in the Arab Spring.

2) Unification versus Censorship: There is the age old battle of using music as a tool of expressing togetherness and/or fostering social unification versus powers that would rather keep people apart, usually for social control purposes. There is also the continued battle between the romantics and the realists.

3) How music influences belief systems through education and technology: Increasingly researchers are talking about belief and how this is a key factor in behaviour and also how music and education influence belief. More recently there have been studies on how music and education is transmitted via social media and other technological platforms, thus effectively spreading belief.

Grenoble, France Hosts Festival Commemorating the Tunisian Revolution

Wiem Melki | 30 January 2012 | 0 Comments

Grenoble, France will host a cultural festival celebrating, and reflecting upon, the Tunisian Revolution. The festival, “Tunisia 2012 Between East and West,” will run from February 1st to February 29th.

The event was organized by the Tunisian Consulate in Grenoble, the Community Center of Social Action of Capuche (a center supporting social and cultural activities in Grenoble), local municipal libraries, and several French and Tunisian cultural and social organizations.

The festival will feature an exhibition consisting of different forms of artistic expression – such as theater, cinema, painting, photography, dancing, music, and even cooking.

One of the plays, “Hekayetna,” (“Our Stories” in Tunisian Arabic) by Baghdadi Aoun,  aims at portraying contemporary Tunisian life. The story recalls the trials of a myriad of characters during the Fatimid period, employing powerful and poetic language inspired by the oral heritage of southern Tunisia – expressed through a mix of literary Arabic and Southern Tunisian dialect.

“The goal of my play is to educate the public about the importance of the oral history of Tunisia,” Baghdadi said.

Tunisian cinema will be represented by a number of documentaries and fictional short, and feature-length, films. Among the films to be featured during the festival are, “No More Fear,” by Mourad Bechikh, “Freedom,” by Ferial Ben Mahmoud, and, “Jasmine Revolution,” by Nassar Ayad.  The films all focus on the events surrounding the Tunisian revolution as interpreted through the perceptions of the different directors.

The festival will also include a poetry reading entitled, “The Will of Life,” which will include poems by Abou El Kacem Chebbi – the legendary poet of Tunisia’s independence movement. Chebbi (who lived from 1909-1934) was best known for writing the final two verses of the current national anthem of Tunisia and other evocative, patriotic poems.

“In early 2011, the Tunisian people started the Jasmine Revolution. One year after the uprising that initiated the ‘Arab Spring,’ many actors – but also the libraries of institutions and associations in the city of Grenoble – wanted to honor Tunisia,” said Mohamed, one of the organizers working with the Tunisian Consulate in France.

He explained that the event aims at enhancing cultural life in Grenoble and enlightening French citizens about Tunisian culture and history.