.... Events in Tunisia are significant not only for its 11 million inhabitants, but for the wider region. The birth of this first fully fledged Arab democracy could offer a model of hope amid the feverish voices of despair and nihilism, and the backdrop of military dictators, corrupt theocrats and militant anarchists.
Just as Tunisia showed Arabs the way out of the prison of dictatorship three years ago, today it is again demonstrating that on the ruins of the old order a democracy can be built, arduous as the road there may be.
[TOP RATED COMMENT] Rereading this piece I noticed an extraordinary hypocrisy. This is what Ghannoushi says now:
"Tunisia’s strongest asset may be its cohesive society. With no sectarian, ethnic, religious or tribal divides, political and ideological differences do not turn into societal divisions."
In other words, Tunisia's strongest asset is its lack of multiculturalism, pluralism, and religious diversity. Tunisia was once of course a Christian place, home to great Christian intellectuals, in the days before the Arab conquest. But now it is 99% Islamic and bans Christians from trying to attract new believers. This enforced homogeneity, Ghannoushi now implies, is Tunisia's unique source of strength.
So when she lived in London what was her attitude to pluralism? What was her attitude to the spread of Islam in lands that had never had a single mosque until living memory? Did she lament it as a political curse, a source of 'societal division'?
Of course not. Look at some of these excerpts from her previous columns in The Guardian. They're all about how nasty Europe is not to be more open to diversity, by which she usually means not being more open to Islam. [Guardian Cif] Read more
