AMEL GRAMI and KARIMA BENNOUNE - Tunisia’s fight against Islamic fundamentalism

By Dilip -

AMEL GRAMI and KARIMA BENNOUNE

In conversations with Karima Bennoune over the past two months, Tunisian intellectual Amel Grami shares her analysis of the political crisis in Tunisia during the rule of the Ennahda party, and the strategies needed to defeat fundamentalism
July 8, 2013

KB: Could you describe the current situation and the biggest challenges for women activists and secularists now?
AG: The main subject is civil liberties and how to survive the current wave of violence against women. There is tension vis-à-vis women in terms of their clothes, their life-style, etc. For example, swimming in Ramadan causes problems now for some women. It is a new phenomenon in Tunisia - this new relationship with the body and the feeling that in the public sphere you are not free. There are others who are using violence in order to “correct” the behavior of women. It is not possible any more for women activists to travel around the country on their own at night or to go to rural areas, especially to some areas where fundamentalists impose their rule, such as rural areas near Bizerte where there is reported to be Salafist controlled territory or “Imara Salafya”. Tunisia is not the same as it was two years ago. We do not have the same freedom of movement.

KB: What has given you this fear that impedes your mobility?
AG: Some activists who are well known have received death threats, so we cannot go to these areas without risking our lives. And secondly, there is now a division of space, and many areas dominated by Salafists are deliberately avoided. A small number of people who use violence have become powerful, and even the policemen are afraid. Yesterday, for example, a group of artists were arrested in El Kef for performing a play about the February 2013 assassination of human rights lawyer Chokri Belaid. Facebook publications reported that the judge was close to the Salafists. 

It is a real challenge, for activists, intellectuals, journalists, and even for artists. Different areas are increasingly falling under the domination of some groups. Even during protests, the streets are divided and you cannot for instance, be around an area where Ennahda militants are protesting. Some journalists, women activists and opposition leaders can be verbally and even physically assaulted. The most important thing is the question of how we can live together, how to transcend fragmentation. The Ennahda party is using the “Leagues for the Protection of the Revolution,” (groups of Islamist vigilantes) as well as its own members to engage in violence against journalists, against intellectuals, to defend its territory. They are here to make sure it is impossible to cross borders.

KB: You have said that gender equality is not possible without separation of religion and state. Can you explain?
AG: Look at the debate in the Constituent Assembly where women from the Ennahda party defended the “complementarity” of women. Secondly, consider CEDAW (the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women). The women from the Ennahda party organized a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Women under the slogan:“If you commit adultery, you should be punished.” Some said CEDAW means SIDA (the French-language acronym for AIDS) because it supposedly promotes sexual relations outside of marriage. This new strategy is used not only by the Ennahda party but by the Muslim Brothers everywhere. There is no more balance between international laws and national laws, but there is a desire to make the whole region be guided by local laws, and Islamic laws. The ruling party’s strategy is hiding behind words, for example saying, “We agree with liberties but on one condition - if they are not against local tradition.” It is no longer just double discourse, but multiple discourse.

KB: In light of the fraught climate that you describe and the pressure the Ennahda party puts on secular Tunisians, what do you think of the fact that the Western media continues to dub the party “moderate”?
AG: They have manufactured this notion of “moderate Islam,” and of “democracy compatible with Islam.” But, what we witnessed this year was that Ennahda’s dream of an Islamic state is being realized, step by step. They are busy “defending the sacred,” sentencing someone who declared his atheism to seven years in jail for expressing his beliefs. There is no room for art, for differences, for tolerance. In the West, they often talk about Ennahda as homogeneous, but what we witnessed this year was fragmentation inside the party... read more:

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