A conversation about Tunisia today with Harvard Professor Malika Zeghal

According to Malika Zeghal, “In Tunisia today the main issue is not about Islam, or about Sharia law, but about how every Tunisian can find a job.” The Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life at Harvard University explained this while discussing Tunisia’s current challenges and its democratic success story with Middle East Monitor.

Professor Zeghal is in Tunisia to speak about Afkar, a new project at Harvard that is aiming to map Muslim intellectual networks in the Mediterranean in the interwar period. Zeghal is the first Arab woman to be appointed professor in the famed university’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. She is, together with a team of researchers, tracking different words and terms in journals that are available digitally from the period. The team has started with the Egyptian Salafi journal Al-Manar, in which terms such as “the Caliphate” or “Fatwa” are being sought in order to gain knowledge of the contemporary social discourse.

“It’s an ambitious endeavour,” admitted Zeghal in front of a crowd at the Palais Dar Lasram, in the heart of the Medina of Tunis. The location was not far from El-Zitouna University, which is claimed to be the oldest teaching establishment in the Arab world and from which the team of scholars are also hoping to examine publications.

Specialising in topics including Islamist movements and political Islam, the Tunisian professor explained that when it comes to her country today it is important to remember that the young people who took to the streets five years ago were not originally motivated by political or religious ideology but by the lack of economic opportunities. It is for the same reasons that young people are currently protesting in the country’s interior; they protest to gain access to the job market. The revolution and the ousting of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali opened up the political scene to all political actors. The Islamist Ennahda Party’s members, for example, were either abroad in exile, in prison or underground, yet they constituted their movement into a legal political party in March 2011.

Most people consider the democratic transition a success story, but there have been many challenges along the road, said Zeghal. One of the greatest threats, in her opinion, was the ideological polarisation between 2011 and 2014, which still prevails. Tunisia, though, has had the capacity to bridge this polarisation; Ennahda accepted the alternation of power, while, at the same time, its political opponents agreed to join a coalition with the Islamists in the government of 2014.

“On that level I believe that there is a success in the Tunisian story,” Zeghal told me. According to her, there has been a consistent desire to make this democratic transition succeed despite the challenges. Islamist leader Rachid Ghannouchi has also played a key role in keeping his own party united. “But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t tensions between different factions within Ennahda.” Although Ennahda remains an Islamic and conservative party, Zeghal pointed out, at the same time it has made compromises. In the constitution, Islam remains the religion of the state, and the state is the custodian of Islam, which is one example of how the new constitution is more Islamic than its predecessor. On the other hand, sharia law is not the source of legislation in the constitution because it was opposed by other parties. As Zeghal put it, “Ennahda and its political opponents made some compromises that are interesting.”

However, there are those within Ennahda who argue that the party is too moderate for an Islamist movement. While some members would probably defend the party’s decisions by arguing that they didn’t have a choice, others would be more critical. “I think that, for Ennahda, reaching a compromise was a question of survival,” noted Zeghal, especially while looking at Egypt in the summer of 2013 when the Muslim Brotherhood faced a heavy crackdown. “The Egyptian events played in favour of the compromise and the leadership of Ennahda chose to keep a low profile.” In spite of the disagreements within the party, she said, they chose to pay that price in order to remain in the political arena.

“If you look at what happened with Ennahda between the elections of 2011 and the elections of 2014 the broad picture is that it presented a moderate face, and showed an interest in participating, debating and governing.” Since the revolution the party has become a very normal player in the electoral arena. There is a more conservative and even radical faction, but it is the more moderate figures who remain at the centre of the movement and most visible, argued Zeghal. It is difficult to estimate how strong Ennahda is today but they are strong and very popular among many Tunisians. “I don’t think this popularity will decrease significantly, but I am not sure if it will increase either.” While polarisation is still present, the economic situation remains the country’s biggest threat, together with security and terrorism. “The main challenge,” the ground-breaking Harvard professor suggested, “is how we fix the economic and security situation.”

There is a need to move to issues that are technical, in order to confront violence and terrorism, and also to fix the problems that sparked the revolution, in particular unemployment, corruption and the problems related to economic rents. “In a way,” Zeghal concluded, “we are back to point zero and my fear is that if we don’t fix the economy there will probably be more turmoil and insecurity. The already fragile Tunisian democracy might be in danger.”

Find out more about Malika Zeghal here.