Gunfights erupted in major Tunisia cities on Sunday, two days after president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali fled the country from deadly protests, after 23 years in power. It appears that the gun battles were between the army and security forces loyal to Ben Ali, according to Al-Jazeera. The gunfights seemed to die down later in the evening.
Man burns himself to death in Algeria (Guardian)
There’s widespread looting in the capital city, Tunis, according to the Telegraph. Food and fuel are in short supply, and with world food prices at historic highs, chaos is expected to continue.
Even so, Arabs around the world are rejoicing that the authoritarian regime of Ben Ali has been overthrown, giving hope that the revolution could spread to authoritarian regimes in other Arab countries.
That’s in contrast to the more cautious reactions from Arab governments, according to AFP.
According to the article, the Arab League urged “all political forces, and representatives of Tunisian society and officials, to be united for the good of the Tunisian people and to achieve civil peace.” And Egypt’s government said that it “affirms its respect for the choices of the Tunisian people, and is confident that the wisdom of the Tunisian brothers will lead to restraint and will avoid descending the country into chaos.”
But Egyptian demonstrators at the Tunisian embassy in Cairo said, “Listen to the Tunisians. It’s your turn Egyptians.”
A Kuwaiti opposition lawmaker is quoted by Bloomberg as saying that the uprising is “A lesson to all tyrants in the Arab world.”
As exciting as all this is, it’s leading to fears that instability and war will spread around the region.
Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is quoted by the Jerusalem Post as saying, “The region in which we live is unstable. We see this at several points throughout the Middle East. I would say that there is a great island of instability in the geographic expanse in which we live. We hope that there will be quiet and security.”
There were riots in Algeria, and a man burned himself to death in an apparent echo of a suicide that began the Tunisian protests, according to Guardian.
The NY Times quotes leftist Beirut journalist Alfadel Chalak as follows:
“What we are witnessing is the collapse of the Arab state. Wherever we look across the Arab world, we see wars. We see civil wars, wars among ethnicities, wars between sects and ethnicities, wars among sects, and wars among authorities, sects, ethnicities and the poor. Wars among an Arab world that doesn’t have an elite or leadership that draws strategies and tactics that lead to salvation. Therefore, it looks as if we are going to witness for years and maybe decades to come a great deal of devastation, destruction and killing.”
This is particularly true in North Africa (the Islamic Maghreb), according to Fordham University professor John P. Entelis, writing for CNN. “From Morocco to Egypt, North Africa has recently been rocked by a series of violent disturbances that have left scores dead, government leaders shaken and outside observers puzzled by the scope, timing and intensity of upheavals in a region normally viewed as stable, moderate and pro-Western.”
In Tunisia itself, the departure of Ben Ali leaves open the question of “What’s next?”
There’s really nowhere to go now for Tunisia’s caretaker government, which is in chaos anyway. The price of food is still at historic highs, unemployment is still high, and the economy is still poor.
Thus, it seems that there’s a pretty good chance that the violence will continue, and may get a lot worse.
Tunisia’s last generational crisis war was the Algerian war for independence that climaxed in 1962, so Tunisia is in a generational Unraveling era. Thus, it’s almost impossible for the violence to spiral into a full-scale civil war.
The situation in Tunisia reminds me of the violence that broke out in Kenya at the end of 2007, because Kenya at that time was at approximately the same point on the generational timeline, also in the middle of a generational Unraveling era. (See “Post-election massacre in Kenya raises concerns of tribal war.”)
The violence in Kenya became explosive for a while, resulting in numerous atrocities and massacres. But, as expected, the violence fizzled out after a few days.
That would be the pattern that we might expect in Tunisia today. It’s possible that the violence will grow, but I would expect it to fizzle out in a relatively short period.
But the Tunisian uprising may well have lit a fire that could spread around the Arab world.
From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, the effect of that fire in each country will depend on the generational era of that particular country.
In countries like Lebanon, Syria and Iraq, in generational Awakening eras, the Tunisian uprising may trigger riots and political chaos, but no prolonged violence.
In countries like Egypt, Yemen, and Saudi Arabia, in generational Crisis eras, the uprising may trigger sustained violence, even a civil war.
My guess is that many Arab governments are hoping that the excitement from the Tunisian uprising will die quickly.
For those readers interested in more details about the generational analysis of Tunisia, one reader, posting in the Generational Dynamics Forum, disagreed with what I wrote above, saying that Tunisia’s last crisis war was WW II, not the Algerian war of independence. You can read my response in the forum, which I won’t repeat here, but this is the kind of problem that requires a lot more research.
If you are familiar with Tunisia’s history, especially if you’ve lived in Tunisia, then I would be interested in hearing from you on this subject, either through a comment on my web site or in the forum.
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