The Trial of Khamis Chamari

by Dirk Vandewalle
published in MER149

For a few hours on Saturday morning last June 27, a small antechamber in Tunis’s main court building was filled to capacity with a veritable who’s who of Tunisia’s opposition. At any other time and venue, those present would have risked arrest for unlawful assembly. But there -- beneath a large discolored print of President Habib Bourguiba in lawyer’s garb -- they milled around without restrictions. Also in the room were a representative of Amnesty International, four or five journalists from the BBC and international news agencies, an observer from the International Commission of Jurists and a junior official from the American embassy.

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"How can a Muslim live in this era?"

An Interview with Shaikh Hamid al-Nayfar

by
published in MER153

Shaikh Hamid al-Nayfar is a leading figure in Tunisia’s Islamist movement. Francois Burgat, who interviewed him in Tunis in 1985, works at the Centre de Recherches et d'Etudes sur les Societes Mediterraneennes (CRESM) in Aix-en-Provence, France.

 

What is the meaning of the name of your magazine, 15/21?

The basis of our project is to ask how one can be simultaneously a Muslim and live in this era -- how to be a Muslim today. Fifteen stands for the fifteenth century of the hegira, the beginning of the Islamic community. Twenty-one signifies the fact that we are living now on the edge of the twenty-first century, with all the problems that poses for the world community.

 

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"Deficiencies in the Islamic movement"

by
published in MER153

Rachid al-Ghannouchi: "Deficiencies in the Islamic movement"

Although the Islamist movement has realized great accomplishments in its attempts to liberate the Islamic community from the legacy of decay and the remnants of destructive Western invasions, it is still far from realizing its ultimate goal -- the establishment of the shar‘a of God on Earth…

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Portrait of Rachid al-Ghannouchi

by Linda G. Jones
published in MER153

Late last September, in the sweltering, heavily guarded State Security Court in Tunis, all eyes were fixed on Shaikh Rachid al-Ghannouchi as he concluded his impassioned defense:

If God wishes me to become the martyr of the mosques, then let it be so. But I tell you that my death will not be in vain, and that from my blood, Islamic flowers will grow.

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Tunisia's Uncertain Future

by Fred Halliday
published in MER163

The first months after Habib Bourguiba’s overthrow in November 1987 witnessed an ambiguous honeymoon between the new regime and the Islamists. Bourguiba himself was under a form of house arrest in Monastir, his native town. Squares named after his birthday, August 3, 1903, were renamed November 7, the day of the coup. Some of his statues were pulled down, but many streets were still named after him and his grand mausoleum and mosque were well tended in Monastir. Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, the coupmaker who had worked as minister of interior and prime minister under Bourguiba, presented himself as a man of “renewal” and called for political pluralism and respect for human rights. He opened a dialogue with the opposition forces, socialist and Islamist.

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State and Gender in the Maghrib

by Mounira Charrad
published in MER163

Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco constitute a geocultural entity. They all went through a period of French colonization and they became independent during roughly the same period in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Despite the similarities, though, the three countries engaged in markedly different policies in regard to family law and women’s rights from the time of national independence to the mid-1980s. Tunisia adopted the most far-reaching changes whereas Morocco remained most faithful to the prevailing Islamic legislation and Algeria followed an ambivalent course.

North Africa Faces the 1990s

by Joe Stork
published in MER163

The startling changes that have transformed the political landscape of Eastern Europe in 1989 may have no equivalent in the Middle East exactly, but that region has seen some remarkable developments nonetheless. The Arab versions of perestroika, or restructuring, while less profound in comparison with those of Czechoslovakia or Poland, reflect certain realignments of political forces. No regimes have toppled -- yet. But from Palestine and Jordan in the Arab east (the Mashriq) to Algeria in the west (the Maghrib), a phenomenon of intifada, or uprising, is challenging the static politics of repression that have prevailed for many years.

The People Want

by Elliott Colla
published in MER263

Many of the slogans of the Egyptian revolution have been poetry, and as compositions with rhyme, meter and purpose, they resonate with very old conceptions of lyrical form. But slogans are not literary texts whose meanings can be reduced to a purely semantic level. Most often, they are part of a performance -- embodied actions taking place in particular situations. This fact opens up avenues for thinking about literary aesthetics and political practice, and it shows the relevance of cultural analysis for the study of revolution. 

Beyond Ghannouchi

Islamism and Social Change in Tunisia

by Rikke Hostrup Haugbølle , Francesco Cavatorta
published in MER262

On October 23, 2011, for the first time since independence in 1956, Tunisians were called to the polls in free and transparent elections. They were to choose 217 members of a Constituent Assembly that for a year would play a double role: drafting a new constitution and governing the country.

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A Year After Tahrir

by Chris Toensing | published January 30, 2012