North Africa: Protests in Tunisia spread to neighbors

North Africa is erupting in the worst protests in decades, said Christophe Ayad and Vittorio de Filippis in Belgium’s La Libre Belgique. They began in Tunisia in mid-December, after a street merchant, despondent over the police confiscation of his illegal kiosk, set himself on fire; he finally died of his burns last week. Those first demonstrations were driven by anger over high unemployment, but as the weeks went by they broadened to include denunciations of police brutality and government repression. Police have killed dozens. Next door, meanwhile, Algerians began rioting last week over a sharp rise in food prices. And the unrest could easily spread even farther. Tunisia and Algeria aren’t the only countries with “sclerotic, authoritarian political systems” and “a plethora of young people with no job prospects.” Morocco and Egypt share those elements, too, and “social explosions” in those countries are now “possible, even probable.”

Western governments have coddled these regimes, said Laurent Joffrin in France’s Libération. It has been “fashionable,” for example, to make excuses for Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, because at least he has prevented Islamism from taking hold in the country. But is a tyrannical “despot” really the lesser evil? Ben Ali has labeled peaceful protesters “terrorists” and ordered that they be fired on. Hundreds of people have been arrested merely for exercising their democratic right to demonstrate. Tunisia once had a reputation for “high culture and refinement.” Today, it looks like “North Korea on the Mediterranean.”

The Tunisian regime mistakenly thinks it can cover up what it is doing, said London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi in an editorial. In an effort to prevent people from learning about “the popular intifada that is engulfing the country,” the government has cracked down on foreign journalists and blocked local access to Arabic and foreign-language news sites. Of course, Tunisians can still see satellite TV reports, and activists have been busy uploading video of the protests to YouTube, so “the censorship policy has proved futile.” In fact, it has worsened the situation by further angering citizens and tarnishing the country’s image abroad.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Algeria’s government is no better, said Rachid Ould Boussiafa in Algeria’s Echorouk. “In the face of the dangerous deterioration of the social situation, none of our leaders uttered a single word to put out the flame of anger.” Instead, they began “spreading accusations left and right,” trying to find the “hidden elements”—perhaps foreigners, perhaps Islamists—who they say are inciting the rioters. “Well, they haven’t found the hidden elements.” And they certainly haven’t done a thing about the outrageous food prices and high unemployment. The costs of oil, sugar, flour, and grains have gone up by a third in the past few weeks. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, “what are you waiting for?”