Harry's Place

Writing at The New Republic, Paul Berman picks up on something that I think clear-eyed observers of the Arab Spring will have sensed:
It appears to be the case that, in one zone after another, the vast regional revolution that used to be known as the Arab Spring (except that springtime has lasted two years now, [...]

Tens of thousands of Tunisians turned out for the funeral of the assassinated opposition leader Chokri Belaid– a leftwing secularist and a staunch critic of the Islamist Ennahda Party government.

Many of those mourning Belaid expressed anger at the government, which they accuse of allowing a climate of political violence to spread unchecked.
On the capital’s central [...]

That would appear to be the message of Seumas Milne and the Stop the War Coalition to the people of Timbuktu and elsewhere in northern Mali recently liberated with the help of French forces from the rule of Islamist extremists.

A few days ago protests in Tunisia reflected concern at the wording of the new constitution.  Tunisia has enjoyed a pretty good record on women’s rights, but the rhetoric of the new clause doesn’t bode well for the future:
The proposed constitution guaranteed “the protection of women’s rights … under the principle of complementarity to man [...]

The International Trade Union Confederation reports:
Regional offices of the [Tunisian] national union centre UGTT in three locations have been burned down by Salafists under the slogan “There is only God and the UGTT is the enemy of God”. UGTT regional offices were main organising points for the revolution to depose former President Ben Ali.
Sharan Burrow, [...]

Islamists in Tunisia may have gone a bridge too far in their efforts to steer the country away from its secular roots since last year’s revolution.

Tunisia Live reported:

Tunisian politicians and civil society have reacted mostly with resounding nationalist solidarity to the recent incident of flag desecration by religious activists at the Faculty of Arts and [...]

Guest post by Boushayb
I want to draw attention to this article, which appears to be the only followup story featuring a few Tunisian Jews’ reactions to Gazan Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s recent visit.
Thus far the world’s media and blogs have been largely silent on the discrepancy between what the Ennahda party leader [...]

This is what happened when Ismail Haniyeh visited Tunisia on 5 January:
A few hundred people gathered on 5 January at the Tunis-Carthage airport to welcome Haniyeh. As they waited for him they sang antisemitic chants and slogans to the glory of Palestine and the liberation of Gaza. They carried Palestinian flags, the flags of the [...]

Recently I mentioned in a round up post that Tunisia had been strengthening its commitment to women’s rights.  Yesterday the Times featured a rather heartening account (£) of the careful preparations being made in the run up to tomorrow’s elections.   It opens with a description of a young student pretending to be blind – this [...]

The Huffington Post UK offers an article promoted as ‘Gaddafi: Retrospective Of A Fashion Maverick’:
A lot of statesmen are aesthetically uninspiring, not so Colonel Gaddafi. He knew that as a dictator, the projection of a powerful image was vital. Sometimes this meant full military regalia, other times it meant an all-in-one silky [...]