webmaster
© Copyright DEHAI-Eritrea OnLine, 1993-2011
All rights reserved
From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Wed Jan 05 2011 - 21:17:54 EST
Tunisia: IMF “Economic Medicine” has resulted in Mass Poverty and
Unemployment<http://nawaat.org/portail/2011/01/02/tunisia-imf-economic-medicine-has-resulted-in-mass-poverty-and-unemployment/>
Nawaat.org <http://nawaat.org/portail/author/admin/> | Jan 02, 2011 | 2
comments<http://nawaat.org/portail/2011/01/02/tunisia-imf-economic-medicine-has-resulted-in-mass-poverty-and-unemployment/#comments>
*Protest by Suicide as a Symbol of Resistance *
by Prof. Basel Saleh *
Mass and spontaneous demonstrations erupted on Friday, December 17th in the
city of Sidi Bouzid (central Tunisia) when Mohammad Bouazizi , a 26
year-old, doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire after a
female police officer slapped and spat on him. The only crime Bouazizi
committed was that of being a street vendor selling vegetables and fruits
without a permit, in a country where neoliberal economic policies failed to
provide economic opportunities to Bouazizi and thousands of others like
him.[1] Bouazizi’ s attempted suicide, which comes hard on the heels of
police humiliation and confiscation of his only source of income, reveals
the utter despair prevalent today among Tunisia’s population especially
college graduates. Twenty-four years of ruthless corruptions, dictatorship,
and neoliberal economic policies led to wealth being concentrated in the
hands of very few people connected to President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and
his wife’s family. Bouazizi, a college graduate,[2] was trying to live in
dignity and provide for his family by becoming a street vendor despite
living in a country that is considered an economic miracle and one of the
African lions by western economic monitors and analysts.[3]
The miserable economic conditions in the interior of the country, lack of
employment opportunities and political freedoms pushed Bouazizi, like
thousands of other young men and women in the Maghreb countries, to the
margins of society. Tunisia’s national unemployment rate, which understates
the true unemployment situation, stands at 14%.[4] However, the youth
unemployment rate (those between15-24 year-old) is at 31%. The income share
of the top 10% is approximately 32%, and the top 20% of the population
controls 47% of Tunisia’s income. Tunisia’s inequality is so severe that the
bottom 60% of the population earns only 30% (the top 40% take home 70% of
the income).[5] Still, the IMF describes the government management of the
economy and the uneven economic growth which benefited mainly northern and
coastal cities while marginalizing the interior of the country as a “prudent
macroeconomic management.”[6]
The despicable behavior of the police officer described above is not
uncommon in Tunisia and is condoned by the police state that ignores basic
human rights, shows no respect for the dignity of its citizens, and does not
tolerate any signs of dissent. Poverty, unemployment and oppression have
pushed yet another young man to commit suicide just few days later after
Bouazizi’s attempt. On Wednesday, December 22nd, Hussein Nagi Felhi, also
unemployed, unfortunately succeeded in committing suicide by climbing a
high-voltage electric power line. He was electrocuted and died on the scene.
Witnesses say the young man was shouting “no for misery, no for
unemployment” as he climbed the electric pylon.[7]
The epidemic of youth unemployment, inequality, political repression, and
lack of any meaningful freedoms inflamed solidarity among the population
which took to the streets in a spontaneous and unplanned organic protests.
Within days of the attempted suicide by Bouazizi and the suicide of Felhi,
protests spread across the country and reached the capital Tunis and are
still ongoing even in the face of total national media blackout and police
brutality which resulted in the killing of an 18 year-old. This is not the
first time the dictator of Tunisia Zine El Abidine Ben Ali has faced street
anger over joblessness and economic misery during his 24-year reign, but
this is by far the most serious challenge to his rule. About three years ago
in January 2008, his security apparatus crushed protesters in the southern
mining town of Redhayef when workers and young people protested wages and
unemployment.[8]At that time, over 300 people were arrested as a result of
the protests.[9] However, this time the desperation among the population has
reached the boiling point. Aided by social media, some protesters launched a
Facebook page to document riots and share news although the government
promptly shuts down any protest-linked websites.[10] The demonstrations are
increasing in intensity and show no signs of abating. The protesters are fed
up with the status quo of a self-enriching and corrupt ruling family which
is the de facto governing system in the Middle East and North Africa.
A Western Ally: The Hypocrisy of Western Neoliberal and Foreign Policies
Respect for human rights and freedom of the press is almost nonexistent in
Tunisia. The Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom labels Tunisia as
‘mostly unfree’ nation and marginally close to being repressed—its lowest
score.[11] Transparency International ranks Tunisia among its seriously
corrupt nations with a score of 4.3 out of 10 (10 being free of corruption
and 1 as most corrupt), and Tunisia is considered ‘not free’ according to
Freedom House Index.[12] This is no surprise in a country where the
government controls almost all aspects of people’s lives. Young people are
especially tightly controlled and monitored. Even fields of study in
post-secondary education are decided by the government where the Ministry of
Education, Higher Education and Scientific Research decides in which field
of study students will be placed.[13]
Although the protests that are spreading across the country took on the form
of social unrest for the first few days, they rapidly metamorphosed over the
last ten days to become a mass political rally by the people. The protesters
are now on the streets calling openly for the president Zine El Abidine Ben
Ali to leave office by holding signs in Tunisian Arabic dialect that read
“Yezzi Fock” (Ben Ali, it is enough) which has become the protesters’
political slogan. Labor and industry unions which played an active role in
public life since independence from France are also supporting the
protesters. President Ben Ali, nearing 80, is very aware of the gravity and
the real threat to his grip on power. His first reaction was to preempt the
protesters by firing some local officials, replace some ministers in his
cabinet, and then immediately promising more investment and job creation
completely oblivious to his record after 24 years in power. When these empty
promises failed to deflate the protesters’ anger, he resorted to the routine
policies of riot police and explicit threats directed to his citizens.
Facing the most serious unrest in the history of his rule, he took to the
airways and gave a televised address in response to the demonstrations. He
vowed to punish “the minority of extremists” whom he blamed for the riots
(as he calls them) and also indicated that these protests “will have a
negative impact on creating jobs. It will discourage investors and tourists
which will hit jobs.”[14] It appears that the President’s main concern is
the tourism industry which is tightly controlled by his family and that of
his wife as revealed by several Wikileaks concerning the economic and
financial corruption of the first family.
The Tunisian dictator and his family are touted by Western governments as an
example of a stable and progressive North African Muslim nation. The
neoliberal economic policies are hailed as prudent and wise by the IMF yet
these policies primarily benefited his family, that of his wife in addition
to other well-connected wealthy Tunisians. In one incident of corruption
revealed by Wikileaks, the Son-in-Law of the President purchased a 17% share
of a bank just before it was to be privatized and then sold the shares at a
premium. Readings from Wikileaks U.S. diplomatic cables underscore that
success in the Tunisian economy is directly related to connection to the
first family. Income and regional inequalities are on the rise in Tunisia.
Job creation and widespread prosperity promised by defunct orthodox economic
dictates never trickled down to the masses or even materialized for most
unemployed college graduates where net migration has been steadily
increasing rising from -16,000 in 1980 to -80,000 in 2005.
The Tunisian Government is an important ally for the U.S. in its
resource-driven colonial wars with Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. A
United Nations report on secret detention practices lists Tunisia as having
secret detention facilities where prisoners are held without International
Red Cross access. [15] Intelligence services in Tunisia cooperated with the
U.S. efforts in the War on Terror and have participated in interrogating
prisoners at Bagram Airbase in Afghanistan and in Tunisia. Recent Wikileaks
diplomatic cables reveal that the U.S. not long ago was concerned about the
growing anger on the streets and the corruption of Ben Ali and the Trabelsi
family (his wife’s family) who treat everything in the country as theirs. A
list of Wikileaks cables from the U.S. Embassy in Tunisia posted on The
Guardian newspaper website indicate that the U.S. considers Tunisia as a
police state “with little freedom of expression or association, and serious
human rights problems,” and the Ben Ali family as a “quasi mafia.”[16]
Nevertheless, the State Department boasts about the active support the
Tunisian security forces receive from the U.S. in spite of the Ben Ali’s
government record of serious human rights violations. According to the State
Department website:
“The United States and Tunisia have an active schedule of joint military
exercises. U.S. security assistance historically has played an important
role in cementing relations. The U.S.-Tunisian Joint Military Commission
meets annually to discuss military cooperation, Tunisia’s defense
modernization program, and other security matters.”[17]
The fate of the protests is unclear at this point. The Ben Ali government is
frantic to control the situation by sending police and security enforcements
in the cities affected by the protests. The protesters have been peaceful
and have not resorted to any violence or destruction of property. Some
protesters simply held a loaf of bread and others are simply holding signs
that call for jobs and dignity. In the meantime, the IMF is continuing to
push Tunisia to more austere economic policies on the expenditure side,
recommending that the government ends its support for food and fuel products
and reform its social security system, a code word for privatizing the
pension system in Tunisia which benefits the masses of poor
Tunisians.[18]The greatest hypocrisy in all of this is that the IMF
recommends these policies in the name of greater employment and growth which
is the IMF’s cut-and-paste recipe for all nations it studies.
In the meantime, the Western international community has been largely silent
about the protests. The U.S. corporate-run media is as usual busy selling
air time to corporations eager to cash in on the Christmas holiday while
simultaneously raising their prices to squeeze more out of their
customers.[19] The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal didn’t report
on the Tunisian protests at all. The U.S. State Department remains
tight-lipped on the issue and has yet to release any statement on the
situation. The U.S. government’s deafening silence confirms the inherent
hypocrisy in U.S. diplomatic and foreign policy that is widely known,
detested, and recently confirmed by Wikileaks released U.S. diplomatic
cables.
Basel Saleh is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Peace Studies Faculty
at Radford University, Virginia. His work on Palestinian suicide bombers is
widely cited in national media and academic journals. He is currently
writing his book Economics When People Matter due for publication with
Kendall Hunt in the summer of 2011. The author can be reached by email
bsaleh@radford.edu
Notes
[1] See Aljazeera story in (Arabic), 23 December 2010:
http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D2ACC91E-B225-411B-8073-AC6C79845D77.htm
[2] There are conflicting reports on whether Mohammad Bouazizi is a college
graduate or not. But most news sources indicate that he is. See:
http://dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=123016#axzz19WbaUTRj
[3] ‘African lions’ is a term used by Boston Consulting Group to describe
the eight countries driving growth on the continent: South Africa, Algeria,
Botswana, Egypt, Mauritius, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia. See Florence Beaugé,
Economic power of the ‘African lions’ tallied. , The Guardian Weekly, 10
June 2010:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jun/09/morocco-southafrica
[4] Julian Borger, Tunisian President Vows to Punish Rioters After Worst
Unrest in a Decade. The Guardian, 29 December 2010:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/29/tunisian-president-vows-punish-rioters
[5] World Bank Indicators:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.UEM.1524.MA.ZS/countries/TN?display=graph
[6] Joël Toujas-Bernate and Rina Bhattachary, Tunisia Weathers Crisis Well,
But Unemployment Persistsa. IMFSurvey Magazine: Countries & Regions , 10
September 2010:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2010/car091010a.htm
[7] Amro Hassan, Tunisia: Apparent Suicide Triggers Youth Protests Against
Unemployment. The Los Angeles Times, 23 December 2010:
[8] Human Rights Watch, World Report Chapter: Tunisia, January 2009:
http://www.hrw.org/en/node/79260
[9] Amnesty International, Behind Tunisia’s Economic Miracle: Inequality and
Criminalization of Protests, June 2009:
[10] The facebook page for protesters can be accessed via
http://www.facebook.com/yezzifock?v=photos#!/yezzifock?v=wall
[11] The Heritage Foundation, 2010 Index of Economic Freedom:
http://www.heritage.org/Index/Ranking
[12] Freedom House, Freedom in The World Country Report , 2010 edition:
http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=363&year=2010 , and
Transparency International Corruption Index
http://www.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2010/results
[13] Housa Trabelsi, Unemployment Haunts Tunisia’s College Graduates. The
Megharebia, 30 July 2010:
http://www.magharebia.com/cocoon/awi/xhtml1/en_GB/features/awi/features/2010/07/30/feature-01
[14] Tunisian President Says Job Riots are not Acceptable. The BBC, 28
December 2010:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12087596
[15] See United Nations report on secrete detention practices
http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/hrcouncil/docs/13session/A-HRC-13-42.pdf
[16] US embassy cables: Tunisia – a US foreign policy conundrum, The
Guardian, 7 December 2010:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/217138
[17] Background Note: Tunisia, U.S. State Department, 13 October 2010:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/5439.htm#relations
[18] See note 4
[19] Matthew Boyle, Wal-Mart Raising Prices on Toys, Squeezing More Out of
Holidays. Bloomberg News, 15 December 2010:
* Dr. Basel Saleh is Assistant Professor of Economics at Radford University
Virginia.
“The fight is never about grapes or lettuce. It is always about people.”
(César Chávez)
Source: Global Research<http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22587>