Alternatives International Journal

It Wasn't The Final Atrocity

Pervez Hoodbhoy — 2015-01-01T16:43:13Z

THE gut-wrenching massacre in Peshawar's Army Public School has left Pakistan aghast and sickened. All political leaders have called for unity against terrorism. But this is no watershed event that can bridge the deep divides within. In another few days this episode of 134 dead children will become one like any other.

All tragedies provoke emotional exhortations. But nothing changed after Lakki Marwat when 105 spectators of a volleyball match were killed by a suicide bomber in a pickup truck. Or, when 96 Hazaras in a snooker club died in a double suicide attack. The 127 dead in the All Saints Church bombing in Peshawar, or the 90 Ahmadis killed while in prayer, are now dry statistics. In 2012, men in military uniforms stopped four buses bound from Rawalpindi to Gilgit, demanding that all 117 persons alight and show their national identification cards. Those with typical Shia names, like Abbas and Jafri, were separated. Minutes later corpses lay on the ground.

If Pakistan had a collective conscience, just one single fact could have woken it up: the murder of nearly 60 polio workers — women and men who work to save children from a crippling disease — at the hands of the fanatics.

Hence the horrible inevitability: from time to time, Pakistan shall continue to witness more such catastrophes. No security measures can ever prevent attacks on soft targets. The only possible solution is to change mindsets. For this we must grapple with three hard facts.

First, let's openly admit that the killers are not outsiders or infidels. Instead, they are fighting a war for the reason Boko Haram fights in Nigeria, IS in Iraq and Syria, Al Shabab in Kenya, etc. The men who slaughtered our children are fighting for a dream — to destroy Pakistan as a Muslim state and recreate it as an Islamic state. This is why they also attack airports and shoot at PIA planes. They see these as necessary steps towards their utopia.

No one should speculate about the identity of the killers. Taliban spokesman Muhammad Umar Khorasani released pictures of the eight ‘martyrs', justifying the killing of minors with reference to Hadith (a horrific perversion, of course). Dizzied by religious passions, the men roamed the school searching for children hiding under desks and shouted “Allah-o-Akbar” before opening fire. Shot in both legs, Shahrukh Khan, 16, says he survived by playing dead. Another surviving student, Aamir Ali, says that two clean-shaven gunmen told students to recite the kalima before shooting them multiple times.

Second, Pakistan must scorn and punish those who either support terrorism publicly or lie to us about the identity of terrorists. Television anchors and political personalities have made their fortunes and careers by fabricating wild theories. For example, retired Gen Hamid Gul and his son Abdullah Gul have adamantly insisted multiple times on TV that suicide attackers were not circumcised and hence not Muslim. Though body parts are plentifully available for inspection these days, they have not retracted earlier claims.

Those on the state's payroll that encourage violence against the state must be dismissed. Maulana Abdul Aziz of Islamabad's Lal Masjid — a government mosque — led an insurrection in 2007 against the Pakistani state. He flatly refuses to condemn the Peshawar massacre. Other state employees have called upon all to not pray for army soldiers killed in action. At another level is Jamaatud Dawa's supremo, Hafiz Saeed. He blames India for the Peshawar massacre and, ignoring ironclad evidence, misguides Pakistanis about the identity of the enemy.

Among political leaders, none is more blameworthy than Imran Khan, the icon of millions of immature minds. He has never named the Taliban as terrorists even when they claimed responsibility for various atrocities. That the TTP may be involved in the Peshawar massacre is the first exception, but this is contained only in a tweet. For a man who uses the strongest language against political opponents and has hogged TV channels for months, he has yet to condemn TTP before a national audience. Why the reticence?

It was even worse earlier. In 2009, as the Taliban took over Swat, on Hamid Mir's Capital Talk he claimed that the Swat Taliban were fighting a war of liberation against the Americans. When I asked why they were fighting in Pakistan and killing our policemen and soldiers, he accused me of being an American agent and then, later, attempted to physically attack me. Readers can google this video.

Third, if Pakistan is to be at peace with itself then it must seek peace with its neighbours and begin disassembling the apparatus of jihad. The bitter truth is that you reap what you sow. Today, massive militant establishments hold the Pakistani state hostage. They run their own training centres, hospitals, and disaster relief programmes. When Sartaj Aziz, adviser to the prime minister on foreign affairs, said that Pakistan was not going to target militant groups which “did not pose a threat to the state”, he accidentally spilled the beans. In fact he was merely restating Pakistan's well-known zero-sum paradigm — we live to hurt others, not to better ourselves.

While bewailing the murder of our children, let us acknowledge that Pakistan's soil has been used time and again for inflicting grief and sorrow across the world. Today it is not just India and Afghanistan who accuse us, but also China and Iran.

By launching Zarb-i-Azb, Gen Raheel Sharif has broken with his timid predecessor, Gen Kayani. North Waziristan should never have become the epicentre of terrorism. He has done well to meet President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul and demand the extradition of TTP's Mullah Fazlullah, now ensconced on the Afghan side. But what of Mullah Omar? The Pakistani Taliban and the Afghan Taliban are two sides of the same coin. I wonder if President Ghani asked General Sharif to help extradite Mullah Omar for facing justice before the Afghan people.

The author teaches physics in Lahore and Islamabad.

Published in Dawn December 20th, 2014

Litfests and Bookfairs – Two Worlds?

Ajmal Kamal — 2015-01-01T16:40:43Z

If you have attended this year the two events that mark the pinnacle of Karachi's book culture – the Karachi Literature Festival and the Karachi International Book Fair – you may have noticed that these two well-attended public events are not looking at each other at all. In fact, the situation may seem to mirror the split in our country's social fabric that is becoming more brutally evident by the day.

The KLF enthusiastically promotes books and authors from Pakistan that link the national literary activity with the international book trade scene, a la the pioneering Jaipur Literature Festival on the other side of the border. Both the KLF and JLF are commonly criticized for the fact that they are rather unfairly tilted towards the desi literature produced in English at the cost of the literature of ‘local' languages. To be fair, KLF, being sensitive to the accusation of being elitist, has strived to give a gradually increasing exposure to Urdu literature, even if the languages relegated to ‘regional' status – Sindhi, Punjabi, Saraiki, Balochi and Pushto - still get only a token representation. However, the primary concern of such events remains the English language writing.

Similar is the case, for example, of the weekly review magazine Books and Authors, brought out by the prime national English daily Dawn. Till some time ago, it reserved two pages exclusively for reviewing local language publications (including, mainly, Urdu books); now one of the two pages has been taken away as the weekly column by Intizar Husain has been shifted from the main newspaper to the B&A.

The Book Fair, on the other hand – despite the prefix ‘international' with its name – may be taken to present a more realistic picture of what is actually going on in the national market of reading material. Provided, of course, someone bothers to look and ponder. The fair is an annual event organized by the country's publishers and booksellers, driven by their legitimate commercial interest. Anyone visiting the fair at Expo Centre on the University Road can notice one basic fact: Urdu books promoting a delusional political ideology – flaunting an unmistakably religious-sectarian colour – dominate the printed material displayed, bought and sold here. As for the ‘regional' languages, they are conspicuous by their near absence at the fair – they seem to have little market, maybe because they have failed to become efficient vehicles for the seemingly dominant ideology mentioned above. But that is just a guess.

We, the common consumers of reading material, have little option except to make guesses. Because our infinitely creative writers represented and privileged in the events like the literature festivals – using English, Urdu or any other language – appear to be as clueless as their readers about this intriguing phenomenon, aptly named ‘English-Urdu Bipolarity Syndrome in Pakistan' by C. M. Naim, Professor Emeritus of the University of Chicago. (http://cmnaim.com/2014/12/englishurdu-bipolarity-syndrome-in-pakistan/)

Incidentally, it was Prof. Naim who wrote an enlightening piece (‘Mothers of the Lashkar', included in his book A Killing in Ferozewala: Essays/Polemics/Reviews; 2013, Karachi, City Press) about a book called Ham Ma'en Lashkar-e Taiba ki (We, the Mothers of the Lashkar-e Taiba). The three-volume Urdu book was brought out by Dar-ul Andulus, Lahore, presumably the publications wing of the jihadi outfit; many portions of this book also appeared in the Lashkar's journal called Mujalla Al-Da'wa. Containing accounts of the young men (narrated by their mothers) who sacrificed their lives in the Qital fi sabeelillah, several editions of the three volumes (each printing consisting of 1100 copies) came out between 1998 and 2003 and reached their enthusiastic buyers.

How many of the established and upcoming writers – custodians of literature in Pakistan – have cared to know about this and – trust me, countless – other such publications? How many have dared to make sense of what is going on outside their ivory towers for the benefit of their readers or listeners at the well-attended festivals? Hardly anyone. I think they prefer to ignore the whole damn thing.
Ignorance, as they say, is a choice.

Be that as it may, the fact is that, even before the true stories of the jihadi martyrs and their proud mothers came out and were read with interest, literature with this kind of worldview has been attracting a large number of writers ever since the printing press was introduced in the northern Subcontinent. It has consistently increased and influenced its readership among the literate adults and minors in our country. What seems entirely logical is that, hand in hand with the much talked about school and college textbooks, it has managed to define and shape the way an average Pakistani Urdu reader looks at the world around him.

One can make a list of names by visiting any big bookshop in Karachi's Urdu Bazar, or even a roadside newspaper stand in the Saddar area. Names made prominent by the numerous editions of their books picked up by their fans. Nasim Hijazi, Tariq Ismail Saagar, Inayatullah (of the BRB Behti Rahe Gi fame), Ishfaq Ahmed, Bano Qudsia, Mohammad Ilyas, Umaira Ahmed – the list cannot hope to be exhaustive. What do their books say to their readers? Let me make an awkward attempt at summarizing the worldview that they sincerely believe in, inculcate and promote. Here goes.

Muslims came to the Subcontinent (from Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, Central Asia, Andalusia, the Balkans, wherever) to spread Islam in this infidel region and rule here. They (we) ruled Hindustan for a glorious thousand years, after which – because we had become deficient in our religious piety and jihad – we were thrown out of power by the imperialist British. When it was time for the White colonialists to return the lost thrown to us, the wicked non-Muslims (comprising more than 75 percent in the subcontinent, mind it) tried to impose democratic politics to keep us Muslims – born to dominate the world in the name of Allah – deprived of our right to rule India permanently. We defeated them by dividing India and making Pakistan – the fortress of Islam – from where we'll carry on the jihad to rule not only the entire South Asia but also Afghanistan, Central Asia and beyond. Meanwhile, the foreign enemies (others) are conspiring – with connivance of the enemies inside us (internal others such as our religious and sectarian minorities and their misguided sympathizers) – to defeat our sacred struggle. But we'll continue to make ourselves (and our women, especially) religiously purer, stronger in faith and sensitive to the conspiracies around us. Once we overcome our enemies, after killing them in large numbers and sacrificing many of our own, we will impose the will of Allah on our land and beyond.

Mad dream? Maybe. But this is what is reflected in our national goals and policies, not to mention our textbooks, quite matter-of-factly. And our popular literature. Take Ishtiaq Ahmed, for example. He is the celebrated author of hundreds of novels for our Urdu-reading adolescents. This may be news to some that the last page of his typical novel is reserved for creating ‘awareness' among its young readers about the existential threat the non-Muslim citizens of our country – Christians, Hindus, Shias and Ahmadis (‘Qadianis') – pose to our religious-nationalist cause.

Our creative writers have as much right as we, their readers, do to be surprised at the direction our country's politics has taken, and to mourn the fact that their sincere voice of sanity has been reduced to look like a lunatic fringe in today's Pakistan. This is precisely what they – and their readers – look like from the opposite angle. Our writers have, collectively, failed to challenge what has now developed into our national narrative, and in turn, have been reduced to an ineffective minority voice.

What is even worse, we find echoes of support in our literature – especially Urdu literature – for parts of this dangerous narrative. After all, this mad dream was sold, in the first place, to popular writers – and our political and military leaders – by this very elite class that prides itself at being our intelligentsia. The idea that Muslims came to India from some foreign land, purposefully promoted by our cultural leaders, created an attitude of looking with contempt at everything that was local: literary forms and critical standards, cultural norms, festivals, modes of being, and, above all, languages.

The drift of the established literary criticism, for instance, has been to advise the creative writer to avoid the local and the ordinary, and focus on the so-called universal and international, which would get him a place in the sun. Lately, the dastan fiction has received a lot of uncritical admiration – even glorification –despite the fact that the dastan narrative typically revolves around Muslim conquests of infidel lands, massacre and forced conversion of non-Muslims, and the deft use of the converted Muslims against the infidels as killers, spies and terrorists. Let's not mention the sickening misogyny of the dastans here. All this campaign to glorify dastans bypasses the fact that this kind of worldview has provided meat to, for example, Nasim Hijazi's novels that have, in turn, been a great inspiration (besides Allama Iqbal) for characters like Zaid Hamid who can be seen promoting Ghazwa-e Hind and worse on Pakistani TV channels.

Even in the Muslim journalism and politics in the Subcontinent, imported issues were actively promoted to suppress the real issues of real people here. I'd mention just one example: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958) started to publish his weekly Al-Hilal from Calcutta in 1912, using the state-of-the-art printing technology of those days, to make people aware of the wars in the Balkans and North Africa that the dying Muslim imperial power – the Ottoman Empire – was fighting and losing. Let alone Calcutta and Bengal, even the entire colonized India found no mention in the celebrated magazine except as a bastion of support for the Muslim conquerors of European and African lands! (The weekly Zamindarof Lahore followed the same line.) This ‘media campaign' later resulted in the huge Khilafat Movement (1919-1922) just before Turkey itself decided to formally end the Ottoman Empire. However, the energy generated among Muslims by the movement was duly channelized during the next two decades in favour of the Partition of the Subcontinent and the establishment of Pakistan – which, as you know, would one day re-conquer India, fly the green flag on Delhi's Red Fort, and, God-willing, rule the world.

As for languages, Persian was considered the symbol of Muslim culture in the Subcontinent until the British colonialists replaced it, during 1860s, with English at higher levels of education and administration and with local vernaculars at the lower levels. The Muslim elites did not hesitate before abandoning Persian and adopting English, within a space of merely two generations. Even Urdu was ‘created' out of its local origin – Hindi – to look like an imported language with its Perso-Arabic script, a profusion of Persian and Arabic expressions, and an active campaign to ‘exclude' – declaring matrook – a large number of local words and expressions. Then this specially crafted Urdu was handed over to the lower classes to keep alive and teach their children in, making them less employable in the process. Meanwhile, you can come across any number of people from this elite or even nouveau riche class who would gladly inform you that their children can neither speak nor read Urdu (let alone Punjabi, Sindhi and other local languages). So, the only language they can use now is English in which, no doubt, they can talk to their ilk, but it is equally certain that they can neither talk to those common people of Pakistan who have been made hostage to the mad dream, nor understand the starry-eyed lunatic fringe that has come to dominate the mainstream of our culture and politics.

They can, however, express their shock – mostly in English – at the proliferation of madrassas and horrendous terrorist crimes against modern schools, their teachers and students, and citizens of this country. Nobody in his right mind expects our writers to come up with a ‘counter-narrative' – since they have not only ignored the development of the dominant narrative but have been ambivalent about – even supportive to –parts of the mad dream that has come to obsess us.

December 26, 2014 at 2:08amhttps://www.facebook.com/notes/10152989737187608/

Staring Down a Precipice

Editorial, Economic and Political Weekly — 2015-01-01T16:38:25Z

Lima ignored the urgent need to address climate change.

They came, they talked, and they almost failed. That seems to be the trajectory of most of the conferences on climate change held under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The latest, the 20th Conference of Parties (CoP 20) at Lima, Peru, was not very different. Over a thousand delegates from 190 countries talked, argued, bargained, negotiated and finally, after extending the meeting by a couple of days, came up with a patchwork Lima Call for Climate Action with which no one was completely satisfied. This document is expected to form the basis for negotiations leading up to the crucial Climate Summit in Paris in 2015 when nations are expected to arrive at a legally binding international treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol that lapsed in 2012.

Why, one wonders, is the same routine repeated when in 2014 the fact that human intervention is responsible for global warming and climate change has been convincingly established? Fortunately, in Lima no one wasted time arguing about the science of climate change. Yet they continued to debate about who should shoulder the principal responsibility for curbing greenhouse gases (GHGs) and how adaptation measures could be financed. When the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated and agreed upon in 1997, few disputed that the older industrialised nations had to bear the primary responsibility. The world was cleaved into two halves – developed and developing. The former had to curb emissions while the latter were to be helped to adopt cleaner technologies and adapt to climate change.

Almost two decades later, the picture has changed. China, defined as “developing” in 1997, is now the world's largest emitter of GHG. It has exceeded the US and the European Union. Although India stands at number four in the list of the six largest emitters of GHGs, its total emissions are less than a quarter of China's. But more significant than global rankings is the fact that the “carbon budget”, a concept that the fourth assessment on climate change by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) put forward last year, is precipitously close to being consumed.

The IPCC calculated that the earth's atmosphere could absorb at the most 800-880 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) before global warming exceeded the 2°C mark. The problem is that the earth has already accumulated 530 gigatonnes of CO2, leaving only a third of this carbon budget. If the rate of emissions does not reduce drastically, we are staring at the inevitability of a climate change precipice where the only direction in which the earth will go is down. Against this frightening future, squabbling over global ranking is less important than finding constructive ways to limit the consumption of this carbon budget.

This, in essence, should be the focus of the climate talks. Ideally, the discussions should be based on science. Inevitably, it is politics that determines the ultimate outcome. For instance, in the run-up to Lima, the US and China agreed to limits on their GHG emissions. This was interpreted as path-breaking by some and by others as a ploy to put pressure on countries like India to do the same. China has agreed to peak its emissions by 2030 while the US promises to reduce emissions by 28% of 2005 levels by 2025. The sceptics point out that these levels are actually lower than what would have been required under the Kyoto Protocol and that, in any case, this bilateral agreement is non-binding.

Despite the agreement, which the US and China had clearly hoped would influence the Lima talks, the outcome was somewhat different. For one, the final Lima document retains the hard-fought concept of “common but differentiated responsibility” (CBDR) that developing countries pushed through post-Kyoto. They had argued that even if global warming affects everyone, the industrial economies that have contributed to the current accumulation of GHGs in the atmosphere should be held principally responsible for mitigation as well as for funding adaptation measures in poorer countries.

Despite the efforts by many richer countries to remove this provision, it survived. However, its meaning has been diluted with the insertion of a new phrase, the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC), that allows individual countries, irrespective of the extent of their emissions, to determine how far they are prepared to go. Unlike the Kyoto Protocol, this provision provides a handy loophole for many countries from accepting binding commitments to limit emissions.

In the end, however, whether it is CBDR or INDC, these are just so many words. In the absence of a transparent system for monitoring GHG emissions, a treaty or protocol that has legal force to compel nations to comply with emission limits, and shared concern for the most vulnerable countries that are already debilitated by the fallout of global warming, they carry little meaning. GHGs know no borders; their accumulation is not constrained by questions of sovereignty; their adverse impacts are not governed by poverty or wealth. It is unfortunate that a sense of urgency and commitment to address this global crisis has been missing in international climate change negotiations.

Source: http://www.epw.in/editorials/staring-down-precipice.html

Carrots for Cuba, Sticks for North Korea

John Feffer — 2015-01-01T16:36:03Z

As one cold war thaws, another refreezes.

Cuba and North Korea share a great deal in common. They are both led by dynastic rulers. They retain their nominal affiliation to revolutionary Communism. They suffer under U.S. embargoes that have been in place for decades. And although they registered significant economic and social progress in the 1960s, they have become increasingly impoverished as a result of their isolation from the global economy.

Recently, however, the two countries have struck out in very different directions. Cuba just normalized its diplomatic relations with the United States after months of secret negotiations and a surprise announcement by the Obama administration. North Korea, on the other hand, remains very much on America's blacklist amid a conflict over a controversial film.

Why has the United States extended an olive branch to an adversary near at hand while continuing to brandish a stick at an adversary halfway around the world?

President Obama promised in his initial campaign in 2008 to sit down with any world leader willing to negotiate in good faith. The track record of this diplomatic offensive has been mixed. The United States has orchestrated an opening to Burma after the military junta there agreed to significant reforms. Negotiations are ongoing with Iran over its nuclear program. But the Obama administration has not invested much political capital in going beyond this short list.

The détente with Cuba has been long in the making. In 2001, thanks to a change in federal trade law, individual states began to send agricultural exports to Cuba. Over $4.6 billion in corn, chicken, and soybeans from states like Georgia and Virginia went to the island through the middle of 2014. In fall 2013, Washington and Havana began negotiations to resume direct mail service.

The rapprochement between the two long-time adversaries began to accelerate for two related reasons. Under Raul Castro, the brother of the country's first revolutionary leader, Cuba began to liberalize. Economic reforms have included a rehaul of agriculture, the encouragement of small business, and the shrinking of the government sector. The government released political prisoners. For the first time, citizens didn't need exit visas to leave the country. In the first six months after the law went into effect in January 2013, nearly a quarter of a million people went abroad.

At the same time, public opinion in the United States began to shift in favor of normalizing relations with Cuba. In 2009, 66 percent of Americans in a Washington Post/ABC News pollsupported establishing diplomatic ties with Cuba. Five years later, even more Americans support ending the economic embargo and eliminating all travel restrictions.

In other words, President Obama's decision to pursue a new era of relations with Cuba responds both to measurable changes on the island and a significant shift over time in U.S. opinion. From a policy point of view, it was a no-brainer. The good offices of Pope Francis and the Canadian government also helped to facilitate negotiations. And the threat of closer Russian-Cuban relations – the two countries reached an agreement in July 2014 to reopen a Soviet-era spy base – added a certain amount of urgency for the Obama administration to alter the geopolitical calculus.

The only significant resistance to this détente comes from within Washington itself. Congress is the ultimate arbiter of the economic embargo, and the Republican Party will soon control both houses. Top Republican leadership, including Florida's Marco Rubio and Arizona's John McCain, are dead set against rapprochement, even though better relations with Cuba would translate into more dollars for the business community, a key Republican constituency.

North Korea has been waiting for normalized relations even longer than Cuba. But the country has not embarked on any significant liberalization. Nor is there a strong constituency in the United States in favor of changing the status quo with North Korea. The only thing North Korea has going for it, in fact, is its nuclear program, which it has used as bait to keep the United States interested in negotiations.

For most Americans, alas, North Korea remains an object of ridicule. Over the years it has been a safe target for comedians and filmmakers. The most recent effort, The Interview, offers Seth Rogen and James Franco as dim-witted Americans recruited by the CIA to assassinate Kim Jong-Eun. The film pokes as much fun at Americans as it does at North Koreans, but Pyongyang is understandably upset at an “entertainment” that depicts the murder on screen of its current leader. Imagine if a Cuban comedy depicted the assassination of President Obama: relations between the two countries would experience an immediate freeze.

The U.S. government has pointed the finger at North Korea for instigating a recent hack against Sony Pictures as well as death threats that forced an initial cancellation of the film's debut. The Obama administration also promised a “proportional response” against Pyongyang, which may have already happened when North Korea's limited Internet mysteriously went down last week.

But the evidence the FBI has presented against North Korea is rather tenuous. The hackers could have come from anywhere. They might not even sympathize with North Korea but deliberately made it seem as if the country were responsible. The initial threatening email from the hackers to Sony didn't even mention The Interview, and a subsequent message to a reporter ended in a Korean phrase that contained obvious errors.

Hackers love to fool people. Somewhere someone might be rolling on the floor laughing out loud that they managed to prank both North Korea and the United States.

North Korea, meanwhile, denies responsibility, wants to clear its name, and has proposed to participate in a joint investigation. The Obama administration isn't going to follow the Cuba example and recognize Pyongyang any time soon. Nor will it lift the economic embargo or even negotiate with North Korea. North Korea isn't Cuba. But Washington would be wise to stop brandishing a stick at Pyongyang, particularly when the evidence of its crime is so flimsy. A cold peace with North Korea is not as good as détente, but it's still better than war.

John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy In Focus.

Source: http://fpif.org/carrots-cuba-sticks-north-korea/

Tunisia: The Third Option For The Region

Messaoud Romdhani — 2015-01-01T16:33:30Z

Despite hardships and breaches that marred the electoral campaign depriving scores of citizens, mainly outside the country, from their right to vote, the electoral process was rather successful. Tunisia has had transparent elections and has taken an important step in the democratic process. Two main concerns, however, remain: the terrorist threats that are still hanging over the region and the economic and social uncertainties that threaten the stability of the country.

In fact, the legislative elections have ended a three-year hegemony of the governing troika ,that have seen an erosion of their popularity because of risky day-to-day management of the country affairs, the propensity of the dominant political party ,Ennahda, to hold the state apparatus and impose its ideological choices.

This in fact is the novelty of the new legislative elections: while the 2011 legislative elections established effective control of the Islamist Party over the State apparatus, those of 2014 have inaugurated a new era in the region with respect to power: the possibility of political change through the ballot box .

According to some observers, the relative defeat of Ennahda in the last legislative elections occurred following the Muslim brotherhood had taken a severe blow after both popular demonstrations and a bloody military coup. In Tunisia, the handover of power was done smoothly and in accordance with the principles of democracy.
We might also add that, regardless of the outcome of the presidential elections, no political party could impose its diktat and policies for several reasons:

Freedom of expression, despite some slippages, seems irreversible as has been proven through recent years;
The Party “Nidaa Tounes” (Call of Tunisia) that has won the elections does not have an absolute majority and it will have to cope with other parliamentary groups to form the government;
Tunisian civil society has demonstrated both dynamism and pugnacity during the three-year power struggle to defend basic freedoms and prevent the draft of a tailor-made constitution. So we could bet on its vigilance against any retrograde steps and the return of old –and recent – inherited dictatorial habits.

More safeguards need, though, to be provided against possible abuses: strong institutions, protection and independence of civil society associations, balance of power and the independence of the judiciary.

The social and economic situation will be a major challenge during the coming period as the country faces one of the worst slumps in decades; a legacy of the Ben Ali's regime and, also, a result of the continuation of the same policies by the post-revolutionary governments. In this respect, the partial- and often unrealistic- nature of the electoral programs put forward by different political parties do not bode well for the social stability of the country.

Those who are going to take the reins of power must be aware that it won't be a walk in the park. It is not just to achieve the objectives of the democratic transition which is at issue here, but also to better manage the social impacts of the economic crisis. Ordinary good people look forward to the day when they see concrete improvements in their every-day life, a tangible plan of action against poverty, unemployment, and regional inequities.

Not taking such social challenges into account could lead to more costly outcomes than one might have expected. Not only because that would leave the door open for social protests, including violent clashes, but also because the fight against terrorism does not depend only on the restoration of State authorities, as has been insinuated quite often. It is more a question of a balanced regional development and social inclusion. A harsh combat against despair.

That does not, in any way, mean that the draft of the constitution, the implementation of regulatory bodies, the election of the President are simple things. They are going to anchor the Tunisian democratic experience, demonstrate that what happened on the 14th January 2O11 was no accident and that the alternative to dictatorship in the region is not necessarily between dictatorship or the extremists of Daesh and their emulators.

Committee for the Respect of Liberties and Human Rights in Tunisia