Al Jazeera video
It is almost impossible when we are not on the ground to tell what will develop in Tunisia and indeed throughout North Africa and the Arab world. What is clear is that things are not going to be the same and what happens there will and is having an effect throughout the world.
From what I can muster it appears that attempts by the country's ruling class to form a unity government are being made difficult by protesters as there is little tolerance for any remnant of the former ruling party or its members to remain. In the struggles overnight there have been some clashes between supporters of the former president and other forces.
All the elements of working class self government appear at some level or another in these situations. From the reports I read this morning, community committees are being set up to defend their homes and families. Residents told Al Jazeera that there is a strong sentiment among the population that they need to arm themselves against the police “who they did not trust”.
The Tunisian capitalist class will make every effort to hold back the development of independent working class action and organization like community/neighborhood committees but the anger is such that it will be hard for the more moderate wing of the bourgeois to form some sort of “unity” government with the old ruling party such is the anger and hatred that exists among the Tunisian population at the former regime. Workers were chanting "Out with the RCD" and, "Out with the party of the dictatorship" at protests today.
Al Jazeera reported this morning that the new government will include members of two opposition parties, the Democratic Progressive Party and the Democratic Forum for Labour and Freedoms as well as, “some technocrats, independents and economists and some figures from Tunisian labour and trade unions” Other secular leftist politicians have indicated they will contest the presidency if elections are held within the next 60 day which the Tunisian constitution demands.
It appears from afar that Tunisian workers and the middle class are determined to go forward rather than allow any remnants of the previous US allied dictatorship to remain. But already, former colonial occupier, France is asking for “restraint” and it is to the working class they directing that concern; don’t go too far.
In Algeria, there are similar protests and in Egypt a man set fire to himself outside parliament emulating the young Tunisian who doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire in protest, an event that lifted the lid on the anger in Tunisian society and sparked the protests. Algeria and Egypt also have high unemployment like Tunisia. Egypt’s repressive regime is also a huge recipient of US tax dollars.
If any of our readers are from Tunisia or North Africa and live there or who have a more information about what is happening on the ground and have the resources and time to share it with this blog please share it with us at:
we_know_whats_up@yahoo.com
More reading on Tunisian events:
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