It has now been a little more than a week since my return from Tunisia.  And, like the views set forth in this column, I too find the question of France, and Tunisia’s relationship with France, to be an ominous cloud on the horizon, obscuring what I hope is Tunisia’s inevitable march toward democracy.

Bobby Ghosh at Time has a blog entry today disparaging the democratic skills of Egypti’s liberals and suggesting that, by contrast, the Muslim Brotherhood has a much better understanding of how democracy actually works.  There is little to disagree with in Ghosh’s post except that he perhaps understates the inability of the “secular” or “liberal” forces in Egypt to compete effectively in a democratic system.  The reason for this failing, I think, has little to do with the the inherent unattractiveness of liberal ideas in Egypt as much as it does with the class divisioins that are rife in Egypt, and that lead many of the liberal elite to believe — although they will never say so explicitly — that they are entitled to rule because they are the “best” of Egyptian society, the “awlad al-nas,” so to speak.  Parties that are actually popular are dismissed as demagogues or as exploiting the ignorance of the Egyptian masses.  Indeed, one prominent Egyptian liberal, a justice on the Egyptian Supreme Constitutional Court, no less, suggested that the votes of illiterate Egyptians should be weighted 1/2 of those of educated Egyptians.

Arabs do not have surnames.  Instead, their names consist simply of their given name, followed by the given name of their father and then the given name of their grandfather.  They may also have a family name which indicates an affiliation, either to a common ancestor, e.g., al-Husayni, a common group, e.g., al-Qadiri, or institution, e.g., al-Azhari, or a common place, e.g., al-Subki. To further complicate matters, at some point in time, people began to name their sons double names, the first being a name of the Prophet Muhammad, i.e., Muhammad, Mahmud or Ahmad, followed by a second name.  The person would only be known by the second of the two names, but legally he was known by both. Egypt prohibited this practice of “double-naming” in the 80s for administrative reasons.

This system, although confusing from the perspective of westerners who are accustomed to each person having a given name, a second “middle name” and a surname which is unchanging over generations (at least for males, usually, although the same now is also true for a growing number of females), works reasonably well in the Arab world where it would be relatively unusual for two people to share all three names, i.e., given name, father’s name and grandfather’s name.  When Arabs such as myself take a foreign passport, e.g., the US, however, naming conventions collide, and confusion sets in whenever I enter an Arab country.  When a passport officer in an Arab country reads my US passport, he reads “Mohammad Hossam Fadel.”  This is my legal name in the US, but it confuses him or her because the officer cannot determine my Arabic name, i.e., father’s and grandfather’s name.  Hence, the ubiquitous question always directed to me when crossing an Arab border with a US passport: what is your father’s name? And even the last time I went to Egypt, “What is your grandfather’s name?”  Increased stress at entry points is the downside of multiculturalism and dual nationalities.

What is “Revolutionary Tourism”?  Simply put, it is spending your summer vacation money in Egypt and Tunis as a toke of support of their revolutions.  I admit, traveling to a developing country for a vacation is hardly the stuff that makes revolutions, but this summer, if you can, consider traveling to Tunisia or Egypt, or both.  Both countries’ economies, for good or ill, are at the present, highly dependent on foreign tourism.  Foreign tourists, however, have largely shunned both countries out of irrational fears involved with their respective transitions.  Having just returned from two weeks in Tunisia and Egypt, I can say there is nothing to worry about!  If you are usually reluctant to go to places like Egypt and Tunisia precisely because of their place in the global tourism economy, this is the ideal time for you to go and avoid throngs of annoying tourists.  And, the people there will really appreciate your visit.  So go, and enjoy yourself in these two great revolutionary countries, basking in the warm Mediterranean sun and the afterglow of their revolutions.

Yesterday I attended a forum sponsored jointly by “Muntada Ibn Rushd,” roughly “The Averroes Society,” and the Iranian Cultural Center, the title of which was “The Cultural Consequences of the Arab Revolutions.”  Clearly, there was a disagreement as to what “Cultural” meant between the speakers and the audience, many of whom thought culture was narrowly limited to the arts.  Fortunately for me, however, the speakers and I were on the same page, namely, the Arab revolutions, and the future of political culture in the Arab world.  The speakers were, Abu Yarub al-Marzouqi, a Tunisian philosopher, who recently published a philosophical commentary on the Quran, Maryam Azzouz, a youth political activist, Radwan Masmoudi, a Tunisian-American director of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, headquartered in Washington, DC, Amal Balkhairi, a youth activist in one of the Tunisian political parties whose name escapes me but claims the political “center,” and last but not least, a representative of the Iranian government, Muhsin ‘Iraqi.  ‘Iraqi is a religious scholar who studied in the Hawza at Qum.  The clip of the event that I have included is limited to some of Balkhairi’s remarks.

One important difference, it appears to me, between the transitions in Tunisia and Egypt, respectively, is the relatively greater incidence in Tunisia of public fora that bring together spokespersons from various political and ideological movements in the country simultaneously.  The sense I got from my days in Egypt, however, was that the warring-ideological groups tend to speak to the press rather than to each other, much less in the context of a shared public forum.  In Tunisia, by contrast, there are several civil society organizations that sponsor fora to promote public debate and dialogue on the various choices facing the country, and while I have not seen any evidence that different groups have moved substantially from their core positions, I think the fact that they can sit together on the same panel and share, discuss and debate their country’s future augurs well for the success of their transitions.

I attend one such forum yesterday at a public institution called “Dar al-Thaqafa Ibn Rashiq,” (The Ibn Rashiq Cultural Centre, Ibn Rashiq being a famous medieval literary figure) that was sponsored by a civic organization with the name “Muntada Ibn Rushd.”  There are other such organizations, including one called “Muntada al-Jahiz.” While relatively few such organizations were permitted during the Ben Ali regime, apparently scores have been opened since the end of the Revolution, a fact that has helped raise public awareness of the various issues facing Tunisians in the context of the transition.  If anyone knows of equivalent efforts of Egypt, I would appreciate being corrected on this point, but at least from the perspective of an institutional framework for establishing a collective public sphere, the Tunisians appear way ahead of the Egyptians.

Watch this great interview with the Egyptian commentator on business and economics, Wael Gamal.  As he points out, government-provided energy subsidies to crony-capitalists are essentially a policy to provide these businessmen with supra-competitive profits.  Egypt could save a $1  billion a year simply by reducing this subsidy  by 50%, not even 100%, and the global competitiveness of these firms would not be hurt, and we would reduce the power of the NDP crony capitalists, to boot!  More generally, I would add that increasing the income of the poor is not the only way to increase their standard of living: so too, by providing them with higher quality services, e.g., education and health, you effectively increase their income by reducing their expenses.  Future economic policy must, simultaneously, increase overall economic efficiency, including,  by attracting increased investment, and introduce effective policies of redistribution whose aim is not simply increasing the real income of the relatively less well-off, but by increasing their productivity by giving them greater access to education, health care, sanitation, etc.

Over the last three days (May 31-June 2), I have had the opportunity to discuss the Tunisian Revolution with several Tunisian intellectuals, both religious and secular.  And while it would be presumptuous of me to believe that in three days I am in a position to speak authoritatively about the significance of this divide, and what it means for the future of the Tunisian Revolution, I think it is possible to make a few tentative conclusions. On the positive side of the ledger, there appears to be a genuine desire from both the supporters of the Nahda and the secular parties to make this transition a successful one, despite the profound differences that separate the two sides.  The principle incentive these otherwise warring-sides have to reach some kind of détente that would allow for a modicum of democracy is the fear that Tunisia could relapse to the nightmare of Zayn al-ʻAbidin Ben Ali. 

At 11:00 am today, I went to the new headquarters of the Tunisian political party, al-Nahda, and had the pleasure of witnessing Tunisian youth members of  “Sawty: Sawt Shabab Tunis (My Voice: The Voice of Tunisian Youth),” interview Hamadi el-Jabali and Ziyad al-Daulatli, both leaders of the Nahda Party.  The interview with Mr. Jabali was cut short after half an hour by what appeared to be an unexpected meeting that required Mr. Jabali’s immediate attention.  Thereafter, the youth were introduced to Mr. al-Daulatli who allowed the youth to question him on a wide variety of topics for almost two hours without interruption.  Without getting into the details of the discussion, I find it very difficult to believe that al-Nahda can be taken as a serious threat to democracy.  While by all appearances its leadership appears to be committed Muslims, they do not appear to be the kind of Muslims interested in imposing their beliefs on anyone.  In fact, I would say that any Egyptian government office that I have entered would have easily been more obviously “religious” in orientation than the Nahda’s official headquarters.  One thing that astonished me, for example, was the fact that the call to prayer was not even heard in their headquarters, much less was the meeting stopped to say Zuhr prayers.  This is hardly the behavior of a “fanatic” Islamist party, at least in my opinion. (Indeed, it is not at all unusual in Egypt, for example, to find that most government bureaucrats leave their desk to pray the Zuhr prayer; they are usually home by Asr time.)  Their rhetoric, moreover, continually emphasizes personal rights and freedoms, and that religious Tunisians religious and cultural rights should not be deemed any less worthy protection of Tunisians who are non-observant of Islamic norms.  Even were such rhetoric disingenuous, it has a price, and it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for them to climb down from the very strong claims they have made regarding the sacredness of Tunisians’ individual rights, including, their right to be bad Muslims. I heard that Yusuf al-Qaradawi will be visiting Tunisia next week, and it will be interesting to hear his perspective on al-Nahda’s proposed plan of governance and its intentional strategy of disclaiming any intent to apply Shari’a (which, in Tunisia, I have been told, means hudud and polygamy).

I arrived yesterday in Tunisia from Rome around 11:00 am local time, which gave me enough time to do a little bit of sightseeing as well as meet two friends with whom I had long discussions about the situation in Tunisia. My first impression upon arrival in the Tunisian airport, and one that was repeatedly confirmed throughout my first day’s experience, has  been the complete collapse of the tourist economy.  This is no doubt placing severe strain on ordinary Tunisians who depend on the large inflow of foreign tourists for their livelihoods.  The devastating impact of the absence of tourists first made its impression upon me at the airport itself, where two taxi drivers almost exchanged blows over who was going to have the right to drive me to my hotel.