Radical Tunisian Islamists Spark Fears of Religious Culture War
- Posted on March 9, 2012 at 7:40am by
Billy Hallowell
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This Friday Jan. 20, 2012, file photo shows Tunisian Salafist women demonstrating near the French embassy in Tunis, Tunisia, in support of a Muslim woman who was fined in France for wearing a niqab Muslim veil. (AP Photo/Hassene Dridi, File)
TUNIS, Tunisia (The Blaze/AP) — Every Friday, bearded men in shin-length robes demonstrate in Tunisia’s capital against perceived insults to Islam in a country once known for its aggressive secularism. They have occasionally turned violent, attacking secular intellectuals and harassing women for their style of dress.
This emerging movement of believers known as Salafis has seemingly appeared out of thin air — and prompted fears of a culture war in this North African country of 10 million.
Since the overthrow of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011 unleashed a string of Arab uprisings, Islam has blossomed in Tunisia in a way it wasn’t allowed to do for half a century.
(Related: Here Are More Signals the Muslim Brotherhood Will Govern Through Shariah in Egypt & Tunisia)
New religious freedoms have also opened the way for the Salafis, who are now in a daily battle for hearts and minds with equally hardline secular elements entrenched in the media and the elite. Television stations, Western embassies and government offices have all felt the conservatives’ wrath.
An ultraconservative Muslim demonstrates with a Quran at the Manouba university in Tunis, Wednesday, March 7, 2012 after scuffles erupted between Salafists students and members of a leftist students union, wounding a few students. (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi)
In the middle are the moderate Islamists who won Tunisia’s first free elections and are trying to build a democratic model for countries that followed Tunisia down this still uncertain revolutionary path.
The Salafis say they are just reclaiming rights long denied.
“Tunisians are thirsty for religious knowledge,” said Mohammed Bedoui, a young adherent of the Hizb al-Tahrir, or Liberation party, which calls for the return of the Islamic caliphate. “The regime of Ben Ali neglected the religious universities and the Tunisian imams just can’t answer to the demand.”
The war of words is taking place against a backdrop of armed radical movements just over the porous borders in neighboring Algeria and Libya, and there are worries that Tunisia’s aggressive demonstrations could evolve into an armed struggle if the competing demands are not handled carefully.
Secular intellectuals describe the Salafis as backward and engaging in a wholesale assault against freedom of expression and Tunisia’s progressive traditions. The religious conservatives — distinctive with their mustache-less beards, short robes and sneakers — counter that their religion is under daily attack.
“The demonstrations are a response to the provocations of the secularists and the leftists, particularly the polemic against the niqab (face-covering veil) in universities,” said Bedoui.
A leftist student holding the Tunisian flag argues with Muslim students, unseen, at the Manouba university in Tunis, Wednesday, March 7, 2012 after scuffles erupted between Salafists students and members of a leftist students union, wounding a few students. (AP Photo/Amine Landoulsi)
The Salafis cite the broadcast of blasphemous movies, publication of seminude photos of models in newspapers and bans on women wearing the veil as attempts to target and provoke them. They call the secularists leftover supporters of the old dictator.
In one of their most high profile sit-ins, demonstrators stalled exams at a university near Tunis for weeks protesting a ban on female students wearing the niqab during exams.
In October’s elections, the Islamist party Ennahda dominated the polls, though most believe that people voted for them not out of religious conviction but because they trusted them to do away with the old system and get the country back on track.
This Friday, March 2, 2012, file photo shows Salafists holding posters showing Osama bin Laden during a rally to condemn the disposal last week of a number of Qurans at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, near the U.S. embassy in Tunis, Tunisia. (Amine Landoulsi/AP)
At the end of February, as The Blaze extensively highlighted, Reuters painted a disturbing image of what may now be happening after Islamist leaders originally pledged moderation:
After months of reassuring secularist critics, Islamist politicians in Tunisia and Egypt have begun to lay down markers about how Muslim their states should be — and first signs show they want more religion than previously admitted. [...]
With political deadlines looming, the Tunisian coalition led by the reformist Islamist Ennahda party and the head of Egypt’s influential Muslim Brotherhood both made statements this week revealing a stronger emphasis on Islam in government.
Additionally, the party charged with helping to craft Tunisia’s new constitution pronounced that its draft calls Islam “the principle source of legislation.” This, in itself, is cause for concern, as it indicates that shariah moral and legal law will likely govern the land.
Said Ferjani, a high ranking member of Ennahda, told The Associated Press that the last thing they wanted right now was a culture war between the Salafis and what he calls the “secular fundamentalists.”
“We are dealing with the business of government, we have floods in the north, a sinking economy and these people are talking about the burqa and the hijab (headscarf),” he said with exasperation. “I don’t think they are very grown up.”
Those sympathizing with the Salafis’ ultraconservative views are estimated to be a small minority — Ferjani suggests just 3 percent of the population — but they are locked in a cycle of provocation and reaction with the secular elite that’s spilling out into the streets.
In this Wednesday March 7, 2012 photo an ultraconservative Muslim demonstrates at the Manouba university in Tunis, after scuffles erupted between Salafists students and members of a leftist students union. (Amine Landoulsi/AP)
“There is a war of lifestyles, someone from one group wants to impose their lifestyle on the other group,” said Ferjani. “They each believe in freedom of speech only for themselves.”
During the election campaign, leftist parties tried to paint Ennahda as closet conservatives seeking to drag the country back to the Middle Ages. Voters didn’t agree, but now with the rise of the vocal Salafi minority, secularists have found the “bearded menace” they have been looking for.
The secularist opposition maintains that Ennahda not only sympathizes with many of the Salafi positions, but may be actually promoting them.
“Sometimes the line between the Salafis and Ennahda’s activists are a bit blurred,” said Kamel Labidi, a former journalist now heading the committee rewriting the country’s media law.
Under Ben Ali, some of the Salafis joined armed groups that were quickly squashed. But now with Libya next door flush with weapons from the civil war, the means for a new armed rebellion are easily at hand.
On Feb. 2 border guards stopped a car in the south filled with three bearded men at a checkpoint who opened fire with assault rifles before fleeing into nearby olive groves, sparking a major police security operation. Two of the men were shot dead; the third, who was captured, revealed the existence of a violent network with dozens of members across the country.
While such incidents are rare, elements of the Salafi movement have shown a disturbing tendency toward bullying behavior, such as harassing women in smaller towns for not abiding by conservative dress.
In one incident a prominent secular intellectual and a newspaper editor were punched and kicked by a crowd of Salafis protesting outside a courtroom.
Ferjani of Ennahda said that the government is trying a lenient approach with the Salafis so that they aren’t further radicalized, attempting to address their concerns with education and religious debate rather than just denouncing them as backward.
“If you push these people, you are empowering them,” he warned.
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spirited
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 6:04pmWas the third, who was captured, (and) revealed the existence of a violent network with dozens of members across the country
>waterboarded?
Report Post »phillipwgirard
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 4:43pmA religious culture war? Jeesh! Never heard that one before,,,(sarcasm)
Report Post »waspanglosaxon
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 4:31pmHey, why can‘t we simply respect the foreigners’ way of life? After all, they might think the ZOG way of life is weird: promoting homosexuality, encouraging race-mixing, fighting wars for no reason while ignoring (and often even encouraging) the illegal alien invasion, putting Israeli interests ahead of US interests, etc. Yeah, they might think ‘our’ ways are strange…although I can’t imagine why. lol
Report Post »13th Imam
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 1:28pmSemi-nude Photo’s??
Report Post »To these zealots, any woman not wearing a head covering 1000 count Egyptian cotton sheet, is SEMI_NUDE. How will Sandra Fluke look in a sheet??
Two Sheds
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 11:04amMeanwhile in Tennessee: http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/crime/11080-23-somalis-on-trial-in-tennessee-for-sex-slavery
Report Post »Anonymous T. Irrelevant
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 9:25amI’m surprised the girl with the red flag still has a head, in that country.
Report Post »Minonkman
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:58amI am with Ron Paul on this one, pull our troops out of every other country and put them on our border. The only ground worth giving your life for.
Report Post »Micmac
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 3:58pmYou mean around the White House to keep them in…
NoBama 2012
Report Post »yanki161
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:55amIn the headline they’re called “radical” but in the text it says “western embassies…. fear the conservatives’ wrath. So I wonder. Are they radical conservatives?
Report Post »13th Imam
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 1:30pmYou would think the media was talking about Rick Santorum.
Report Post »lexington_green
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:41ami really believe obama and the globalists think that dividing the world into fewer, bigger geo-political chunks will make things more “fair” and easily governable. idiots.
Report Post »momrules
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:40amThat pesky Islamic caliphate that some people still don‘t believe they want rears it’s ugly head again.
Report Post »Talking to these people is not the answer, that is akin to talking to the hungry wolf that is determined to eat you.
lexington_green
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:39am“out of thin air”? yeah right. obama and the administration knew these salafis and muslim brotherhood types were embedded all across the nations they pulled the rug out from under. my guess is that their footprint in syria is not as large so obama will wait on syria until these guys have established a presence there. then, when they are organized, we and nato will start bombing assad on their behalf. the disorganized goverments now in place after the fall of these military dictators and the borders of their nation states will be swept away by religious frenzy organized across the middle east by the salafis and muslim brotherhood, just like beck said. it is just a matter of who the pan-arab leader of this movement will be. that leftist student better get herself a plane ticket or a gun.
Report Post »chameleonx
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:19amThis is terrible but all so true. Whether it be Christian or Islamic people around the world are facing oppression through religion extremism. Wake up people!
Report Post »Quiata
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:33amSecular extremism: Stalin, Mao, et al.
Report Post »SoupSandwich
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:46amCammyX
Report Post »Funny, you are the only one mentioning Christianity. Now why would you want to further sully the dirty islamic waters with talk of Christianity? What a wanker troll. At least show some diversity in your pandering to the people that will lop your pinhead off-why not mention the pagans or wiccan fruits? Not in your agenda or the diversity rants run shallow? Pretty telling CammyX.
chameleonx
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:59amI would have to respectfully disagree. While many other religious groups and cults throughout the world are cancers to humanity; the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) are really destroying the world we hold dear. Anyone can argue their particular religion is the truth and critics are just misunderstanding their religion. However, with people of faith influencing how we live our daily lives we need to reconsider if religion is the right choice for us and the planet we live on. In my opinion there is the good, the bad, and the ugly with religion. There is no evidence to support any religion; but organized religion is a weapon of mass destruction that can easily control humanity. The choice is yours to be a slave or free your mind.
Report Post »chameleonx
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 9:09am@QUIATA: “I know of no society in recorded history that ever suffered because its people became to reasonable.” Sam Harris
Report Post »When you read this quote how do you interpret the quote? I see people posting the names of Stalin, Mao, etc. But do they truly understand that the murders of the people have nothing related to atheism? It was politics and mass control of the country. It had nothing related to religion or secularism.
Quiata
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 11:30amYou can keep telling yourself that, buddy.
However, even by your own argument, a governing body’s *behavior* has EVERYTHING to do with its guiding philosophy ==> Ipso facto.
Stalin and Mao are perfect examples of secular extremism.
Report Post »SpankDaMonkey
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:09am.
Report Post »Good…Ya’ll kill each other……..
Gonzo
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:07amIs the cheerleader in chief happy yet? Probably not, Israel still exists.
Report Post »voodoolife
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 10:20pmYup, like Obama said. ‘You’re Fed Up With Him (to Sarkozy) But I Have to Deal With Him Every Day!’ Referring of course to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu…
Report Post »Jenny Lind
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:04amand another one bites the dust-Glenn, where are you keeping your crystal ball since you moved to Texas? Read it quick for us so we don‘t have to guess what’s coming to Tunisia! Oh, that’s right, I was just reminded, you already did. At least some of the secularists tried to warn the lazy ones what was coming, but it’s probably to late. Maybe if they are incredibly lucky they will have one more chance to vote them out, but I doubt they will get the chance.
Report Post »lukerw
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:00amHILLARY CLINTON caused this… with Obama’s BLESSINGS!
Report Post »oldguy49
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 7:58ammaybe we could help them like we did in egypt and tripoli……..and mcCain wants to help them in syria………….wake up……….muslims want to take over the world and are using us to help
Report Post »expatinontariocanada
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 7:53amMuslim fundamentalists who support the caliphate fighting with leftist college students…let’s all just stand back and cheer, not for either side, just cheer!!!
Report Post »Baddoggy
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:11amBring our troops home first before they gst stuck in the civil war.
Report Post »Beckofile
Posted on March 9, 2012 at 8:48amLet’s get our troops and money out of the middle east. Do what Washington told us and end the preceived positive and negative alliances. Sorry Glenn but if you you are being GW then you know the allianc with Isreal is causing much of our trouble. Oh….and to add insult to the festering wound most American Jews overwhelmingly voted this socialist into office. Let them have what they stand for.
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